Authors Guild to offer “Human Authored” label on books to compete with AI; Marketplace.org, October 7, 2024

 Matt Levin, Marketplace.org ; Authors Guild to offer “Human Authored” label on books to compete with AI

"The Authors Guild, the professional association representing published novelists and nonfiction writers, is set to offer to its 15,000 members a new certificate they can place directly on their book covers.

About the size of literary award stickers or celebrity book club endorsements adorning the cover art of the latest bestseller, the certificate is a simple, round logo with two boldfaced words inside: “Human Authored.”

As in, written by a human — and not artificial intelligence.

(Courtesy The Authors Guild)

“It isn’t just to prevent fraud and deception,” said Douglas Preston, a bestselling novelist and nonfiction writer and member of the Authors Guild Council. “It’s also a declaration of how important storytelling is to who we are as a species. And we’re not going to let machines elbow us aside and pretend to be telling us stories, when it’s just regurgitating literary vomitus.”

I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT; Time, September 30, 2024

 Victoria Livingstone, Time; I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT

"Students who outsource their writing to AI lose an opportunity to think more deeply about their research. In a recent article on art and generative AI, author Ted Chiang put it this way: “Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.” Chiang also notes that the hundreds of small choices we make as writers are just as important as the initial conception. Chiang is a writer of fiction, but the logic applies equally to scholarly writing. Decisions regarding syntax, vocabulary, and other elements of style imbue a text with meaning nearly as much as the underlying research...

Generative AI is, in some ways, a democratizing tool...

The best educators will adapt to AI. In some ways, the changes will be positive. Teachers must move away from mechanical activities or assigning simple summaries. They will find ways to encourage students to think critically and learn that writing is a way of generating ideas, revealing contradictions, and clarifying methodologies.

However, those lessons require that students be willing to sit with the temporary discomfort of not knowing. Students must learn to move forward with faith in their own cognitive abilities as they write and revise their way into clarity. With few exceptions, my students were not willing to enter those uncomfortable spaces or remain there long enough to discover the revelatory power of writing."

R.O. Kwon on writing in the age of A.I.; The Ink, September 8, 2024

 The Ink; R.O. Kwon on writing in the age of A.I.

"What exactly are A.I.s doing when they churn out words? When they ghostwrite our notes and letters, summarize our news, and maybe take over the jobs of those writing the news in the first place — are they writing?

The novelist R.O. Kwon — author of two novels, The Incendiaries and Exhibit, both deeply concerned not just with language but with the way language is rooted in the very human experiences of faith and love and sex and being in a body — doesn’t think so. For Kwon, a writer is a person who writes — that is, a human in a body, who struggles with language. And, in her typically crystal-clear fashion, she made this point the other day in a series of posts."

Authors sue Claude AI chatbot creator Anthropic for copyright infringement; AP, August 19, 2024

 MATT O’BRIEN, AP; Authors sue Claude AI chatbot creator Anthropic for copyright infringement

"A group of authors is suing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, alleging it committed “large-scale theft” in training its popular chatbot Claude on pirated copies of copyrighted books.

While similar lawsuits have piled up for more than a year against competitor OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, this is the first from writers to target Anthropic and its Claude chatbot.

The smaller San Francisco-based company — founded by ex-OpenAI leaders — has marketed itself as the more responsible and safety-focused developer of generative AI models that can compose emails, summarize documents and interact with people in a natural way...

The lawsuit was brought by a trio of writers — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson — who are seeking to represent a class of similarly situated authors of fiction and nonfiction...

What links all the cases is the claim that tech companies ingested huge troves of human writings to train AI chatbots to produce human-like passages of text, without getting permission or compensating the people who wrote the original works. The legal challenges are coming not just from writers but visual artists, music labels and other creators who allege that generative AI profits have been built on misappropriation...

But the lawsuit against Anthropic accuses it of using a dataset called The Pile that included a trove of pirated books. It also disputes the idea that AI systems are learning the way humans do."

Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.; The Washington Post, September 18, 2023

  Heather Kelly, The Washington Post; Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.

"However, in situations where AI’s involvement is not obvious or desired, a product can be a scam, outright fraud and even dangerous, experts say...

When it comes to books, incorrect information can be dangerous. Amazon recently removed a guide on foraging for mushrooms that some readers claimed was generated by AI and could have given incorrect advice about what mushrooms were edible or poisonous.

“The accuracy problem is real,” said Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics researcher and adviser. “People don’t understand that textual generated AI is not optimized to generate truth. It’s optimized to generate text that’s compelling.”"

The Dream Was Universal Access to Knowledge. The Result Was a Fiasco.; The New York Times, August 13, 2023

 David Streitfeld, The New York Times; The Dream Was Universal Access to Knowledge. The Result Was a Fiasco.

"In the middle of this mess are writers, whose job is to produce the books that contain much of the world’s best information. Despite that central role, they are largely powerless — a familiar position for most writers. Emotions are running high...

It’s rarely this nasty, but free vs. expensive is a struggle that plays out continuously against all forms of media and entertainment. Neither side has the upper hand forever, even if it sometimes seems it might.

“The more information is free, the more opportunities for it to be collected, refined, packaged and made expensive,” said Stewart Brand, the technology visionary who first developed the formulation. “The more it is expensive, the more workarounds to make it free. It’s a paradox. Each side makes the other true.”"

Neal Adams, Comic Book Artist Who Revitalized Batman and Fought for Creators’ Rights, Dies at 80; The Hollywood Reporter, April 29, 2022

 Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter; Neal Adams, Comic Book Artist Who Revitalized Batman and Fought for Creators’ Rights, Dies at 80

"Adams also worked tirelessly to promote better working conditions and, radically at the time, creators’ rights, especially for their work. He early on recognized the value of creators and was a thorn in the side of publishers, demanding compensation for himself and others when their characters were adapted off the page.

He, along with Stan Lee, formed the Academy of Comic Book Arts, hoping to start a union that would fight for benefits and ownership on behalf of writers and artists. Lee wanted an organization that was more akin to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the two parted ways.

In the late ’70s, when a new federal work-for-hire law was being enshrined, Marvel and then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter distributed contracts that stated freelancers could not assert copyright over their creations. As detailed in Reisman’s 2021 Lee biography, True Believer, Adams sent around a copy of the contract, scrawling on top, “Do Not Sign This Contract! You Will Be Signing Your Life Away!” While it caused a ruckus and awareness, the effort didn’t have its intended effect as Marvel flexed its muscle and threatened anyone who tried to unionize with a drying up of the freelance well."

At least 238 writers and intellectuals were detained for their work last year, advocacy group says; The Washington Post, May 19, 2020

Siobhán O'Grady, The Washington Post; At least 238 writers and intellectuals were detained for their work last year, advocacy group says

"At least 238 writers, academics and intellectuals around the world were detained in connection to their work last year, according to a report released Tuesday by PEN America, a freedom of expression advocacy group.

The imprisonments and detentions occurred in 34 countries, although the majority took place in just three — China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Those same countries are also among the top jailers of journalists worldwide, according to the 2019 Committee to Protect Journalists prison census.

The data published Tuesday as part of PEN America’s inaugural Freedom to Write Index accounts for poets, scholars, songwriters and translators, among other intellectuals the group described as unjustly detained last year around the world. It does not include journalists unless they also belong to one of the categories in question. Some detained individuals were excluded from the report at the request of family members who feared that public attention could worsen their situations."

Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate; The Guardian, January 5, 2019

Elena Ferrante, The Guardian; Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate

"There’s a very old function of literature that over time has lost currency, probably because of its dangerous proximity to the political and ethical spheres. I mean the idea that one of the purposes of a text is to instruct...

An individual talent acts like a fishing net that captures daily experiences, holds them together imaginatively, and connects them to fundamental questions about the human condition."

Stephen King, Cheryl Strayed, Dave Eggers, more writers sign petition against Donald Trump; Entertainment Weekly, 5/24/16

Derek Lawrence, Entertainment Weekly; Stephen King, Cheryl Strayed, Dave Eggers, more writers sign petition against Donald Trump:

"Hundreds of authors have signed a petition, Writers on Trump, to stand up against the businessman. The petition has already been signed by over 450 writers, including Stephen King, Jennifer Egan, Amy Tan, Dave Eggers, Cheryl Strayed, and Michael Chabon.

“As writers, we are particularly aware of the many ways that language can be abused in the name of power,” says the beginning of a letter posted on the petition’s page. The note continues on with specifics of their opposition to Trump, “The rise of a political candidate who deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society, who encourages aggression among his followers, shouts down opponents, intimidates dissenters, and denigrates women and minorities, demands, from each of us, an immediate and forceful response.”"

Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age; Boston Globe, 1/28/16

Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe; Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age:

"Swartz is a particularly tragic casualty of a conflict as old as the Gutenberg Bible. When copycats can easily republish the latest Charles Dickens novel or Adele CD, how will artists and publishers get paid? But laws to protect intellectual-property rights can cripple the free exchange of ideas.

Justin Peters seems as helpless as the rest of us to resolve this dilemma. But in his lucid and witty new book, he ably sketches the contours of the dilemma...

Peters places Swartz’s well-meant misdeeds in historical context, showing how this young man was one of many smart, ambitious combatants on both sides of the copyright wars.

"I can’t fault Peters’s sympathy for Swartz, and I share his opinion that the prosecutorial sledgehammer fell much too hard. But Peters seems a little too inclined to play the populist, sneering at the pro-copyright arguments of publishers. Yes, our current intellectual property statutes are absurdly restrictive. But apart from strong protections, how would artists and writers hope to make a decent living?

The conundrum continues, with activists on both sides engaged in constant efforts to redraw the boundaries. Peters’s new book is an excellent survey of the battlefield, and a sobering memorial to its most tragic victim."

India’s Attack on Free Speech; New York Times, 10/2/15

Sonia Faleiro, New York Times; India’s Attack on Free Speech:

The realization has made for decisions that were once unthinkable.

Last December, the acclaimed author Perumal Murugan informed the police that he’d received threats from Hindu groups angered by a novel he wrote in 2010. Extremists staged burnings of his book and demanded a public apology from him. The police suggested he go into exile. Realizing he was on his own, in January Mr. Murugan announced the withdrawal of his entire literary canon. On Facebook, he swore to give up writing, in essence apologizing for his life’s work out of fear for his family’s safety...

The attacks in India should not be seen as a problem limited to secular writers or liberal thinkers. They should be recognized as an attack on the heart of what constitutes a democracy — and that concerns everyone who values the idea of India as it was conceived and as it is beloved, rather than an India imagined through the eyes of religious zealots. Indians must protest these attacks and demand accountability from people in power. We must call for all voices to be protected, before we lose our own."