Kenneth Whyte: ChatGPT and the looming revolution in the book publishing world

The leading edge of an AI-driven war of words will come in years, not decades, and the implications for literature are grim

Author of the article:

Kenneth Whyte,  Special to National Post

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I suggest reading the above article on Kenneth Whyte’s views on what AI will do to the publishing industry in the future. While I don’t agree with everything the article says I do think it brings up some good points. AI will definitely have some effect on publishing as a whole and independent and self publishing for sure.

I’m a self published author, as you probably know. There are tricks to the trade as with everything. One of the tricks of self publishing is to have a catalogue. Having just one book makes it hard to get noticed and having more than one book makes it easier to use one to make money off the others. One of the things mentioned in the article is the idea of authors using AI to write more books even using the author’s “tone”. One of the criticisms and an accurate one I believe, is that much of the writing of AI is sterile and lacks depth or oomph or what some would call soul. The article’s writer puts it as creating books that are just “good enough”.

A point made in the article is that with more mediocre books it makes it harder for publishers to afford good books, especially those that would require more of a risk. An example he uses is newspapers. How with the explosion of Internet news, people stopped reading the papers as much and thus many have disappeared. I agree with this for the most part. It’s a situation of finding the needle in a haystack. With so many books of meh quality out there finding a real gem becomes more and more of a slog.

This kinda explains the boom of Book-Tok. With the abundance of choice the role of curator becomes more important and useful. The problem with curators though, is gate keeping and finding a curator that matches your taste. This is an inherent problem with any curation so it’s not like it’s new or pertinent to just publishing because of AI. But it will be a thing that plays itself out, if AI causes an even bigger explosion in published books. And who does the gatekeeping can be problematic especially for marginalized writers and communities of both marginalized writers and readers.

The problem of finding something good that fits your taste and putting something good in front of the people who enjoy that taste just gets harder with more choice especially when a lot of those choices are things you wouldn’t want. Of course one of the “cures” for that will be more AI. Have the AI choose the reading material for you based off of your reading choices of AI material. Yeah, definitely problematic. It’s not like finding that perfect book has ever been easy but now it won’t be nearly as to stumble across it because everything will be sent to you based on what you’ve already wanted when often what you really want is something you didn’t know you wanted.

With AI creating just good enough work, throwing together a book becomes much simpler and faster. Throw it up on the Internet and see what comes in. Publishers aren’t going to buy those because paying you to create a middling book with AI isn’t going to make them money, and publishing is a business don’t forget that. The only problem with that is that for many authors the books they write aren’t blockbusters. They pour their heart and souls into the books but it’s not going to appeal to everyone or even get seen by that many to appeal to. So despite that human element they may match the draw and profit earning of a meh AI written book. As a publisher you may have taken a chance before on the human author in the hopes that they hit a decent niche or they may develop a good selling book maybe with their next book or third, whatever. It was an investment. Now those investments are harder to pay out and therefore riskier. You aren’t going to take as many risks. This is bad for authors as now its harder not only to get seen but to get anyone to even put you out there to be seen. And if you self publish you’re fighting to be seen in the sea of books and you’re fighting on your own without the reputation of a publisher behind you. And you also have to get through the gatekeepers who can be problematic as well.

I think AI will make it’s way more and more into publishing as a whole yet I hope it won’t take it over completely. I don’t think it will. Will it bring down the level of published works and publishing in general? Possibly. Some would say the Internet did that. And there could be an argument made for that case. However, the diversity of visible work has increased. And the top works are still top level. Art in publishing has not disappeared, nor has literary merit suffered catastrophically. So AI is not necessarily the computer generated death knell that some have made it out to be. However, there is a reason for diligence and to be on alert. Artificial Intelligence when used for published works is to be used as a tool. A crutch for some but for others more of an exoskeleton used to enhance their own power to create with more ease and freedom. For it is not often the tool but the hand behind it that determines the outcome. Behind that hand is intent, talent, knowledge to use and wisdom for when to use. This creative soup is then expressed through the use of a tool or tools. So what soup will AI allow us to create? Poisoned toadstool borscht or nourishing chicken noodle AI.

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