The Coming AI Assault

Writer & Editor takes a close look at AI writing and its implications

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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AI (Artificial Intelligence) chatbots have the potential to disrupt the entire business of running a lit mag or being a writer, through sheer volume of new writers and their quickly-produced stories, essays, and poems. Science fiction and fantasy publications like Clarkesworld were the first to notice a large increase in their numbers of submissions—but the increase could hit every literary journal out there. 

Disruption of markets and business models– according to tech outfits like OpenAI pushing the AI hype– is the point. 

SPARKING THE HYPE 

The explosion of AI hysteria began when the artificial intelligence device ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022 by the company OpenAI, whose CEO is Sam Altman. The first task for ChatGPT was to convince large numbers of the public to begin using it. Thanks to a deluge of articles since launch, this has happened. As many as 170 million people already use the device. Among that figure are untold numbers of aspiring writers and artists. 

BACKSTORY: THE TECH WAVE 

The tech business has been riding a huge wave since 1978, with intermittent pullbacks. AI, Virtual Reality, crypto, NFT’s: ever-newer methods for separating investors from their money show the tech wave may be in its final blowoff stage: tech billionaires at their peak of wealth and arrogance, who believe they can sell anything. 

The point is that AI is not the beginning of a new tech cycle, but the culmination of one. It uses infrastructure already in place– computers, phones, the Internet. Amazon as a place to sell AI-generated books. AI will accelerate current trends. You want books? Art? Content? Product? Prepare for a deluge of books, stories, poems, as well as new AI literary sites, as have never been seen. Including short story sites like this one, which at one point was publishing fifteen new AI-generated stories a day.

Those at the forefront of investing in AI technology include the wealthiest individuals and companies on the planet. Their motto is “move fast and break things.” Their bible is The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, which presents theories of disruptive change. Their god is Steve Jobs, a charismatic technology salesman who died at the height of his fame. 

TECH OPPORTUNISTS 

Armies of true believers are following the get-rich-quick model of their heroes– finding opportunity in the possibilities of AI. They’re like would-be prospectors hearing of new gold discoveries in California or the Yukon. The Internet—social media in particular—is overflowing with their schemes and dreams. Those who don’t already have their own projects, plan to, and in the meantime add their vociferous voices to the hype. 

Do they care about art? No more than Sam Altman cares about art. For him, art and literature are markets to be taken over and changed. 

PUSHBACK 

The most prominent opposition to the AI assault is the ongoing Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, centered in New York City and Greater Los Angeles. Screenwriters and actors versus movie and television studios who wish to replace many of them with chatbots and computer-generated images. Many artists, directors, writers—and a large portion of the public—consider those on the picket line to be heroes, for taking the lead against much-touted AI change. 

Besides this, most of the reaction to AI intrusion into creative spheres is coming from visual artists, who’ve been dealing with the issue at least since OpenAI introduced their image generator DALL-E in January of 2021. 

Multiple organizations of artists have formed to fight AI. Among the more aggressive of them is the Concept Art Association, led by Karla Ortiz, which has raised more than $270,000 through a GoFundMe used for lobbying in Washington D.C. and elsewhere against the effects of AI art. 

Another group all writers and publishers should be aware of is the Center for Artistic Inquiry, which, along with artist, writer, and activist Molly Crabapple, has penned an Open Letter to “Restrict AI Illustration from Publishing.” Book cover illustration has traditionally been a large source of jobs and income for artists. But hundreds of self-published writers have already used AI-generated images on book covers. As I’ve witnessed, artists view every one of these instances as a betrayal, with the thought, “Wait until it’s your turn to get burned.”

It’s not just individuals or small presses who’ve chosen the AI route, but also publishers with ample resources who could well afford to hire a human artist. The most notorious example to date came from Bloomsbury Publishing, which used an AI-generated image on the cover of the novel House of Earth and Blood by mega-bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Anything to save a few dollars– you know: the bottom line. 

Rumor has it that several prominent literary magazines are using AI images to illustrate their publications and websites. If they have the conscience to use AI to replace human artists, they will as easily use it to replace human writers. 

(A dozen petitions designed to limit AI, or at least inform consumers when it’s used, are circulating, including one started by myself.) 

IMITATION OR PLAGIARISM? 

AI chatbots create nothing on their own, but require scraping or pirating of data, whether of images found online, or from pirated lists of book files. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been trained on such files. 

For the writer, this means the device can imitate any author and any book online– even those not yet published. Both Microsoft (Word) and Google (google docs) are among the biggest investors in AI. If you use their platforms to write, your work is subject to legal piracy. Microsoft has to date invested $10 billion dollars in OpenAI, and is looking for a return on their money. 

THE WRITER’S DILEMMA 

Which path to follow? Jump on the AI bandwagon, oppose it, or pretend it’ll go away? 

At least two writers are trying to create something innovatively new using chatbots. Whether they’ll be able to or not remains an open question. 

Stephen Marche is an established author and journalist. An outfit called Pushkin Industries, itself funded by big-money venture capitalists, financed Marche’s first attempt at an AI novella, appropriately titled Death of an Author, published under the pseudonym Aidan Marchine. The book received positive write-ups by two online magazines which have long been invested, psychologically and otherwise, in new technologies, Wired and Slate. Other reviews have been tepid. 

Sasha Stiles is an up-and-coming writer and self-described futurist who has gone all-in on AI. Her Twitter feed is full of hyperbolic statements, such as “The never-ending cycle of technological progress” and “we’re living through an unprecedented moment and turning point in the history/future of human civilization.” I haven’t purchased her book (like Marche’s, available on Amazon) to find out if it’s any good. Stiles also sells NFT’s at $2400 apiece. 

The greater number of authors generating stories and books via chatbots, however, are those of the assembly-line variety. Produce as many books as you can as quickly as possible, and dump them onto the market. Then live off the combined income. 

This first-adopter strategy was successfully followed by Joanna Penn twelve years ago when e-books were the new change. She currently has fifty books up on Amazon under her own name, and forty-five listed under the name J.F. Penn– with an additional half-dozen ostensibly written by her mother. As one of the biggest cheerleaders for AI, she might be looking to expand her offerings. 

Another writer who’s publicly embraced AI is fanfic author Elizabeth Ann West, who’s published twenty-seven titles, most which are variations of, or sequels to, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Her newest project is Future Fiction Academy AI, designed, it appears, to instruct wannabe writers on how to generate prose using chatbots. Only $129 a month! 

QUALITY? 

The quality of Elizabeth Ann West’s books exemplify the problem. The writing isn’t very good. Bare-minimum readability for those who need their Jane Austen fix and don’t care how they get it. Yet Elizabeth Ann West and Joanna Penn are among the more experienced writers embracing AI chatbots. Those who’ve never written a line of prose before, because they couldn’t, are guaranteed not to meet even a low standard. 

Will many new chatbot authors become discouraged? No doubt. But with more than 100 million users of chatbots, many will be thrilled to produce a novel in a day or two, no matter how bad the writing. Add to this content mills in places as far away as India (see this article by Will Oremus in the Washington Post) now using AI to produce book knockoffs of every kind. 

Why does this matter? First, by sheer numbers, the already-saturated book and literary markets will become more saturated. By the inevitable law of supply and demand, the value of books will plummet. Second, botbooks will become synonymous with literary crap. The cheap version will overwhelm the futuristic dreams of AI creativity held by a Stephen Marche or Sasha Stiles. The AI brand will become akin to what happened to U.S. automakers when they hit the market with quickly-designed subcompacts like the Vega and Pinto (of the exploding gas tanks) in reaction to Japanese imports in the 1970’s and 80’s. The Chevy and Ford nameplates became synonymous—in the minds of many consumers—with badly-produced junk.

THE FUTURE 

For AI promoters, the future is overwhelmingly positive, whatever the reality. For them it has to be. That’s their message. The sales pitch. Sure, it’ll replace many jobs. But there will be new jobs. Doing what is never said. 

Many of the claimed tasks AI chatbots will do for us run counter to what being a writer is about. For instance, one app promises to help us write a journal. To organize our thoughts for us. Funny, I always thought writing a journal—as many of us do— means letting your thoughts, moods, emotions, reactions run freely onto a page, without technical intermediaries. 

Writing at its most basic is an eye-brain-hand connection, allowing your own creativity to flow through your fingers. To have a device do your thinking—any part of your thinking—for you inhibits the process. 

Never mind! New tech companies have products to sell, money to make. Even the largest of them like OpenAI are in desperation mode, because of the massive financial backing they’ve received, from venture capitalists who need to see ever-increasing growth, and at some point, profits. It’s not about creativity. It’s about money. 

As for writers and literary mags, it will become more difficult to stand out in a field about to become even more crowded than it is now. As much as ten times more crowded, as AI promoters promise. 

Which suggests to me that new human literary strategies and styles are required.

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