Part 10 – Looking Back: Ethics, Creativity, and the Future

This is Part 10 of a series by B.A. Bellec on using AI to edit his novel Cobalt Lungs. Start with the [Series Introduction].

B.A. Bellec on ethics, creativity, and what comes next.

Why is AI held to a different standard than other tools?

That’s not a rhetorical question; it’s a fair question.

If someone streams Netflix six hours a day, uses cloud storage, scrolls social media, logs into their work servers, does a few tasks on the work software, then shops online, they are already participating in a massive digital infrastructure. Many of which are copycat systems with similar code that could have even been stolen.

That doesn’t mean AI has no environmental cost. It means the conversation should be broader and more consistent. Most of the AI debate today is dominated by people who seem very certain. Very certain it’s going to save the world. Very certain it’s going to destroy the world. Very certain it’s theft. Very certain it’s liberation.

I spent months wrestling with this, and I still don’t have all the answers.

I am happy with my story. I haven’t fully finished reconciling with how I used AI. I still plan to try to learn more about AI while staying on top of the government and legal rulings. I would still like to investigate the graphic novel and video aspects of AI, but I am in no rush to jump in because those are not my wheelhouse. I would be learning a new medium and a new tool at the same time, in an environment that could have been completely stolen from IP, and because of that, I would proceed with great caution.

Did I use AI to make these articles? Yes, AI helped me. Similar to my novel process. I wrote the first draft. Shared it with AI. Asked it to help me brainstorm. Edited it. Shared it again. Edited it again. Then worked on the spots giving me trouble before running it through Grammarly. The article is me. 100% my opinion. Did every single word come for me, not exactly. Some were pulled from the brainstorms, which were a collaboration. Sometimes, AI proposed a line. Sometimes it told me to cut a few paragraphs and try again with a different key thought as the focal point. I still had full control over which things went where and how it was presented.

Honestly, having used ChatGPT and ProWritingAid for months now, I probably will write this way for the foreseeable future. I still feel my voice in the writing. It is still me, whether a human edited it or a machine, the writer is the gatekeeper with the final say, and I understand that more than ever now.

One of the biggest surprises during this project was how well AI could help me think. It is helping to sharpen ideas. It is helping me focus where my attention is needed. The ability to take a messy brainstorm and help reveal the shape hidden inside it. Many of the best ideas in Cobalt Lungs started as fragments. A scene. A theme. A line of dialogue. A feeling I was trying to capture but could not quite articulate. The initial spark was mine, but the path from rough idea to fully realized concept often involved a long back-and-forth process. I would bring the raw material. ChatGPT would help me explore it. Sometimes it would challenge an assumption. Sometimes it would identify a pattern I had not consciously noticed. Sometimes it would simply ask the right question at the right time. The final idea was still mine. The final decision was always mine. The final words were mine. Yet it would also feel dishonest to pretend the process happened entirely in isolation.

I began this project looking for a cheaper and more efficient way to finish a novel. Somewhere along the way, I ended up learning far more about creativity, collaboration, and my own process than I ever expected. Looking back now, I still don’t have definitive answers to many of the questions that started this series. I still think the training data debate deserves serious discussion. I still think creators deserve transparency and fair treatment. I still think the environmental impacts should be measured, monitored, and improved. I still think society is only beginning to define where authorship ends and assistance begins, and that job loss is a real fear.  What changed over the course of this project was not necessarily my opinion, but my perspective.

Early on, I viewed AI as a technology problem. By the end, I viewed it as a people problem. The same tool can help a doctor identify a disease, help a business automate repetitive work, help a writer overcome a creative roadblock, or help a student with their schoolwork. The technology itself is remarkably neutral. The intent behind its use is where most of the meaningful ethical questions begin. You can use AI to scam. To create slop. To cheat. There is no control over who is using AI and how. I feel I approached this as ethically and thoughtfully as I could, but I am also pretty sure most people are not asking many of these same questions. That is okay, but I can see the power here, and that power in the hands of bad actors, or someone who just doesn’t fully grasp the task they are doing, is scary.

That realization forced me to become less interested in absolute positions and more interested in individual use cases. Every project is different. Every creator is different. Every industry is different. The conversation becomes far more productive when we stop asking whether AI is universally good or bad and start asking whether a specific use is thoughtful, transparent, and creates real value. Can we stop certain outputs? Could certain people be banned from using it? Ban it from schools? We might be stopping scams and helping with the waste, but now we are adding a censorship aspect to the debate that is already extremely complex. Just another question leading to another question, same as before.

When I pulled my sponsorship from Reader Views, I had just started my ChatGPT journey. I am still certain it was the correct decision to pull the sponsorship because it is not fair to push anyone into the AI debate. It is a choice each creator has to make for themselves. I hope I have helped soften a few people by showing what it looks like behind the scenes for those afraid to take that plunge, or unsure of how to even start. There are real use cases for AI, but there are also many fail states. AI is very complex to use. The societal issues around it are even more complex. By using AI, you inherently insert yourself into a debate that could rage for years, whether you want to be a part of that debate or not.

This is what I know for sure. I spent over $5K on my Pulse project, all in. I didn’t make anywhere near that in sales. This time around, I haven’t even spent $1K yet, so there is a chance I could actually make money with this story. I have always just strived for break-even. I would just love to get the cost of my content creation and launch marketing back through sales. Cobalt Lungs is the best chance I have at achieving that goal, while also being perhaps my most ambitious project. Two different goals, creatively ambitious and monetarily efficient, intersecting at the perfect moment, and I learned a boatload about myself, storytelling, music creation, and AI along the way. I started this project trying to save money. I finished it understanding my own writing process better than ever before, and I feel like a more complete creator thanks to the journey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B.A. Bellec is an award-winning Canadian novelist, songwriter, and music video producer whose work blends cinematic storytelling, emotional atmosphere, and deeply human science fiction. Drawing from an education in film and a multidisciplinary creative process that merges music, prose, and visual symbolism, his stories explore themes of survival, memory, grief, identity, and the search for meaning inside collapsing systems.

Known for emotionally immersive worlds, recurring symbolic imagery, and a style that balances intimate character work with large-scale thematic ambition, Bellec creates stories that feel less like traditional narratives and more like lived emotional experiences. His current project, Cobalt Lungs, expands beyond the page into a companion concept album, combining literary fiction, atmospheric worldbuilding, and music into a unified creative universe.

COBALT LUNGS

Station Eleven meets The Road with the psychological containment and systems tension of Silo.

A deadly airborne spore has transformed the world into a collapsing maze of quarantines, sealed cities, and desperate survivors struggling to adapt. In the ruins of Vancouver, musician Maddy fights to hold onto her humanity inside an overcrowded refugee shelter while scientist Ethan isolates himself nearby, deep underground in a self-sustaining silo where routine has replaced emotion. As society fractures and survival becomes increasingly brutal, the two are pulled toward each other in ways neither of them fully understands. Atmospheric, intimate, and emotionally charged, Cobalt Lungs is a post-apocalyptic story about isolation, survival, and the dangerous hope that can still burn at the end of the world.

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