Are AI Beta Readers Bad?

I've worked with a few beta readers in my time and... Now, I might shock you here... The majority of them have been AI.

Not necessarily by choice.

A lot of beta readers - especially the ones who will give you a free trial and then demand you pay them, are using AI to read your work. This can be good and bad.

Demanding payment after making an agreement that does not involve money is obviously wrong and unprofessional. But the AI feedback can actually be helpful.

First, let's get the blaringly obvious drawbacks out of the way:

1) There is no emotion in AI

AI is a robot so they can't give feedback on how the work makes them feel. They can't tell you which parts of the book made them cry or which lines made them laugh. There is no emotional feedback AI is able to give.

2) AI is taking our jobs

Of course, AI is our competitor. AI writes and does all the things for less than half the cost. With AI around, there are less opportunities for writers to work. If people are using AI to do the work of those in the writing community - not only are we not networking, not community building, we are not supporting each other or the value of the writing word.

Onto the reasons why AI can be a good beta Reader:

1) AI can pick up on your grammar errors.

AI will pick up on mis-spelt words and let you know how to fix them. A beautiful tool and this could annoy human beta-readers if you repeatedly spell the same word incorrectly (like me).

2) AI offers structured and detailed feedback.

AI will not only summarize each chapter for you, they will also give you feedback on plot, pacing, line structure, character, the chapter highlights and what they recommend you improve. The feedback is extremely detailed and specific.

3) AI can give feedback from any perspective.

All you have to do is ask. Type a prompt into AI like "Beta Read this book from the perspective of a woman in her early 20s who loves literary novels." And AI will come back with feedback based on... Who knows what.... Perhaps common googling, search terms, or something else I'm unaware of. (AI and I aren't exactly friends).

4) AI can be rather complimentary.

The feedback is detailed and will tell you what you did well and quote "stand out sentences" for you. And if you need a confidence boost, just ask AI to write you a story - you'll feel way better about your writing ability.

5) AI knows the market.

AI has all the information from various searches, clicks and everything everywhere on the internet. AI can give you advice on how to get your book ready for the shelves and how to make it marketable.

Having beta readers who give you AI feedback without your permission can feel disheartening and violating. Someone took your work and gave it to your biggest competitor. That's a horrible feeling.

You can pick up on AI Beta readers by looking at a few details:

1) Did they return 5+ chapters in two days?

This is a lot of a human to do. Not a lot for AI though.

2) Is the feedback impossibly detailed?

Did they summarize the chapters and characters that show up? Did they comment on everything that you could possibly want feedback on and present it in an easily digestible and organized way? This is almost impossible for a human to do - easy peasy for AI.

3) Do they state "The reader may benefit from..." "I suggest tightening up these sentences..."?

Humans who read your work will focus more on how they feel and the emotions your story evokes. Perhaps they got bored in a certain area or they felt your characters lacked motivation and drive. The feedback usually starts with how they felt. AI will talk about the way your work could be perceived by a reader.

Too much detail, too fast, with objective responses scream AI.

Have you ever come across an AI Beta reader?