I rarely bring rants into my posts and pages. I’d rather rant on the horsetail taking over a garden bed or an attack of whitefly in the greenhouse. Just me and nature ready to duke it out.
But now AI is oozing into the world I work in, as it is in almost every aspect of our lives. I see it and understand its uses. I have used it to help formalize contracts or make meeting notes more succinct. I get it. I am not here to go all-out war and anti-AI, but how about a mini rant and gentle plea.
Here’s the thing: one of my books, curated by my hand, written over many long days and sleepless nights, fussed, cried, and sometimes overly excited about, has been pirated to feed info to an AI. The spiraling depths of how to tell AI to stop using my work are nearly impossible to navigate.
I recently read an article that said 82 percent of herb books listed on Amazon are written by AI, with some of them in the top ten sellers. *
So, what’s wrong with that? I think we all need to be aware that not all content can truly be vetted as thoroughly researched, tested, and all the things we as book authors do. AI plays a mish-mash and puts out the content it has been fed. It could genuinely be a sentence from here, a recipe from there, or directions on how to use it from another source, and that sourcing may not be reliable, science-based, tested, or researched. It is just what was fed into it, creating machine-generated Frankenstein content. It bothers me that what we see, hear, and read may not be in a safe or true to form. The wrong plant used as a healing herb might be dangerous or even deadly. Sometimes AI will distinguish that, and sometimes it will not. It all depends on input.
I always say once I put something on a page, I need to be able to back it up. In human book writing, there is no going back. I want to make sure the recipes, the words, and everything in the book have been done or touched by my own hands. I can’t hide behind the curtain of magic that AI can.
Another side of AI is my other line of work—Landscape Design. Yes, AI is creeping into my work in a bigger way than it ever has before. I have had a few potential clients hand me designs or show me photos of how they want their garden to look – all by what they input into ChatGPT. Many times, I have to break the news to them that the plants in the generated photo don’t exist, or that the plants chosen for the design will not work for the conditions that actually exist in the garden.
I have not felt threatened, but I am always immensely curious about what AI puts together.
“Feed the machine some words, and it will spit you out a garden.”
I know my work, and the joy it gives me to watch a homeowner become a gardener, caretaker, and earth nurturer. Walking through a garden and digging up some dirt, knowing the “good” odor of soil as compared to the bad. I encourage people to engage, to smell the fragrance of a Daphne in bloom or rub the leaf of lemon verbena, which rarely gives up its scent until it is touched. Seeing the dull sheen on a leaf as it struggles for nutrients and learning to care for it. It is my job to show how to nurture. The best way to instruct is to feel, smell, touch, and see. I want to see how people engage with their space. Walk the well-worn paths in the lawn to create potential walkways. What the shade feels like under the large tree that we can place Adirondack chairs under to seek respite from the hot afternoon sun. I look at how to place a tree in the spot so the neighbor can no longer have an unobstructed view of the yard. It is all the nuances of observation that truly create a personalized garden design, something that an AI-created design will never do.
But-
Flipping back to non-fiction garden book writing, my ire rises when work is stolen from authors to feed the hunger of AI. The remedy? It’s a big wall to climb, but start by supporting authors, attending their seminars and talks, and seeing if they are the real deal.
Here is what ChatGPT said when I asked, “How can a garden book author prevent AI from stealing its books?”
The answer it gave me:
“This is a smart—and very timely—question, especially for a garden book author whose work is rooted in lived experience, voice, and original images.
Short answer: You can’t entirely prevent AI from learning about your work, but you can reduce misuse, protect your rights, and make your authorship unmistakable. Think of it as layered garden fencing rather than a single lock.
Also from my query: AI can imitate generic gardening advice. It struggles to replace place-based wisdom, lived experience, and named authority. When readers (and AI users) search, they should think: “This sounds like Sue Goetz—but it isn’t her.”
Ha- so we need to ask, can millions of users have the discernment that AI is asking for? I encourage us all to be more sensitive about what is real and what is AI generated. Book writers, publishers and content creators, let’s get real! Oh, and thanks AI for a cool tag-line “Place-Based Wisdom”— hope that wasn’t scraped from someone else.
Rant over, now about that damn white fly in the greenhouse…
* www.theguardian.com https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/22/detection-firm-finds-82-of-herbal-remedy-books-on-amazon-likely-written-by-ai