6 ms·
Indefinite Book Club Hiatus
- al_borland 8mo agoI think the solution here would be to write a hand-written letter. Sure, someone can make AI write a letter with some kind of contraption holding a pen (I think StuffMadeHere did something adjacent to this). But it would likely be more obvious, plus it requires physical actions and a stamp. All things that low-effort AI spammers aren’t going to bother with.
- cricalix 8mo agoPhysical letters do not obviate scams, nor is the cost that prohibitive. I remember actual 419 scams on blue airmail all-in-one letters back in the 80s. And that was international post too.
- AlecSchueler 8mo agoThink of it like changing your SSH port. It does nothing to prevent scams per se but you'll have to deal with only 0.00001% of them.
- skeeter2020 8mo agoIf you build an analogy based on what I get in my mailbox it's more like publishing your email on the internet.
- riffraff 8mo agoThey don't remove it but they do reduce it. I have an inbox, and I do not receive a lot of scam post. In fact, I don't think I received any since I lived at this address (~10 years ). We do get a few promotional leaflets every other week. OTOH, I get hundred of spam emails every day. The former is something which I can handle manually easily, the other is not.
- Freak_NL 8mo agoIf you are targetting a list of well-known authors I guess outsourcing the writing of a couple of hundred handwritten letters shouldn't be too hard. I'm sure they they can find a school class in Nigeria or Kenya who would gladly do it for a few dollars — or a struggling teacher willing to get creative with the homework assignments.
- onetokeoverthe 8mo ago[dead]
- tristramb 8mo agoIt doesn't have to prevent the scam completely, it just has to make harder for them to scam you than it would be to move on to scam someone else.
- miki123211 8mo agoOr something like European E-Deliveries. They're "physical letters but digital," tied to a human identity and with proper proof of receipt.
- cube00 8mo agoOne of my college lecturers only had a physical address on their webpage. Contact me: letter > envelope > stamp > post box
- jjkaczor 8mo agoUh - there are entire political lobbyist organizations that use something similar to an "autopen" to make mass letters personalized and appear to be handwritten... Heck - I have seen some in the mail from the "sell your house for cash" companies - typically behind the friendly, "homespun" personable facade, it is a REIT (real-estate investment trust) - or something similar... (Myself, I can tell that these are mass-generated - but I am (at least also at this point in life - who knows when I get much older) easily able to tell a scam email, phone call or txt-type message - I can typically spot the signs - but those signs are typically there to "weed-out" the people that won't fall for the scam anyways...) - but my non-cynical, non-technical, non-paranoid friends and family need assistance spotting these...)
- tristramb 8mo agoI think it is a good general principle that, for any process that is likely to be a tempting target for scammers, you should require a non-electronic step to initiate that process. Requiring a physical letter of application for a job, for example.
- dubeye 8mo ago[flagged]
- polotics 8mo agoeasy enough at scale of how many easy-enoughs per hour?
- dubeye 8mo ago[flagged]
- pmdr 8mo ago> Unless he is saying ai can replicate human writing? It can definitely replicate a human-written email.
- dubeye 8mo ago[flagged]
- Anonbrit 8mo agoThere are plenty of examples of AI being successfully used to emulated the email / messaging style of a specific individual already known to the target, for spear fishing attacks, and fake video and audio of family members tricking people. I think you're substantially underestimating the peak ability of AI these days
- dubeye 8mo agoI'm not saying AI is incapable of these attacks, I'm arguing a more likely explanation exists. If he wanted to accept, say, one book club a week, I don't believe he would have too much trouble figuring out a way to safely receive applications a lot of people , including myself, are using AI as an excuse to push thru awkward changes
- Antibabelic 8mo ago
- Freak_NL 8mo ago> If you’re a scammer who uses “AI” to try to defraud actual humans, please die in a fucking fire, thanks. Refreshingly direct and unfiltered, despite Scalzi being a well-established writer. If you are looking for a refreshingly fun light read to brighten up your day¹, try Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye (2025), in which the moon turns into actual cheese. 1: It includes the horrific death of a Musk/Bezos-like tech-bro with more money and tech than sense. Good fun!
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- aaron695 8mo ago[dead]
- Ciantic 8mo agoMore and more of the internet of humans need to rely on recommendations of other humans. Lobste.rs and other like such that retain the tree of joined people could work for other communities as well. Kind of like return of the FTP warez scene of 90s but for the rest of us.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago[flagged]
- vidarh 8mo agoWe care about this one well known authors opinion if we're someone who sees it as a loss that he and people like him will be less available to us. We also care about it because it's an indicator of the rise of a new societal problem of signal being even further drowned out.
- spicyusername 8mo agoI host book clubs and we always have a fantastic time. That's... not what the post is about...
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 8mo agoOK but why would your AI be sending out book club spam? Is it trying to get you to pay for coming to the book club?
- vintagedave 8mo agoI've seen these. They promise a book club with a wide audience, and then you need to pay for having your book present [or some other fee]. It's to take advantage of authors who want to get their book seen and read and bought. Book clubs used to be a good mechanism for word of mouth marketing.
- vintagedave 8mo agoOn that note I get the impression the whole publishing industry has an AI problem. I wrote a novel and started sending it out to agents recently. The number of agents who emphasise no-AI, or simply say that due to volume they won't reply... Then, as an aspiring author you rapidly start getting messages offering editor services, or book clubs (like this), or agent access, and it becomes clear those are AI and require payment (ie are scams) too. My novel isn't even one of the popular self-published genres (eg romantasy.) It's literature, set in post-sea-rise northern Europe where a drowned city's remaining above-water blocks have divided into political enclaves, and one young woman's journey. It's part adventure, part political satire. Think Metro 2033 on water in Europe. Tech bros and startups, librarians and sea monsters. I think this is difficult enough to find an agent for, but AI spam does not care and will target you relentlessly.
- squeefers 8mo ago[dead]