Let’s Talk Bookish: AI & Books

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

It really feels like you can’t see anything nowadays without wondering if it’s AI. Whether it’s on Reddit, book covers or ‘art’ shared on social media, or even whole books, AI is currently everywhere, and people are on the look out to spot it. So, this topic is especially timely, and it’s good to have the chance to dig into it.

Let’s Talk Bookish May 10th
AI & Books

Prompts: From books being used to train AI systems without author knowledge to AI-generated books on Amazon, the book world has been full of AI-related news. Have you heard about these situations? What do think about the use of AI when it comes to creative writing and books?

I have heard about these situations, and it’s hard not to escape the stories or fear of AI in any sort of social media, book-focused place. Authors and publishers/presses have been called out for using AI covers, others are discussing ways they can ensure an artist they hire isn’t using AI, and everyone making their stance clear on AI. There’s been a lot of push back against generative AI, and though AI does have its place, I don’t think that place is near the creative arts.

For starters, it’s incredibly lazy. We value books and art and other media because the people behind it have often spent quite a long time learning their crafts. There might be a small level of natural talent involved, but the end product, when good anyway, is never the result of pure natural talent, but determination combined with dedication and a constant drive to do better. Behind every good book the writer likely has a pile of discarded or rejected manuscripts, each one teaching them something different about the art of writing.

Similarly, artists will have spent a lot of time learning how to draw what they draw, cover designers study trends and placement and software, and behind them is a trail of practice pieces, whether they think of them as such or not.

Then you have those using AI to generate art and books, and sell it to make a quick buck. These people offer nothing creative, they are not interested in supporting art or artists, of all types, but only interested in themselves. Writing a prompt into a generator is very different than coming up with your own ideas and making them come to life. It’s lazy. And generative AI steals – quite literally – from those who have put the most time and effort in.

Even AI ‘tools’ aren’t 100% – editing tools aren’t going to be able to get the nuance of a sentence, or catch every small error. These things need to be used with care and patience in themselves, because even after running a manuscript through one of these, you’re still going to need human eyes on it. Similarly, we’ve seen in AI generated art and books that a human touch is missing – they come across, quite frankly, as soulless. And we’ve seen the havoc that an AI generated script for an event can cause.

So, I would rather a world in which artists and writers and other creatives were more fully valued than they are now, where respect is giving for taken the time to learn and improve, and where tech bros actually understood what ‘creativity’ means – but also it’s okay if some people can’t draw or write, and the fact is for all the time and money these people spend on generative AI, it’s time and money that could have been focused on AI that will actually prove useful in the longer term, and be more of a benefit, rather than the crass mess we currently have.