Writers condemn startup’s plans to publish 8,000 books next year using AI

[_Russ_]

Had a couple of laugh reactions to this post but it was literally the position of the musicians' union forty years ago:

Today in 1982, the Musician’s Union wanted to ban synths...on Mr Moog's birthday!

On this day in 1982, the UK Musician’s Union wanted to ban synths from sessions and live performances, in the defence of orchestral musicians’ careers. The most fucked up thing about this is that it is the same day that none other than Robert Moog, god father and creator of the most infamous...

www.trouvelagroove.com

I had a moog in the early 90s when they were considered old shit and were cheap, I dont even remember what I did with it ...a bit like some of the old bikes I had, crap at the time but worth a fortune now.

 

[isvicthere?]

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I disagree. The quality of the original writing is what matters. And of course that comes with editing and proof-reading and all the rest, that's the editing and publishers job. The presence of quality is what counts.

No amount of editing and proofreading and fixing can turn poor to mediocre writing into a success story.

I value good writing, the effort it takes, and the pleasure it gives me too much to allow it to be reduced to your rather dismissive, reductive 'editing, proofreading and fixes' position.

I just returned from a trip to Barnes and Noble. There's so much unreadable schlock there that its silly.

When I was in the book printing industry, I saw a lot of practices that I considered borderline unethical. One example was professors writing and vanity printing their own textbooks. I had to head off a number of embarrassing typos in some of the these. The quality was often really bad and involved professors who couldn't get published the usual route. Once printed they were sold to a captive audience.

The other practice I saw in academic journals was editors publishing their friends work. It was vanity press but paid for by their respective university.

All of this before AI stepped in.

 

[bluescreen]

I just returned from a trip to Barnes and Noble. There's so much unreadable sclock there that its silly.

Well, that's the thing, really - retailers who decide what will sell. Because it's all about the merch, not about literature.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

What's going to be interesting is what happens once AI starts being trained on AI output.

 

[PTK]

AI is coming and will get rid of many jobs. In the same way word processing got rid of typing pools, solid state telephone exchanges got rid of 90% of telecom engineers, and mechanical diggers got rid of navies. It will probably create some new careers. But not as many as it destroys.

To paraphrase a probably apocryphal exchange between American fascist and innovator Henry Ford and a Union boss on the introduction of greater automation in Ford’s car factory:

HF: “ Good luck in getting these machines to join your union.”

UB “ well, good luck getting them to buy your cars”.

Late stage capitalism innit.

The flaw in that conversation is that the workers who produce the commodities have never been able to consume all the commodities that they produce.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The flaw in that conversation is that the workers who produce the commodities have never been able to consume all the commodities that they produce.

That's not the only flaw, tbf.

A lot of what workers produce is disposable garbage. In the garment industry they produce millions of items of clothing each year and 90% of it is thrown away within a year. Nothing is made to last because it's not intended to last. This strains planetary resources, results in workplace abuses, and creates the idea that everything is disposable, even people. I used to take pride in what I produced, but then I ran into a librarian who was in charge of cataloging and shelving what I produced. They said that the academic journals I worked so hard to produce quality work was nothing more than the student version of vanity press. Nothing I produced mattered, except for students to show that they'd learned how to write an academic paper. No real lawyer would ever refer to it or cite it in a case.

I hope regional settings allow you to see this. You're probably already familiar with David Graber and Bullshit Jobs, but I'll post it anyway: