I’m with you, Andrew. I’m confident the rise of LLM-writing is going to make readers value human-generated works even more. Social media is already shallow and fake as fuck, and LLMs are just supercharging the societal brain rot.
But serious readers ain’t going anywhere, and they’re still going to crave authentic storytelling from bona fide artists.
Keep doing your thing, as I shall keep doing mine, and we’ll see who’s left standing.
It may well be that the growth of AI - generated shit in slush piles does away with this requirement that that books must be as perfect as you can make them prior to submission, just to show that an actual human has written them.
An encouraging article. Thank you. Been writing since 1972. I've seen a lot of trends and tech developments. The one I most appreciate is the word processor. The machine processes the words the writer 'writes' and keys in. This was a wonderful development. I saw the evolution of all of this as a young man earning his living as a tech writer. But, when not working at writing DOM manuals (Description, Operation and Maintenance), I was writing fiction, story. In the 1980s I wrote on a typewriter. Changes were a bitch. You had to either re-type a page, or you could make the changes to that physical page, manually on a 'light table.' (I paid a friend to do this for me.) I won't go into how that worked. Think... razor blades and Scotch tape.
So, I'm just saying here that I will not hand over anything I'm creating to some computer program or AI. I do all the work myself. And shame on anyone who 'cheats' by having AI write something for them. BTW, I discovered that Google hoovered up three of my books, a series--Calling Crow, Flight of the Crow, and Calling Crow Nation--published by Putnam/Berkley in 1995, 96 and 97, from a pirate book site. Thousands of other writers, real ones, had their work stolen that way. No one from Google asked me or others whether they wanted to be a part of this. No recompense was offered. It was simply theft on an industrial scale, cold hearted and dirty.
So likely there is some of my work in the amoral soul of an AI bot out there.
I am about to self-publish (because the fanatical feminists who run Big Publishing will not even take a look at what I've submitted to them over the last twenty years)... about to self-publish a short story collection, Seeing Sunny Again. A collection that spans ninety years of American experience, from 1937 to the present. Likely it will be lost among the tens, hundreds of thousands of 'books' being published now. So be it.
If anyone wants to read real stories written by a real writer, please look for announcements here on Substack from myself about my collection, Seeing Sunny Again.
Great piece! Side note: I haven't read James Patterson at all, but I think I'm going to very soon. I've grown curious about his work because he's such a devoted guardian of literary culture. His bookseller prize, his funds to improve literacy among young readers, his scholarships for college students . . . Can't comment on his prose in any way and whether AI can imitate it, but his charities help fight the good fight for human imagination writ large.
He has done some good things with all that dough! Read an interesting profile of him the other day somewhere, I can't remember where, and they mentioned that. Thank you for reading
I’ll add that I think even quality genre writing is under no threat. Anything that requires an ounce of experience, daring, or wisdom, is by definition beyond the ken of artificial intelligence.
Thank you, Charles. And I absolutely agree with you. There are some amazing genre writers out there who tell stories in their own unique ways, and I’d bet they’re going to be okay, too when all things shake out. Appreciate you reading
I’m with you, Andrew. I’m confident the rise of LLM-writing is going to make readers value human-generated works even more. Social media is already shallow and fake as fuck, and LLMs are just supercharging the societal brain rot.
But serious readers ain’t going anywhere, and they’re still going to crave authentic storytelling from bona fide artists.
Keep doing your thing, as I shall keep doing mine, and we’ll see who’s left standing.
Amen brother, thank you
Yes!!!
It may well be that the growth of AI - generated shit in slush piles does away with this requirement that that books must be as perfect as you can make them prior to submission, just to show that an actual human has written them.
That would be an interesting development
An encouraging article. Thank you. Been writing since 1972. I've seen a lot of trends and tech developments. The one I most appreciate is the word processor. The machine processes the words the writer 'writes' and keys in. This was a wonderful development. I saw the evolution of all of this as a young man earning his living as a tech writer. But, when not working at writing DOM manuals (Description, Operation and Maintenance), I was writing fiction, story. In the 1980s I wrote on a typewriter. Changes were a bitch. You had to either re-type a page, or you could make the changes to that physical page, manually on a 'light table.' (I paid a friend to do this for me.) I won't go into how that worked. Think... razor blades and Scotch tape.
So, I'm just saying here that I will not hand over anything I'm creating to some computer program or AI. I do all the work myself. And shame on anyone who 'cheats' by having AI write something for them. BTW, I discovered that Google hoovered up three of my books, a series--Calling Crow, Flight of the Crow, and Calling Crow Nation--published by Putnam/Berkley in 1995, 96 and 97, from a pirate book site. Thousands of other writers, real ones, had their work stolen that way. No one from Google asked me or others whether they wanted to be a part of this. No recompense was offered. It was simply theft on an industrial scale, cold hearted and dirty.
So likely there is some of my work in the amoral soul of an AI bot out there.
I am about to self-publish (because the fanatical feminists who run Big Publishing will not even take a look at what I've submitted to them over the last twenty years)... about to self-publish a short story collection, Seeing Sunny Again. A collection that spans ninety years of American experience, from 1937 to the present. Likely it will be lost among the tens, hundreds of thousands of 'books' being published now. So be it.
If anyone wants to read real stories written by a real writer, please look for announcements here on Substack from myself about my collection, Seeing Sunny Again.
Well said.
Hey you cockeyed optimist, you. Love this!
"Lean as hard as you fucking can into what makes you, you."
Good advice.
Thank you Cristina!
Great piece! Side note: I haven't read James Patterson at all, but I think I'm going to very soon. I've grown curious about his work because he's such a devoted guardian of literary culture. His bookseller prize, his funds to improve literacy among young readers, his scholarships for college students . . . Can't comment on his prose in any way and whether AI can imitate it, but his charities help fight the good fight for human imagination writ large.
He has done some good things with all that dough! Read an interesting profile of him the other day somewhere, I can't remember where, and they mentioned that. Thank you for reading
This is 100% what I keep telling all my friends with “real” jobs. In a sea of slop, true art will stand out MORE, not less.
Thank you for saying all of this…so I don’t feel like they only one!
Amen!
Bravo.
I’ll add that I think even quality genre writing is under no threat. Anything that requires an ounce of experience, daring, or wisdom, is by definition beyond the ken of artificial intelligence.
Thank you, Charles. And I absolutely agree with you. There are some amazing genre writers out there who tell stories in their own unique ways, and I’d bet they’re going to be okay, too when all things shake out. Appreciate you reading