Authors Using AI to Phone it In

[Ben]

I've been reading the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series, which is kind of military fiction mixed with the zombie apocalypse. I'm just on book 8 of 9 and have enjoyed them so far. Not fantastic writing, but fun reads.

I was about to put book 9 in my Kindle queue when I saw an inordinate amount of one star reviews compared to the other eight books. As I read them, people were complaining about ridiculously repetitive language, non-sequiturs, and stuff like whole paragraphs on the color of the paint on something. All agreed it was a completely different writing style from the previous eight books. Many posts were accusing the author of using AI.

The AI use is alleged, and I haven't read the ninth book (and am not sure I will, given the reviews). But it did get me to thinking how easy it would be for an author, especially of these long series of "pulp fiction", where they pump out a book or two a year, to just tell an AI to write the book. It would seem that currently (again, assuming the accusations are true), either AI is still not capable of copying an author's style, or it didn't go through enough iterations to get close.

It does seem like it would be easy for AI to write a half-assed $1.99 Kindle book that there are a million of on Amazon. A year's worth of writing done in minutes. An "author" in it for just the money, could scam the system and produce and self-publish a couple hundred books in a couple of days, put them on Amazon for $1.99, and just take in whatever profit from a few sales here and there. As AI improves, it will be an interesting conundrum for the publishing industry.

On the tangent, I asked Bard to write some scifi short stories for me. Done in seconds, but they were pretty crappy. I was biased knowing that a machine had done them, so I'm not sure if I could accurately gauge if they were "machine crappy" or "crappy crappy", being written by a human with zero imagination. 

These are the one star reviews on the above book:

https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0CKWD9TDR/ref=cm_cr_unknown?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=1#reviews-filter-bar

[Pb]

Yes, I have no doubt this is going to be a huge problem.

An "author" could generate a hundred stories, skim them, and pick the "best" and do a little editing maybe and epublish.  If you are trying to find a good book, it could be hard to wade through the acres of machine generated garbage.

I am concerned mostly about AI generated webpages.  The internet has gotten so awful in these past few years as a source of information do to all the content farms.  It is going to get exponentially worse as AI takes over the content farm crap that is always the first results to almost any internet search.

[HankB]

And then we'll all have our own AIs to sort through all the AI generated trash and get us to something we actually want . . .

[Perd Hapley]

When social media is mostly AI content, will people finally abandon it?

[Hawkmoon]

Amazon KDP (their publishing arm) now asks people uploading new books if they used AI assistance. I have no doubt that people are using AI to write pulp/trash fiction.

Not long ago an attorney was sanctioned for submitting a fraudulent brief in a lawsuit. The opposing side read the brief, attempted to check the citations, and found they didn't exist -- so they complained to the judge. When the judge asked the attorney why his citations didn't seem to exist, he admitted that he had simply had ChatGTP write the brief. And then his sole quality check was to ask ChatGTP if the citations were real, to which it responded "Yes."

[Devonai]

I spend some time every day on the Reddit self-publishing forum, and I'm a member of a couple of Facebook groups. AI-use in writing is controversial, to say the least. There are periodically posts submitted from someone who thinks they have the newest, brightest idea of how to write books quickly and make money fast using AI. Like most schemes, they always sacrifice the reader to the altar of stupidity and are rightly called out for being what they are.

The majority opinion, which I share, is that the limit of using AI for any self-respecting writer would be to help break writer's block by suggesting an idea the author hadn't thought of before. While I haven't personally had to resort to that - I prefer thinking about my story in the shower - it seems rather innocuous and I wouldn't shame anyone for trying it. However, anything more than that is cheap and lazy, and certainly cutting-and-pasting entire AI-generated paragraphs, or more, is a cardinal sin and should be met with derision.

[MechAg94]

I recall the Critical Drinker talking about writing once.  He said he does outlines and development, but he said it gets to the point where he just has to grind it out and do the detailed writing to get through the story he wants to write.  I can easily see writers give up on the grind and be tempted to let an AI do it. 

I know there are some who suspect that is what is happening with some of these Hollywood movies which seem to have poor dialogue and plot.  But that might just be inexperienced or bad writers. 

[Ben]

is that the limit of using AI for any self-respecting writer would be to help break writer's block by suggesting an idea the author hadn't thought of before.

That seems completely acceptable to me. Sort of an "author's butler". 

[Nick1911]

I was recently on a 4ish hour flight.  Not being one for movies and TV, I spent most of it sitting there with my own thoughts.  I casually noticed between the seats, a lady in front of me using ChatGPT on her phone.

Through the flight, she copy and pasted content into a document with a title of "Operating agreement".  By the end of the flight she sent it off in email to her coworkers, with no further editing.

If I observed this by happenstance, it's probably not uncommon behavior.

[Ben]

I was recently on a 4ish hour flight.  Not being one for movies and TV, I spent most of it sitting there with my own thoughts.  I casually noticed between the seats, a lady in front of me using ChatGPT on her phone.

Through the flight, she copy and pasted content into a document with a title of "Operating agreement".  By the end of the flight she sent it off in email to her coworkers, with no further editing.

If I observed this by happenstance, it's probably not uncommon behavior.

To go further into a tangent, at some point this could get to be very dangerous for society. What happens when people in positions involving operations or safety all end up being morons with zero knowledge in their fields passing on the thoughts of AI?

It's somewhat ironic in that we started using software and hardware, like word processors and printers, as convenient conduits to pass on our human created knowledge. Now, people like the woman in Nick's post are basically becoming the word processing software passing on a machine's created knowledge. There's a science fiction story in there somewhere. Maybe I'll ask Bard to write one for me.

[lee n. field]

Maybe the Butlerian Jihad wasn't such a bad idea.

[MechAg94]

I was recently on a 4ish hour flight.  Not being one for movies and TV, I spent most of it sitting there with my own thoughts.  I casually noticed between the seats, a lady in front of me using ChatGPT on her phone.

Through the flight, she copy and pasted content into a document with a title of "Operating agreement".  By the end of the flight she sent it off in email to her coworkers, with no further editing.

If I observed this by happenstance, it's probably not uncommon behavior.

What happened to just copying previous agreements and adjusting the language?  Seems like that would be far better than using AI language.

That also makes me think there are a lot of poorly qualified or equiped middle managers along with higher managers that don't actually read the agreements. 

[HankB]

. . . That also makes me think there are a lot of poorly qualified or equiped middle managers along with higher managers that don't actually read the agreements.

That's been the case for a LONG time. I remember a story about a corporation that sent someone a very involved document - maybe an employment agreement? - that had some clauses in it that the individual didn't like. He made some changes and signed the agreement, asking that the corporation would send him copies once their bosses countersigned it.

They did without reading the agreement, so they agreed to things they didn't intend, even though they were right there in back and white.

The employee ended up doing very well down the road. 

[Ben]

Apparently Microsoft has an AI called Copilot associated with Bing. I just asked it to write a 500 word science fiction story. It wrote it in realtime and took 17 seconds.

Copilot
Title: “The Quantum Echo”

In the year 2157, humanity had unlocked the secrets of quantum entanglement. It was a discovery that changed everything. We could communicate instantaneously across vast distances, and our ships could traverse the galaxy in the blink of an eye. But with great power came unforeseen consequences.

Captain Elara Kael stood on the bridge of the Stardancer, her fingers tracing the holographic star map. The ship hummed with energy, its quantum drive ready to propel them to the distant planet of Epsilon Prime. Their mission: to make first contact with an alien civilization rumored to possess ancient knowledge.

As the Stardancer slipped into the quantum slipstream, Elara felt a strange sensation—a whisper in her mind, like an echo from another reality. She shook it off, attributing it to the stress of the mission. But the echo persisted, growing louder with each jump.

On Epsilon Prime, they found a world bathed in iridescent light. The alien city sprawled across crystalline spires, its inhabitants resembling shimmering jellyfish. They communicated through color, their thoughts merging seamlessly. Elara marveled at their beauty and wisdom.

The alien leader, Zara, welcomed them. “You seek knowledge,” she said, her bioluminescent tendrils pulsing. “But beware the echoes. They are remnants of forgotten timelines.”

Elara frowned. “Echoes?”

Zara nodded. “When you traverse the quantum slipstream, you leave ripples in reality. These ripples echo back, carrying memories of other paths not taken. They whisper of lost loves, untaken chances, and cosmic tragedies.”

Elara’s mind raced. Could the echoes explain the strange sensations she’d been feeling? She asked Zara for guidance.

“Listen,” Zara said, touching Elara’s forehead. “Feel the echoes. They reveal hidden truths.”

Elara closed her eyes. The echoes flooded her senses—a lover’s kiss she’d never experienced, a starship lost in a distant nebula, a sacrifice that saved a dying world. She gasped, overwhelmed by the weight of alternate lives.

Back on the Stardancer, Elara studied the echoes. They were more than memories; they were pathways to other realities. She wondered if she could change her own fate. What if she’d chosen a different career, loved a different person, or made a different sacrifice?

She experimented. In one echo, she kissed her first love under the moonlight. In another, she piloted the Stardancer into a black hole, sacrificing herself to save her crew. Each choice rippled through the quantum fabric, altering her present.

But the echoes had consequences. The universe resisted change. The crew grew suspicious, memories shifting like sand. Elara’s mind fractured, torn between timelines. She saw herself as a child, a soldier, a queen—all at once.

Desperate, Elara returned to Zara. “How do I stop the echoes?”

Zara’s tendrils pulsed. “Embrace them. Merge your past and future. Become the echo.”

Elara hesitated, then stepped into the quantum slipstream. She felt herself unraveling, memories merging, timelines collapsing. She became a vessel of echoes, a bridge between worlds.

Now, as she stands on the crystalline spires of Epsilon Prime, Elara whispers to the stars. She is every version of herself—the lover, the hero, the lost soul. And in her mind, the echoes sing—a symphony of what-ifs and might-have-beens.

Humanity watches, awestruck. Elara Kael has become a legend—the Quantum Echo, a living paradox. She dances between realities, seeking answers to questions unasked.

And somewhere, in the cosmic tapestry, a forgotten timeline stirs—a love unclaimed, a sacrifice unmade. Elara reaches out, hoping to weave it back into existence.

For in the echoes, she has found purpose—a way to mend the fractures of existence and touch the heart of infinity.

Author’s Note: The Quantum Echo is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual quantum phenomena is purely coincidental.

[Devonai]

Quantum entanglement? That sounds like awfully convenient technobabble BS to me.