Is AI a threat to publishing?

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#ai #publishing #books

[briannabythebooks]

As someone in Tech with a very fraught relationship to my industry, it makes me so upset that AI has the potential for revolutionary technology in, say, medical diagnosis, and other fields, but we are not gonna get there if we waste all our focus and resources on building customer chatbots that don't work and generative AI that steals other peoples work to churn out heartless garbage.

[BookishTexan]

I think in the case of Spines the lack of sales will limit its success. $5000 to publish an AI book that is unlikely to recoup that $5000 investment doesn’t sound like something that will catch on. Making money as a self published author requires so much marketing effort that it is hard for me to imagine any one putting in the effort to make a book they didn’t actually write even a modest financial success. And what other reason is their for publishing an AI generated book?
The proofreading is scarier and feels inevitable. The real danger lies in the big publishers publishing AI generated books that sell well. That is, for me, the scariest thought.

[roma-teclea]

AI could have been used for so many ethical things, but as any tool, when left in hands of the least empathic demographic group (techbros), it's turned into a weapon. It could be used not to make things cheaper, but to do tedious work that requires attention. it could be trained to make shady contracts clearer, or to look for early signs of deceases in medical studies.

I do think that the only way this party-trick-gone-rogue aspect of AI disappears is to make people who try to monetize other's people creativity through AI to totally go broke.

[Rotwood]

I do comic book lettering -- it's a design job in a precarious industry, but I've learned something that may support your perspective as well. Up until the 90s, comics were lettered by hand, but then the entire professional craft got "disrupted" (in the worst sense of the term) abruptly by the pioneering of digital fonts and vector design programs. Folks adapted by either leaving the industry, training themselves to become digital letterers, or working in other branches of production. In spite of this massive shift, lettering is still a craft and people are still working as letterers -- the diminished value of hand lettering was due to the change of the "tool" (the medium with which to create), not the change of the "skill" (the creative act itself). And when the tool changed, consumers went along with it -- buying digital lettered comics as they would hand lettered -- as it made little difference to them. A creative person was still behind the act -- it was the tool and how they learn the skills (now to adapt to the digital medium) that changed.

Like the knitting machine devaluing knitters decades ago (and yet knitting and knitters still exist!) -- hand letterers are still sought out to make comics, but not in a way to mass-produce. Instead, hand letterers are brought into projects at a higher price point because creatives value them still for the unique tools they've mastered. If a comic is hand lettered these days, you know it is a product of incredible quality (or a cheaply-bound comics zine -- which never fail to amaze me as incredible works of creativity). Art persists in spite of how much it is valued by corporations. All we can do as a community is to choose what we consume, what we are willing to buy.

However, generative BS will still be an annoyance -- that seems to be an inevitable future for us. There will be scams (Spines is 100% one such scam), plagiarism, poorly made books, the devaluation of creative skill, scandals, not-deep ethic "debates" and a very deep sense of exhaustion. But all we can do is value the skills that people showcase when they create stories without reliance on a regurgitating algorithm to do the job for them. Creativity will persist past fads like NFTs and Generative AI.

[philipjohn]

In my job I have to work with AI to produce written material. It is really not that great, it gives you a first draft at best, and tends to be superficial and bland.

[shalryma]

There's an anecdote in one of Rutger Bregman's book that makes me feel a little better when I start feeling overwhelmed of everything being powered by AI these days.

It's the 60ties. Henry Ford's grandson is giving a tour of a new, fully automated factory to Walter Reuther, civil rights activist and leader of one of the biggest labour unions in US history.
Ford jokingly asks "Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?". Reuther quickly answers "Henry, how are you going to get those robots to buy your cars?".

[omalleysmith]

As a consumer; I'd want to see an indication on whatever art I consume that will tell me whether it was created by an AI or a human so that I can decide for myself if I want to purchase said artwork or not. Maybe transparency and legitimacy are too much to hope for in this world, but I personally want to continue to support artists not robots.

[niccc]

I teach literature and academic writing to university students. at this point I'm so fed up with generative AI that I get legitimately angry lol. having to repeatedly explain why students shouldn't use it (especially in the humanities) is exhausting. why, on god's green earth, would I ever want to read anything - student papers, novels, anything - generated by a soulless machine?

gen AI is a threat to academia, art, literature, entertainment, and so many other areas that should burst with creativity and humanity. AND it's destroying the planet. no thank you to any of that.

thank you for this video <3

[RoundSeal]

Everyone is trying to push for speed, aren't they? But art has to be able to go at whatever speed it needs, not just 'fast'. Even speedy artists need time to learn and improve. AI is useless in the artistic fields. Useless.

Hell of a move calling their company Spines, really. Shows they en't got any when it comes to supporting the process of art. Companies (and people) that use AI are cheap, lazy, and low quality.

Hope we see a punk resurgence when it comes to art.

[sabrinaburch]

I would rather read a book written by a human not AI that lacks emotion. It's sad to me that large publishers are supporting AI. The intricacy of human written and edited text creates an experience that AI can't match.

[xfayiel]

It makes me so sad. Creativity is such a beautiful and important part of us humans. I mean think about people no longer pursuing it because it‘s not a save option anymore. I‘m going to loose my current job to AI too and it makes me unhappy.

[RoxyWrites-lt]

Do not buy a single book from that publisher. Never

[danielaweberdani]

as I would never dream of
reading literature not written
by a human brain even my
reader career is at risk. 🙃

(that economic model utopy
letting people live in peace
was so haunting by the way.)

[candaceshook]

AI terrifies me. My brother in law has been using it to write music, and it gives me the ick.

Please look into the book Stronger, Faster and more Beautiful. It isn't necessarily about art and AI, but it does explore how humans always take things (especially technology) too far.

[Ichithix]

Honestly, it just sounds like a fresh coat of paint on the vanity press, and a slightly convoluted way to throw away $5000.

[shesagift]

I just hope all these AI books only get ebook published so it doesn’t ruin the environment twice over by using energy for AI generation and then printing the garbage product on trees 😢.

Great perspective, Willow. This is such a big topic, and you tackled it concisely! (AI could never!)

[dark.and.planty]

I think, or rather hope, that the novelty of it will be short lived. Yes it will occupy a space in the industry from now on, but the most likely low quality/repetitive/unoriginal results will make people step away from it naturally. It is already happening with images generated by ai. People can tell, and it’s more and more dismissed as low quality “consumer art”. It probably is already going around in books to some extent; in covers, for sure, even in some writing, and obviously music will be affected as well! I presume… but since it can only generate pretty much more of the same, it won’t be long before people can identify it and dislike it. The speed of improvement of the LLMs is getting worse and worse, proving that so much more money needs to be invested in training for continuously lower rewards. This will not be too long lived, in my opinion, it might just end up as another shit products industry but nothing more… I hope.

[StarlightGumiho]

Terrifying stuff Willow. I've seen this invading the fanfic community recently and it's so dis-heartening to know even in a hobby people are using AI. I think Hoots did a very good video recently about AI, and their ending statement was so hopeful to me as was your last part of your video, human art is never going to be able to be boxed and sold in the way these techbros want AI too. I am so grateful that creators I respect like you, Willow, are speaking openly about this. AI is just theft :(

[Keeva-]

I absolutely hate AI, for all the reasons you stated and more. I've been a roleplayer in a virtual world for more than 18 years. The art of roleplaying used to be such a personal thing, with characters created from real people who inject their personality, flaws and experiences into their unique characters. Some of my favourite characters of all time are original roleplay characters. That has all changed since AI became so widely available. The art of roleplay is rapidly dying as AI created, flawless characters flood the virtual world. It's so sad to see and I hate it with every part of me.

[lvriend]

Check out the novel Do You Remember Being Born? By Sean Michaels. It’s about a women poet in her 70s (based on Marianne Moore) who is hired by a tech company to co-write a poem with AI. Author used some AI in the book. I believe it’s noted where the AI generated text is