It’s always fascinating how the bullied quickly turn into the bullies when given the chance. From comic book lovers and geeky computer guys to gamers and readers, you see it happen and the effect it can have. But when the cycle of bullying is perpetuated by the victims to an even more insane degree, it just boggles my mind. Right now, the bullying is being directed at people utilizing AI to create books by people who write books. In fact, those same people are the self-published authors who are looked down by traditionally-published authors. So the cycle goes on in an ever-lasting loop of hypocritical gatekeeping.
The internet is proof of this cycle. The most ardent keyboard warriors tend to be those who were bullied, ostracized, laughed at, mocked, and even vilified or even the bullies themselves utilizing a new form of interaction to enable reprehensible acts without the threat of physical violence or real world consequences. Before video games became more popularized, gamers and even video game websites were attacked by society for “playing murder-sims that are the cause of crime and degeneracy.” The community had to fight against calls for censorship and to prove that video games were not the cause of the world’s issues. Except, these days, the same video game websites that were so passionate in protecting gaming have now, themselves, become the arbiters of censorship, what is right and wrong, and what is allowed or not allowed.
Now, we are seeing this happen to people who are utilizing AI to do something that might have been beyond their ability to do: become creative. From AI Art to AI-written stories, a massive battle is being waged with lawsuits being filed against Stable Diffusion and Midjourney creators by artists. While I am not a lawyer, I can’t see this being a successful venture without redefining what transformative work means.
Yet, while I can’t speak about art since I can’t even draw a stick figure, as someone passionate about writing, I wasn’t worried about an AI writing tool being created. Nor am I worried about ChatGPT. What worries me about services such as Grammarly and its alternatives, is the homogenization of writing. When everyone is using the same tools, built upon the same style, preference, and references, how can writing not become stale and formulaic? That a person who might have a new style of writing be dissuaded by these programs and a militant writing community telling them that they should write this way or that way.
Is this a discussion happening in writing communities? Not really. But what is taking place is backlash against programs such as ChatGPT that are giving people the ability to write books.
When surveyed, a majority of people want to write a book or think that their life story should be written. But they don’t have the skills, or the talent, or the time to do so. A chatbot such as ChatGPT has suddenly changed the game in that regard. But, this fact is not being embraced by the writer community. Especially the r/SelfPublish community on Reddit where I stumbled across a moderator post which stated,
“Due to a recent increase in posts in the sub regarding AI, the mods have talked and decided to add a new rule to the sub.
From this point forward, posts concerning AI are limited to discussing its use as a tool in the writing/publishing process only. Posts asking for advice on publishing and/or marketing AI-written books or books with AI-generated covers will no longer be allowed in the sub.
We believe that books require human creation, and AI-written books are an insult to our craft. As authors, we work very closely with artists to create beautiful covers and art for our books. AI art is very controversial right now due to copyright issues, lawsuits, and artists’ concerns about the theft of their work and livelihoods. For those reasons, out of respect for our artists, AI art is also not welcome here.”
There are so many things I find laughable about this post and shift in what is allowed on the SelfPublish forum. After all, what is the difference between an AI-written book and one written by a ghostwriter? A cover created for $5 on Fiverr or an AI-generated cover? That one is an AI and the other a human? But both are being tasked to write books that focus on the latest trend, niche, or idea being conceived by another person?
How r/SelfPublish is looking down at AI-written books is the same way traditional authors look down at self-published authors. Gatekeeping is never a fun thing to see in a community that should be trying to encourage people. Traditional authors look down on self-publishing authors as producing low-quality work that doesn’t go through a proper editing process in an attempt to vomit out as many books as possible. That the quality for books has greatly declined now that there are so many people who can simply self-publish their work willy-nilly as it were (though quality can, an is, still an issue in trad publishing).
Now, the same argument is being made by self-publishing authors towards AI-authors. Even though, if you think about it, the work produced by AI wouldn’t have any grammatical errors at the very least. Though the content would probably have a mechanical and sterile sense about the style of the books produced. Unless the author using the AI is able to change the AI’s style via the use of prompts.
I can tell you, I’ve read a ton of self-published books that weren’t great. They contained spelling errors, punctuation errors, and even a style of writing that I didn’t jive with; whether an inconsistent use of tenses, poorly thought through plots, too much telling and not even showing, pacing, lack of a three-act structure, etc. But I’ve also come across those issues when it comes to traditionally published authors which makes me even less forgiving in my criticism since there are teams of people working to edit, change, produce, and promote the final product that is released on shelves.
Like any established, traditional market, the products produced tend to be derivative, formulaic, and safe with the full price tag to go with it. There is very little shift in the paradigm or truly original work published. Whereas, when it comes to the self-publishing market, there is far more innovation, originality, and risk-taking that readers can take a chance on for a cheaper price. Trad publishing is corporate America while self-publishing is the wild west. Trad publishing will give you crappy authors such as Cassandra Clare while self-publishing has given rise to a great storyteller like Will Wight.
When it comes to AI-written content, it opens up a new avenue that could be a hybridized version of trad and self publishing. Because, in order for the AI to write a novel, it still needs input and direction from a human being. It can produce a product with the quality standards of trad authors while offering the innovation and originality of the self-published at lightning speeds. This latter aspect of the AI-generated works is what is truly terrifying to both groups of authors.
Of course, what is produced will be wholly reliant on the direction that an AI-author takes it and how they utilize prompts and queries to try and direct the AI in writing a story. You can take a look at my “ChatGPT and Me” series to get an idea of what I am talking about in this regard. But it’s the potential production of “airport novels” that I think has so many freaking out. Such novels tend to be money makers of “low effort” writing for casual readers looking for something good enough to kill the time. The popcorn novels or junk fiction type stuff that sells for cheap.
These types of novels are what AI tools, such as ChatGPT, could easily replace since the barrier to entry and quality is low to a certain extent. A fact that many are taking advantage of, especially when it comes to magazine submissions and writing competitions. But human ingenuity and talent is still needed to drive these AI tools in order to elevate what the current tools can spew out.
It’s interesting times we live in. But we don’t need this gatekeeping. It seems that writers will simply have to improve the quality of what they produce in order to compete with people who can now utilize AI writing tools to become competitors in this market space. In the meantime, make it an industry standard to put a label on any completely AI-generated work with huge penalties.
But now that anyone can, literally, write a book, we could see a huge shift in the literary world.
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