TheOtherHobbes
3 hours ago
All grammar and spelling checkers use neural networks, so even just the red underlines in Word are AI.
But this has become an essentially religious argument. I know authors who are making bank from AI fiction. The audiences either can't tell, or can tell and simply don't care.
And the reality is that even if you write your novel without any AI assistance, unless you have a hand-typed manuscript - better still, hand-written - you're in danger of being accused of AI becomes someone finds an em-dash, or decides your words are too hard, or your skin is the wrong colour, or for some other completely arbitrary reason.
Anyone who uses a word processor is in danger of this. Any digital proof-of-work trail can be faked. (Unless it's on the blockchain - which no one is doing, and would be deeply ironic as a final boss literary application.)
In this current example, the author was suspected of using AI. No solid proof was offered. And unless you have copies of AI sessions, no solid proof is possible.
Meanwhile the world has moved on from trad pub. It's where the very big money is (relatively) but the number of authors making that kind of money is low-three figures at best.
Everyone else who writes one of the >600,000 books that get trad pubbed every year gets a pat on the head and two weeks in B&N before their multi-year project has it covers torn off and is returned to the publisher.
There are entire professional communities of authors who have had enough of the nonsense. They're making adequate-to-incredible money bypassing the big four, they have access to their own readers, and AI is more of an opportunity than a problem for them.
JohnFen
3 hours ago
> All grammar and spelling checkers use neural networks, so even just the red underlines in Word are AI.
Those aren't generative AI, which is what the author is talking about. It's unfortunate that people are calling generative AI just "AI", because it can cause a great deal of confusion.
slowmovintarget
2 hours ago
It's unfortunate that the label AI is attached at all. Gen AI as presently constructed is Vector Inference, not machine intelligence.
R2D2, R. Daneel Olivaw... thinking machines, that's what the moniker Artificial Intelligence was supposed to mean. These systems don't think, even though that's the label that is applied. They curve fit.
Take Opus 5 "I'm sorry, me not doing what you instructed is totally my fault" is driven to error in order to simulate contrition according to the language fit from its system prompt. After all, there must be a failure in the corpus to write about contrition for said failure.
AI is now a marketing term, and as such has as much meaning as terms like "deluxe room" or "free range" have.
6stringmerc
2 hours ago
> And the reality is that even if you write your novel without any AI assistance, unless you have a hand-typed manuscript - better still, hand-written - you're in danger of being accused of AI becomes someone finds an em-dash, or decides your words are too hard, or your skin is the wrong colour, or for some other completely arbitrary reason.
Other than the obvious red herring pearl clutching about “culture war” targeting you yoked in at the end, what you mention in the opening here is actually A GOOD THING.
I was incarcerated and wrote one musical stage play after reading some Shakespeare comedies via the jail library, then outlined and composed FOUR screenplays. All were written by hand. They are novel, all original, and clearly my own work product and I retain the manuscripts.
Publishers in music and literature and film are all middle men and that I can agree upon. They actually profit more from AI than from he “professional communities” you claim to speak for - a citation, with financial justification, is clearly needed otherwise I believe your assertion is pure speculation. Publishers have a role in quality assurance and marketing and while crap like “Fifty Shades of Gray” are a slap in the face to the profession, there was a market and it got what it demanded.
There is a lot of gatekeeping in the US “business of the arts” and it still is a multi billion dollar industry. I can’t realistically sell my screenplays without an Agent to shop them for me. FOH with the whole “the world has changed and AI is a gift and love it or be left behind” logic chain, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.