Inspo: Writing with Crowds Alongside AI

Abstract

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to support creative writing has bloomed in recent years. However, it is less well understood how AI compares to on-demand human support. We explored how writers interact with both AI and crowd worker writing assistants in creative writing. We replicated the interface of the prior crowd-writing system, Heteroglossia, and developed Inspo, a text editor allowing users to request suggestions from AI models and crowd workers. In a one-week deployment study involving eight creative writers, we examined how often participants selected crowd workers when fluent AI text generators were also available. Findings showed a consistent decline in crowd worker usage, with participants favoring AI due to its faster responses and more consistent quality. We conclude with suggestions for future systems, recommending designs that account for the unique strengths and weaknesses of human versus AI assistants, strategies to address automation bias, and sociocultural views of writing.