2y ago

I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires) | Jane Friedman

Amazon and Goodreads must take steps to combat the flood of AI-generated content that will mislead readers and damage author reputations.

2y ago

2y ago

AI-generated books create a dumpster fire on Amazon and Goodreads

14 comments

I see no problem with AI-generated books existing, but as is the case for any books it has to be possible to review them and evaluate their quality in the proper context.
I used to be a pretty active Goodreads librarian but that site has really gone downhill over the years. It had potential but it's been largely squandered. Been thinking of looking into Bookwyrm but I'm worried it's actually good and will suck all my free time away again.
- It becomes a problem, if a) the market gets flooded with these things. Especially if they are pushed by a bot cartel and b) known, real author names are used, in order to increase the impact.
  
  As long as their quality can be evaluated I don't see the problem here, people won't buy the crappy ones. That's the main reason why there's a problem with them reusing an existing author's name, it makes evaluating the quality harder.

Welcome to the Eternal September, Part 2: When the AIs started generating content.

This is a valid point but Amazon also sells a lot of books based on pseudo-science and debunked claims. It's pretty clear they are not an ethical company so they absolutely will do nothing to stop AI generated books.
For anyone that thinks AI books are not a problem, I recommend this article and the Behind the Bastards two-parter that goes along with it: https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/ai-is-coming-for-your-children

Something got done only because she went viral. How many other writers is this happening to, where nothing happened?

14 comments