‘Edit: to prepare a piece of writing for publication by correcting, or otherwise modifying it’ – from OED (edited!).

It’s generally accepted that the sort of spelling and grammar checking built-in to most word processing software, is perfectly acceptable in novel writing. It is difficult to imagine a writer not using such tools in the 21st Century, unless explicitly as part of their ‘art’.

If your idea of editing includes giving an AI 1,000 words of your outline and asking for a 100,000 word novel, then most of us would say that it was not ‘your’ work. This is pushing the limits (beyond breaking point in my opinion) of ‘otherwise modifying it’.

The murky water lies between these two extremes and is further muddied when we ask what is, or is not, AI. When publishers, including self-publishing operations like KDP, ask if you used AI in the production of your novel, what do you say? If you used the tools built-in to your WP, does that count? What about stand-alone spelling and grammar checkers like Grammarly or PerfectIt? Cleverer software will check for inconsistencies in names, places or even ‘tone’. Is this then AI? To check for inconsistencies it will have to look at your whole MS at once. Are you happy about giving a remote computer your whole novel?

I am asking a lot of questions and not giving any answers. That is simply because I don’t think there are any definitive answers to any of these questions. You have to decide what answers work for you.