I was in a tiny independent bookshop in Salisbury recently, chatting to the owner. He is also a freelance editor and publishes books on a small scale, and he described how an author had come in recently with a sample of a children's book he had written and self-published. He wanted the shop to stock it, but it appeared that the illustrations were AI-generated, so the bookshop owner said he couldn't help. The author was confused - he had written the text himself, but he couldn't draw, so what was wrong with using AI for the pictures?
The owner explained. His work was about supporting artists in their creativity and craft, and anything produced with AI was the thin end of a wedge which would undermine that, so he would not be able to stock the book even if others would. Neither would he edit or publish such material. I hope that similar conversations are happening across the whole of the creative world, not just publishing but music and art and photography and film, across poetry, prose and drama, but that's probably unrealistic.
This is a problem for all of us, because in every case I can think of related to the arts and writing, the apparent creative ability of AI is based on what the Good Law Project calls the theft by LLMs of material crafted by real artists. If it is theft, and I think there are grounds for saying it absolutely is, then using the outputs of AI makes the consumer complicit. Creativity or just intellectual property goes way beyond the arts of course, and whatever the subject matter, the issue is the same.
Anyway, I spend too much time in the digital world, where AI is just One More Thing to make me annoyed. So, if you'll forgive the slight non-sequitur, I take refuge in the AI-free and completely non-digital handwritten letter I received from one of my snail mail penfriends a couple of days ago. I have several, but she's the most reliable and interesting, and I always enjoy what she has to say.
Her letter involved no AI whatsoever, and neither will my reply. I shall write it by hand on Clairefontaine Triomph paper with a Kaweco Sport fountain pen and bottled ink from Diamine, then I'll address the envelope and put a stamp on it. The postbox is at the end of my road, and it will take a few days to reach its recipient, who will read it in the conventional way, unsummarised by technology. Proper communications. Much the same now as it was 200 years ago. No AI involved, although these days stamps have a kind of QR code on them, as well as the King's head, and I don't know how that is used.
Anyone interested in snail mail penfriends should take a look at London Letters penpal club. I'm one of just over 2,000 members, so you are bound to find people with similar interests to you:
Email: kdan01 [at] posteo [dot] net