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How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and c

How do we know these books are AI generated? Because the startup "Reality Defender" said so? This feels like they're deliberately singling out trash books and calling them AI-generated to fit their bias. It doesn't seem fair, since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read. In fact, it's inspired me to generate my first book, which I'll be publishing soon.

toss1 3y ago
I'm interested. Is this a work of fact or fiction? How much editing are you adding/subtracting to the content? How granular are your prompts (e.g., prompting for roughly each new paragraph, ~page, chapter, or larger)? How much are you finding you need to repeat/retry to get good output for your project?
- dorkwood 3y ago
  I'm making non-fiction books that summarise historical events. No manual editing is necessary, as it automatically goes back through and cleans up any errors. I can't share my exact prompt style since I believe I've found a reliable way to generate these books en masse with minimal factual errors.
  - yvely 3y ago
    >I'm making non-fiction books If there are factually incorrect things to the books hallucinated by LLMs, they're not non-fiction. >...minimal factual errors This is still really bad when pretending to be a book portraying historical events...
fourside 3y ago
[dead]
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
What is with tech bros resenting art? If an AI generated book is better than any book you've ever read, you've probably only read garbage books. I'd be surprised if the book can follow a consistent plot rather than hallucinating characters halfway through.
ben_w 3y ago
3.5 has, or had, a particular style. No matter what the story, it had a cheerily up-beat ending. The invading aliens learned the errors of their ways and then everyone celebrated. Dracula, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Sherlock teamed up to fight crime. 4 is somewhat more interesting, and I've seen worse from actual humans, but… roll a d6, and on a 1-5 it's terrible, roll a 6 and you get something that's 90% fantastic and 10% just a bit off. For example, this story: https://github.com/BenWheatley/Fiction/blob/main/The%20Silent%20Anthem/The%20Silent%20Anthem.md https://github.com/BenWheatley/Fiction/blob/main/The%20Silen... I like it, but if I really examine the thing, the details don't quite line up right. The humans were supposedly primitive, yet "[t]heir cruisers absorbed salvos that would've shattered lesser vessels"? And sure, there are a million oddities like this in "proper" fiction[0]; but this… still feels like Stable Diffusion in text form. It's cool, it's a technological marvel, it's still, ineffably, not quite right. [0] Even ignoring that the top speed in the pilot episode should've gotten them home in 7 years rather than 70, Voyager had a bajillion ways to get home sooner — for example, putting the crew in stasis so they didn't age, going at a normal speed, and then using any of the time machines Starfleet keeps tripping over.
- FiddlerClamp 3y ago
  It's got no dialog, no characters, no real scenes. It's a summary of a plot, not a story.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    OK, so the things you don't like about it are effable rather than ineffable, but none of what you say changes that I do, in fact, like it[1]. To me, it's fine that it has no named characters, no dialog. One of the most grating things in plots with aliens is the names, no matter if they're American names like the spiders in A Deepness in the Sky, or the Star Trek pattern giving us random apostrophes and internal capitalisation, where "Q'ting'pAh" could easily be either Klingon or Vulcan. [1] Not all of the output of 4, like I said it's mostly bad, but that I like this particular result.
    - duskwuff 3y ago
criddell 3y ago
Since you are working in the space maybe you probably know more about this than most of us. Are there any AI generated books out there that have found an audience and built a fan base? I don't doubt that it's going to happen but I'm skeptical if we are all that close. There are some very successful authors out there that many would say are awful, so that's why I asked for books with a fan base rather than good books.
- empath-nirvana 3y ago
  Every once in a while I'll start a session with the AI where I'll just sort of interactively make a story with it and I quite enjoy the process, but the end result is not generally very good as a story.
  - criddell 3y ago
    It might be fun to do a choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) style of story. Those were never high literature to begin with and most of the fun was seeing where new paths went. An AI-based CYOA could be much more dynamic.
    - empath-nirvana 3y ago
      It is. Just tell chat gpt you want to do one and it'll come up with one. It's very polly-anna-ish and eager to please though, so don't expect a lot of drama or tension.
jlarocco 3y ago
Out of curiosity, why will people buy "your" book when they can generate their own?
drakonka 3y ago
There was a flood of low-quality fully-human-produced books before and now there's an additional flood of low-quality AI-produced books, and for anyone with a little bit of experience with reading indie books _or_ self-publishing them, the AI books are extremely easy to spot. If you're generating AI content that's better than any book you've ever read, in the _current_ state of what's available, I'd suggest reading some different books. I believe we'll find a balance, as with anything. There will always be people publishing junk, including AI-generated junk. But many authors will learn to use AI to supplement their work and produce a high-quality product.
staticman2 3y ago
>>>"...since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read." With all due respect, you're probably kidding yourself about the quality of your AI generated book.
- ska 3y ago
  NB: "better than any book I've read" is easily satisfied by someone who doesn't read.

toss1 3y ago

I'm interested. Is this a work of fact or fiction? How much editing are you adding/subtracting to the content? How granular are your prompts (e.g., prompting for roughly each new paragraph, ~page, chapter, or larger)? How much are you finding you need to repeat/retry to get good output for your project?

dorkwood 3y ago
I'm making non-fiction books that summarise historical events. No manual editing is necessary, as it automatically goes back through and cleans up any errors. I can't share my exact prompt style since I believe I've found a reliable way to generate these books en masse with minimal factual errors.
- yvely 3y ago
  >I'm making non-fiction books If there are factually incorrect things to the books hallucinated by LLMs, they're not non-fiction. >...minimal factual errors This is still really bad when pretending to be a book portraying historical events...

fourside 3y ago

[dead]

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

What is with tech bros resenting art? If an AI generated book is better than any book you've ever read, you've probably only read garbage books. I'd be surprised if the book can follow a consistent plot rather than hallucinating characters halfway through.

ben_w 3y ago

3.5 has, or had, a particular style. No matter what the story, it had a cheerily up-beat ending. The invading aliens learned the errors of their ways and then everyone celebrated. Dracula, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Sherlock teamed up to fight crime. 4 is somewhat more interesting, and I've seen worse from actual humans, but… roll a d6, and on a 1-5 it's terrible, roll a 6 and you get something that's 90% fantastic and 10% just a bit off. For example, this story: https://github.com/BenWheatley/Fiction/blob/main/The%20Silent%20Anthem/The%20Silent%20Anthem.md https://github.com/BenWheatley/Fiction/blob/main/The%20Silen... I like it, but if I really examine the thing, the details don't quite line up right. The humans were supposedly primitive, yet "[t]heir cruisers absorbed salvos that would've shattered lesser vessels"? And sure, there are a million oddities like this in "proper" fiction[0]; but this… still feels like Stable Diffusion in text form. It's cool, it's a technological marvel, it's still, ineffably, not quite right. [0] Even ignoring that the top speed in the pilot episode should've gotten them home in 7 years rather than 70, Voyager had a bajillion ways to get home sooner — for example, putting the crew in stasis so they didn't age, going at a normal speed, and then using any of the time machines Starfleet keeps tripping over.

FiddlerClamp 3y ago
It's got no dialog, no characters, no real scenes. It's a summary of a plot, not a story.
- ben_w 3y ago
  OK, so the things you don't like about it are effable rather than ineffable, but none of what you say changes that I do, in fact, like it[1]. To me, it's fine that it has no named characters, no dialog. One of the most grating things in plots with aliens is the names, no matter if they're American names like the spiders in A Deepness in the Sky, or the Star Trek pattern giving us random apostrophes and internal capitalisation, where "Q'ting'pAh" could easily be either Klingon or Vulcan. [1] Not all of the output of 4, like I said it's mostly bad, but that I like this particular result.
  - duskwuff 3y ago

criddell 3y ago

Since you are working in the space maybe you probably know more about this than most of us. Are there any AI generated books out there that have found an audience and built a fan base? I don't doubt that it's going to happen but I'm skeptical if we are all that close. There are some very successful authors out there that many would say are awful, so that's why I asked for books with a fan base rather than good books.

empath-nirvana 3y ago
Every once in a while I'll start a session with the AI where I'll just sort of interactively make a story with it and I quite enjoy the process, but the end result is not generally very good as a story.
- criddell 3y ago
  It might be fun to do a choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) style of story. Those were never high literature to begin with and most of the fun was seeing where new paths went. An AI-based CYOA could be much more dynamic.
  - empath-nirvana 3y ago
    It is. Just tell chat gpt you want to do one and it'll come up with one. It's very polly-anna-ish and eager to please though, so don't expect a lot of drama or tension.

jlarocco 3y ago

Out of curiosity, why will people buy "your" book when they can generate their own?

drakonka 3y ago

There was a flood of low-quality fully-human-produced books before and now there's an additional flood of low-quality AI-produced books, and for anyone with a little bit of experience with reading indie books _or_ self-publishing them, the AI books are extremely easy to spot. If you're generating AI content that's better than any book you've ever read, in the _current_ state of what's available, I'd suggest reading some different books. I believe we'll find a balance, as with anything. There will always be people publishing junk, including AI-generated junk. But many authors will learn to use AI to supplement their work and produce a high-quality product.

staticman2 3y ago

>>>"...since the AI content I've generated myself has been better than any book I've ever read." With all due respect, you're probably kidding yourself about the quality of your AI generated book.

ska 3y ago
NB: "better than any book I've read" is easily satisfied by someone who doesn't read.