by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I listened to a podcast panel the other day, all about (can you guess?) Artificial Intelligence. It was a robust discussion of what AI means for writers and publishers, as has been covered several times here at TKZ and just about everywhere else in the known universe. The podcast and transcript can be found here.

One of the interviewees is a romance writer who openly admits utilizing AI generative tools to crank out her product. She released 200 romance novels last year, under 12 different pseudonyms. She sees this as a business, starting out each project by researching what tropes are selling, then interacting with LLMs to set up an outline. “I can then ask the system to generate the first draft for me.”

When asked if she reveals to readers that the books are largely AI, she said she does not. The one time she did she got 14,000 death threats. (A post about the darkness of human nature run amok may be inserted here.)

Anyway…the question came up about whether readers ultimately care how a book is produced. Well, 14,000 wackos seem to. But what about the sane? Journalist Derek Newton offered an answer:

I think the reaction that she received is probably good anecdotal evidence of what the market wants and expects. And my personal view is that a minimum, readers ought to have information about where their books come from….is this a purely human written piece, a work from the mind and spirit and soul of an author? Is it a mix up, a mash up? Did the author have an idea and use AI to put it together? Or is it something that Claude or ChatGPT banged out in 15, is it on the Amazon bookshelves fifteen minutes later? Those are very different things. And I think since we can know that, we should share that information with readers. Maybe some readers don’t care. Maybe they prefer AI. Maybe they only wanna read human stories. But I think the minimum standard ought to be we ought to tell people. And one more thing. She did mention in the interview that she discloses to Amazon. Amazon does ask that, but they don’t share that information, and they don’t have any way to verify it. So any author could simply say no or check the box. Oh, yeah. I didn’t use AI, and there’s nobody looking into that. So sharing it with Amazon may be true, but it really doesn’t add any value to the process or to readers. Readers don’t get that information, and there’s no way to know it’s true.

New York Times reporter Alexandra Alter said:

Yeah, I think it matters, when readers have the choice to decide, okay, I would love to read something written by a human, or I’m curious. Can AI write a good story? I’ll check this out. I think, you know, some might be curious and wanna read something generated by AI. But my impression from comments I’ve seen online and from my conversations with readers is that one of the things that draws people to books is the opportunity to connect with another human mind. And most people, like that human connection and would would opt for that, you know, given the choice.

On the other hand, a listener offered this comment:

We all need to accept that AI is a part of the future. Just like in the past, people had to accept the advances in technology. I believe there should be transparency about AI use, but I think the panel would be surprised to find out that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI or an author. Most readers are reading for enjoyment, not loyalty to a particular author.

Ah, as Hamlet might have muttered over his Kindle, that is the question. I don’t believe for a moment that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI. If a reader gets massive reading pleasure from a book, they’ll want to a) find more by this author; and b) get to know this author on a human level. When I read my first Bosch, I wanted to know all about Michael Connelly. I read more Bosch, and wanted to meet Michael Connelly…and did, at a book signing. That mattered to me.

And when I’ve done signings and people come up and tell me how much they love my books, there’s no greater feeling in the world. I extend my human touch via my Substack newsletter and, of course, right here at the Zone.

However (and I’m just spitballing here), maybe there is an exception in the romance world. Category romances have always been the largest market in the publishing ecosystem. Many of these are written under pseudonyms. Voracious romance readers go through them like candy. Perhaps for this market human agency is not a big deal.

What about everywhere else?

Let’s talk about it. Do you care about human authorship? Do you care if an entrepreneur uses AI to crank out hundreds of “entertaining” books, making real money on volume? If you read a book and liked it, then found out it was 90% AI generated, how would you feel?