5 ms·
What if we remove the stigma of authors using AI. We say, have at it, use all the AI you want. What then? The market is still finite. The authors are still
by jmartrican 3mo ago
What if we remove the stigma of authors using AI. We say, have at it, use all the AI you want. What then? The market is still finite. The authors are still competing with each other. They will still have to be good at creating compelling books that people want to read. Will the whole thing just blow over and AI would be "just another tool" that authors use to get their work out?
- argentinian 3mo agoThat sounds to me like the most reasonable attitude. If a story is compelling for a certain person, why care about how it was created?
- DC-3 3mo agoPart of the appeal of literature generally and the novel in particular is that it provides you with an incredibly intimate connection to the subjectivity of another person, though they may be long dead, or the speaker of another language, or from a far away part of the world that you would never be able to visit yourself.
- argentinian 3mo agoI would argue that a story can mainly provide a connection with your own subjectivity. If it moves something in you, that's what mainly matters. If your goal by reading is too learn about the subjectivity of another real person, then yes, read human authors. You said it, that's it's part of what a book can offer, but there can be other reasons for reading
- harimau777 3mo agoOff topic, but you name is somewhat ironic. Argentina's most famous writer, Jorge Luis Borges, built much of his career on the idea that writing is inextricably and inherantly linked to its author.
- argentinian 3mo agoCompletely agree with Borges in that. When the author is an AI, there's no human author, the result is a mix of what information it was feed, how its algorithms work, and what does the person giving commands to the IA asks. There's some link to the person who directs the IA. I believe Borges would have loved IA.
- harimau777 3mo agoAt the very least there is no doubt in my mind that he would have used it to create something intellectually provocative! Maybe something in the spirit of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"?
- bonoboTP 3mo ago> If it moves something in you, that's what mainly matters. This is a values question. Many would say that literature has a role in modeling certain behaviors and teaching lessons that are functional in society. Basically the fables and proverbs idea. Simply catering to what feels nice and what reinforces the biases and wishes of readers is not the same thing. Yes, most of literature is already crap and simply caters to readers instead of challenging them. But if you RLHF your way to AI literature that people "engage with" the most, you will get unvirtuous literature that doesn't do this function. Of course you're welcome to disagree with this entire framing and purely see reading as hedonistic pleasure and nothing else.
- argentinian 3mo agoAs you say, that already occurs with human made commercial crap literature. A person directing an IA could also lead it to build a story that teaches values.
- bonoboTP 3mo agoTrue, but it's easier to get lazy and to just wire it up to an automatic engagement farming loop with no human input. Imagine the worst form of audience capture possible.
- argentinian 3mo agoWhat's wrong with that? There's the low quality slop for the people who desire it, and then there's the high quality literature that's appreciated by people with good taste, and that cannot be easily produced
- effseven 3mo ago[dead]
- kriro 3mo agoThis mindset is called "death of the author" [1] and the quick summary is that the author's intent doesn't matter. Most book people I know disagree with it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author
- argentinian 3mo agoWhat does matter? That's completely subjective. If the intent of the author matters to you, then, to you, it does. There's not an abstract "not mattering of the intent of the author" independent of different people with certain values. You could say that the intent of the author is the number one issue that matters. That's completely subjective, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
- dude250711 3mo agoAs long as we add the stigma of them getting paid for their AI's effort too. Then it could absolutely work.
- monkeywork 3mo agoWhy would there need to be a stigma for getting paid based on a tool they used? Do other authors have a stigma for using a word processor instead of a typewriter? Artist have a stigma for using photoshop instead of canvas?
- dspillett 3mo ago> Why would there need to be a stigma for getting paid based on a tool they used? Is it being used a tool, or is it being used as a ghostwriter? There is often stigma attached to that when done by humans. > Artist have a stigma for using photoshop instead of canvas? Yes, that used to very much be the case. Now it is often considered a different form of expression, so loses a lot of the stigma mostly by not pretending to be what those looking down on it are comparing it to. Similar in the debate between CGI and practical effects. Perhaps if AI-backed authors are willing to have their work classed as a different type of writing they can skip by the comparison-stigma too?
- lern_too_spel 3mo agoIf it's being used as a ghostwriter, they don't get copyright protection, making it harder to profit off the work.
- dspillett 3mo agoIf they are actually doing some work (editing significantly after generation) then they are protected on two fronts (currently, active cases may change this): * as discussed elsewhere in these threads, the judgements pertaining to copyright not applying to generated work all only seem to cover entirely generated work where there is very little human activity after the prompt. * even if the generated work is public domain, the derived work (the edited version) is not necessarily so (much like Disney's derived works created from the tales of Hans Christian Andersen's writings). If they are not doing significant work after the ghostwriting, then sod'em, they are earning the stigma of essentially committing fraud to get that profit from the work.
- ip26 3mo agoDiscoverability starts to break for new authors when more new books are published each day than humans on the earth. Established authors have the name recognition to compete as you say.
- fidotron 3mo agoWhat if other LLMs were charged to read the work as well? And those other LLMs were actually in the persona of aspiring authors hoping to learn so they can later sell their work? There's an entire potential economy there without humans necessarily involved at all, kind of busted by recent Anthropic precedent admittedly.
- rhdunn 3mo agoThis has happened with other accelerants in various media/fields: 1. easy access to video recording and editing equipment has made it a lot easier to produce videos on sites like YouTube; 2. easy access to audio recording and editing (Audacity, etc.) has made it a lot easier to produce podcasts and other audio content (via LibriVox, Apple Podcasts, etc.); 3. easy access to writing software and self-publishing (Amazon, fan fiction sites, blogging platforms) has made it a lot easier to produce stories and books; 4. easy access to game engines and tools (Unity, Unreal, Godot, Twine, RenPy, etc.) have made it a lot easier to produce games.
- zbentley 3mo agoYes, and as Howey explains in TFA those things might be good for consumers and creators who create for fun, but they are not good for people who create in order to earn a living.
- argentinian 3mo agoyou are not taking into account that creators can be funded in different ways. For example like in Patreon. You can give part of your money to fund a creator that wants to create in order to earn a living. I believe that is better when people create for fun. If they need to create to earn a living they are forced to create and that is not the best incentive to create. Fun is a better incentive
- teeray 3mo agoAI destroys your writing voice. There are authors who I enjoy not only because they write a compelling story, but they do so in such a way that is lyrically enjoyable. Engineers fall into the trap of thinking that if the slop machine emits the Internet-average sentence to describe a character’s actions, then it will suffice for all audiences and works of literature. “Add more adjectives and flowery language” will only net you a novel that reeks of cheap perfume. I guess we’ve lumped all of this under “taste” these days, but that’s what the AI author lacks. Without it, it’s probably going to be fine for producing summer beach reads (which could be quite lucrative!), but it needs to escape the mean it was trained on to be a truly unique, compelling voice.
- argentinian 3mo agoYou are ultimately stating that there's something unique about human minds that cannot be replicated by machines. It may be so, or not.
- teeray 3mo agoI think I was fairly clear that I’m talking about these machines, not all machines that exist or could exist. If I wasn’t, please read “AI” as “state of the art LLMs as they exist today.”
- argentinian 3mo agoA super AI that could exist in the future won't "destroy your writing voice"?
- TiredOfLife 3mo agoWtf is "writing voice".