Rant So...

Pamela Jo

Nobel Prize Winner-without end

  • Pamela Jo
  • Replies: 6
Jake E

Question: Are all artists using AI now?

  • Jake E
  • Replies: 9
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My first thought was just another schmuck selling a schmuck's product to other schmucks.

My second thought was who is the market for this? Not writers. Must be unimaginative, lazy people who dream of easy fame and fortune. My very least favourite people. Bitter disappointment surely awaits them.
 
LJ Beck said:
My first thought was just another schmuck selling a schmuck's product to other schmucks.

My second thought was who is the market for this? Not writers. Must be unimaginative, lazy people who dream of easy fame and fortune. My very least favourite people. Bitter disappointment surely awaits them.
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But here's the problem: When this sort of thing can evade our detection and these things start to pop up in their thousands, then millions, serendipitous book shopping becomes so overwhelming that it ceases to be a thing. We're left without browsing, and therefore have only tightly targeted book buying, and that means it's a lot of work to find something by someone who isn't a best seller, already.
I know, that isn't the case now, but that is the direction this leads us.
 
MattScho said:
But here's the problem: When this sort of thing can evade our detection and these things start to pop up in their thousands, then millions, serendipitous book shopping becomes so overwhelming that it ceases to be a thing. We're left without browsing, and therefore have only tightly targeted book buying, and that means it's a lot of work to find something by someone who isn't a best seller, already.
I know, that isn't the case now, but that is the direction this leads us.
Click to expand...
True, there is that, too. It's all going to hell in a hand-basket.
 
MattScho said:
But here's the problem: When this sort of thing can evade our detection and these things start to pop up in their thousands, then millions, serendipitous book shopping becomes so overwhelming that it ceases to be a thing. We're left without browsing, and therefore have only tightly targeted book buying, and that means it's a lot of work to find something by someone who isn't a best seller, already.
I know, that isn't the case now, but that is the direction this leads us
Click to expand...
Exactly this (sadly). It is the way it's going. The AI genie won't go back in the bottle no matter how much we bleat about it – or how right we are. And of course we're right! Doesn't matter. How many fast-and-cheap fashion houses do you know (and buy from)? How many of them employ people with hand-embroidery skills? Seamstresses? Tailors? Couturiers? Not many, I bet. They buy a lot of machinery, pay workers as little as they can, and sell cheap crap to the mass market — fast-fashion that ends up in landfill less than three months later. They make billions annually. Trillions, probably.

People like us, who love writing because 1) we love good books; 2) we love the craft for its own sake; and 3) because we're writers, dammit – we will endure. But we may find ourselves swept into the same kind of "quality" pyramid that fashion now follows: Starting at the bottom, the biggest concentration of books will be in the broad base, which will be Mass Market (millions of AI crap, produced daily by unscrupulaous operators – not writers); then Bridge (still AI but with some amateur editing); then Diffusion (AI + writer + professional editing – difficult to spot the joins); Ready to Wear (popular formula, written by industry cognoscenti but with AI assistance on plotting etc. Big names will vehemently deny they use AI); and finally Haute Couture: writers who know how to write.

Welcome to the future. Depressed? Moi? :)
 
IMHO, reading a novel takes hours. Scammers may publish a million books every day, but no one will read them. Scammers may use ChatGPT to write a book, and some other fiendish tech to publish it, but buyers need time to read. Scammers may flood the marketplace, but readers will look for guidance outside easily manipulated streams of influence. Amazon reviews and Goodreads will fade in importance. Reviews from humans, i.e., NYT, Guardian, will rise to prominence again. Word of mouth will become even more important as the vehicle for selling books and everything else. Someone will create a platform similar to Goodreads but independent of Amazon, so humans can share books. Meanwhile, Republicans and other Russia aggression lovers will create their own platforms. Imagine the Republican pro-Russia syllabus, required reading for every American domestic terrorist. Palestinian suicide bomber YA anyone?
 
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Pamela Jo

Nobel Prize Winner-without end

  • Pamela Jo
  • Replies: 6
Jake E

Question: Are all artists using AI now?

  • Jake E
  • Replies: 9
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