Writers condemn startup’s plans to publish 8,000 books next year using AI

[tommers]

It's OK to ask it to spellcheck.
It's OK to ask it to proofread.
It's OK to ask it to edit.
It's OK to ask it to change the style.
It's OK to ask it to write the book.

And if writing a book is as easy as just asking some software to do it for you then none of you are getting published. Everything is the same.

 

[tommers]

It's the same with games. Publishing games became easy (well, easier) and now there are so many that nobody makes any money cos the game you spent years making gets drowned in the deluge of everybody else's games. Everybody sees everything and nothing at the same time.

 

[tommers]

"Yeah, I'm a published writer. I write prompts for AI."

Have some dignity.

 

[planetgeli]

If you tell me AI won't change my style...nah, you are wrong. And good writing is about style AND content. Proofreading and editing, as done today without AI, will never change a style. I just don't believe the stuff posted in the OP won't go further than that.

This is anti-literature.

Yugoslav literature.

 

[maomao]

I agree with mojo pixy . The current publishing industry is incredibly biased in terms of who it publishes and it certainly doesn't do so on the basis of some sort of objective literary merit. If I was a novelist who knew my work had some merit but had no connections in the publishing industry and had been continually knocked back, I'd be very tempted by any chance to sidestep the publishing industry. As long as the AI isn't in charge of the first or final drafts I don't see it as lessening the act of creation any more than using a spell checker.

 

[PR1Berske]

Perhaps we can look forward to brand new urban75 books, like those masterpieces we used to see on Amazon?

Amazon was (still is?) packed full of 'books' that are Wikipedia articles compiled and bound. I can see some merit in those. I'd love to see the prospective audience for an AI- compilation of threads . The Full English thread as a page turner for the ages.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

If it's a cheaper way to get a book dross published, have at it.

What the average person thinks is a suitable first draft of a book, and what someone in the publishing industry thinks is a suitable first draft of a book, are two different things entirely, 99 per cent of the time.

Journalists sometimes get asked to proofread a book written by a friend of a friend and they don't just need proofreading, they often need major structural edits - maybe the timeline is out of whack in parts, or key details central to the plot are missing, or there are extraneous, superfluous characters or subplots, or maybe there are incongruous elements, like mentioning products that weren't available in that era, or giving people modern names or setting events in buildings or places that didn't exist in the book's era. Sometimes, people can't write for toffee. Or in non-fiction, there might be an author who really knows their onions, but their writing is dull as ditch-water and writes as if they're writing a paper for an academic journal, rather than something accessible to a more general audience.

Charging people thousands of dollars to self-publish through companies like this, which are probably just going to run the text through a slightly more sophisticated version of something like 'grammarly' and get AI to generate a book cover would be a tantamount to a scam. It's nothing more than vanity publishing and preying on people who don't know any better.

 

[planetgeli]

If you tell me AI won't change my style...nah, you are wrong. And good writing is about style AND content. Proofreading and editing, as done today without AI, will never change a style. I just don't believe the stuff posted in the OP won't go further than that.

This is anti-literature.

Yugoslav literature.

If you tell me AI will not alter my style then I believe you may be wrong. "Good" writing is a multi-faceted concept and the jobs that currently employ a human element may be seen as to only change structure, not style. I am certain the suggestions of development alluded to in the opening post will enter writing into a different realm.

This is bad literature.

Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Slovenian, Bosnian, Republic of Kosovo, North Macedonian literature.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I agree with mojo pixy . The current publishing industry is incredibly biased in terms of who it publishes and it certainly doesn't do so on the basis of some sort of objective literary merit.

Do you think publishing whoever's got five grand to spare to pay to get themselves published, with zero human quality control, would improve that situation?

 

[maomao]

Do you think publishing whoever's got 5 grand to spare to pay to get themselves published, with zero human quality control, would improve that situation?

Would you say the same about popular music?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Would you say the same about popular music?

If you self-finance as a musician, you get to keep the proceeds. Meagre though they may be. And you can make a high quality recording in a bedroom with a few hundred quid's worth of kit these days.

But if you pay someone to promote and publish your work, and you still end up giving them rights to your it, that's the worst of both worlds.

 

[JimW]

Doesn't the story go that Raymond Carver's famous style was more his editor?

 

[JimW]

My plan is to stick my communist-themed fantasy epic up on a WordPress blog with a Creative Commons license, free to read but will rake it in from the Netflix adaptation. Luther Blisset also sold a fair few copies of Q and that while also giving it away, IIRC.

 

[maomao]

If you self-finance as a musician, you get to keep the proceeds. Meagre though they may be. And you can make a high quality recording in a bedroom with a few hundred quid's worth of kit these days.

But if you pay someone to promote and publish your work, and you still end up giving them rights to your it, that's the worst of both worlds.

Well if it's a shit deal for the writer it's a shit deal, but the idea that there's anything wrong with self-publishing or using technology to produce art is a load of bollocks.

 

[tommers]

Well if it's a shit deal for the writer it's a shit deal, but the idea that there's anything wrong with self-publishing or using technology to produce art is a load of bollocks.

What about "actual art" ? By artists? Is somebody saying "a picture of a ship in a river in the style of turner" the same as Turner?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Well if it's a shit deal for the writer it's a shit deal, but the idea that there's anything wrong with self-publishing or using technology to produce art is a load of bollocks.

Technology is inventing stuff to solve problems.

AI doesn't solve any problems. It doesn't do anything we can't do, doesn't know anything we don't know. It just blends everything we do and everything we know into formless goo.

 

[tommers]

I mean AI can do this because it has been trained using the actual art that has been produced by writers and artists. Sorry, when I say trained. I mean, "has stolen without permission or recompense".

 

[maomao]

Technology is inventing stuff to solve problems.

AI doesn't solve any problems. It doesn't do anything we can't do, doesn't know anything we don't know. It just blends everything we do and everything we know into formless goo.

Synthesized music doesn't solve any problems. It doesn't do anything we can't do, doesn't know anything we don't know. It just blends everything we do and everything we know into formless goo.

 

[planetgeli]

The current publishing industry is incredibly biased in terms of who it publishes and it certainly doesn't do so on the basis of some sort of objective literary merit.

100% true. Sick of reading books that I then google the author to find Oxbridge in there somewhere.

If I was a novelist who knew my work had some merit but had no connections in the publishing industry and had been continually knocked back, I'd be very tempted by any chance to sidestep the publishing industry.

In an ideal world. We are moving further and further away from an ideal world.

As long as the AI isn't in charge of the first or final drafts I don't see it as lessening the act of creation any more than using a spell checker.

It will be in charge of the final draft. It will have changed the style (but that's ok, because the 'author' can still write a second novel and run through the same AI process all over again).

Everyone should read tommers posts.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Synthesized music doesn't solve any problems. It doesn't do anything we can't do, doesn't know anything we don't know. It just blends everything we do and everything we know into formless goo.

I'm not sure you know what a synthesiser is.

 

[PR1Berske]

AI could create a story about Dublin but could never explore as Joyce did; AI could create a story about drug users without every getting into the dirt and grime as Welch did. This is vanity publishing, emphasis on vanity.

 

[maomao]

I'm not sure you know what a synthesiser is.

They're machines that put trained professional artists out of work by reproducing sounds electronically.

 

[A380]

Roald Dahl got there first ( in 1954!) the title short story in this collection was about a machine that, by stealth, was replacing all authors…

The Great Automatic Grammatizator - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[A380]

AI is coming and will get rid of many jobs. In the same way word processing got rid of typing pools, solid state telephone exchanges got rid of 90% of telecom engineers, and mechanical diggers got rid of navies. It will probably create some new careers. But not as many as it destroys.

To paraphrase a probably apocryphal exchange between American fascist and innovator Henry Ford and a Union boss on the introduction of greater automation in Ford’s car factory:

HF: “ Good luck in getting these machines to join your union.”

UB “ well, good luck getting them to buy your cars”.

Late stage capitalism innit.

 

[mojo pixy]

My plan is to stick my communist-themed fantasy epic up on a WordPress blog with a Creative Commons license, free to read but will rake it in from the Netflix adaptation. Luther Blisset also sold a fair few copies of Q and that while also giving it away, IIRC.

This was my plan but it turns out people don't actually read free books, they prefer to pay a cover price because that means it must be worth reading or something.

Plus they think if it's self published it's probably not very good anyway, as we're seeing here.

So get in with an agent, perhaps an old university chum or friend of yr mum or dad's. That's the way to do it IIRC

 

[lazythursday]

AI is coming and will get rid of many jobs. In the same way word processing got rid of typing pools, solid state telephone exchanges got rid of 90% of telecom engineers, and mechanical diggers got rid of navies. It will probably create some new careers. But not as many as it destroys.

To paraphrase a probably apocryphal exchange between American fascist and innovator Henry Ford and a Union boss on the introduction of greater automation in Ford’s car factory:

HF: “ Good luck in getting these machines to join your union.”

UB “ well, good luck getting them to buy your cars”.

Late stage capitalism innit.

This isn't what all experts in AI think. Many are concerned that (in its current form) it's a product without that much utility for most businesses, and we are in the midsts of an AI financial bubble which will collapse.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

And will the LLMs then use this deathless prose to teach themselves?

AI companies are already running out of content to train LLMs on.

 

[lazythursday]

AI companies are already running out of content to train LLMs on.

I know this is the case, but I don't understand it at the same time. Why do these models need ever larger amounts of content?

 

[maomao]

They're machines that put trained professional artists out of work by reproducing sounds electronically.

Had a couple of laugh reactions to this post but it was literally the position of the musicians' union forty years ago:

Today in 1982, the Musician’s Union wanted to ban synths...on Mr Moog's birthday!

On this day in 1982, the UK Musician’s Union wanted to ban synths from sessions and live performances, in the defence of orchestral musicians’ careers. The most fucked up thing about this is that it is the same day that none other than Robert Moog, god father and creator of the most infamous...

www.trouvelagroove.com

 

[hitmouse]

"I only want writing made by a human, not necessarily for the writing, but because of what’s behind it; where it came from, what it took someone to start it (incredible), rework it (unbelievable) and complete it (miraculous). The human will to write and share one’s idiosyncratic ways of thinking, feeling, and then communicating it to others takes guts. An AI can’t relate its criticism or any writing back to its childhood, its influences, its whims. It wants to standardise, it wants to prioritise information, it can only live in the very adult present. It can’t share those embodied, human knowledges that a certain key change makes a shiver run down your spine, or a lyric reminds you of something your friend said once." (Jen Calleja)