Why do you read?
I mean, I presume if you’re here, you do read. I mean, it’s not mandatory. (To the other people at mad genius: Guys, we should give them a test!)
Seriously, I presume you’re a reader. (Though I found to my shock that it’s not necessarily so for a writer.)
Do you remember how you first got in the habit? Because I do. I remember the rush of having a brand new book to read and being all this excited about reading it? Like it was the best escape and the most amazing world to get lost into?
I do. Of course, for me it was last week. Though perhaps I no longer have as much enthusiasm and golden-glow as I did as a kid.
BUT seriously people, why do you read? For fun, right?
And then there’s the hunt for AI written work!
Um…. Most AI written work is wretched. I’m not sure it’s possible to write a full novel with AI except with a lot of work in both prompting chapter by chapter and editing afterward.
I’m not sure the tech is “there” yet.
BUT–
But. What there is already is an intensive hunt for “AI written work.”
Not the obvious and logical “Oh, this sucks, the thing forgot distance exists, and threw in two characters that have nothing to do with anything.” Or my favorite “I guess this must be AI because it’s physically impossible for a human to write a mystery and talk about someone being murdered but keep forgetting the age, sex, etc. of the person who was murdered. Every half chapter.”
That’s legitimate. It’s legitimate even if those books were written by humans, they’d still have the exact same problems, and I’d still vent about them.
Here’s the thing: right now I see an ugly witch hunting mood developing, and there’s two things driving it:
1- a great suspicion that someone somewhere is getting away with something.
2- wanting to make sure everyone knows you weren’t taken in, not harf. No, you’re better than that.
Why does it matter? Well…. because people are going to get hurt.
But if people are using AI to write, don’t they deserve to get hurt?
WHY WOULD THEY? They’re using a tool you don’t approve of. But which I suspect — I haven’t tried it, okay? So I have no idea — still demands an awful lot of work and learning how to use the tool, and probably a lot of editing.
Would you be upset if someone dictates his novels? Because I remember people being upset we were using computers to write.
People are going to get hurt, because all the “AI Junk” signs in writing that people look for are signs of being over 40. Stuff like using m dashes and two spaces after the period, you know?
I’ve now seen at least three posts that I’m 99% sure are human written getting screamed at for being “AI junk.”
And I hear crazy things, like people saying you should watch an artist paint to be sure he does the painting himself, and not get it from AI.
First, mostly this is going to end up in a lot — a lot — of false accusations and people who are completely confused as to why their art is being reviled.
Second, because it misses the whole point. The point of the thing, whether it be a book or art is whether it’s enjoyable, or good or accurate or whatever you need it to be.
It doesn’t matter how it was made. if you enjoyed the book, or admired the art, you shouldn’t be poking at it, and questioning every process of how it was made to see if it was done in an unapproved way.
What is the purpose of that? Claiming yourself superior because you weren’t taken in? Taken in by what? If it’s a book and people enjoy it? Who cares?
Remember why you got into reading.
What matters is the thing. Stop the witch hunts before they start. Ask the person “So, maybe an AI was used in its making somewhere” — grammarly is AI now — “but did you enjoy it? If not, ignore it as you would any book however written that you didn’t like.” And if you did? Who cares how it was made.
I for one couldn’t care less.
Mad Genius Club 
20 responses to “Fun And Snobbery”
Ah, if only the world knew! What we get away with whilst no one is watching. We’ll never tell though. ‘Tis a secret. Just between us, the Cognoscere.
To crack open the spine of a brand new book, fresh off the shelf from the box from the truck from the distro and from the very presses themselves. Deckle edged hardback or sneaky little pocket paperback. We hunted those books. Stalked the aisles with patience and careful attention. Covers, titles, rarely author names. Read the blurb, maybe the first page or two.
But AI? Seriously, AI? Should we next raise our pitchforks and torches ‘gainst electric mixers? autofeeding cat bowls? Those little manual scooters people ride when they are in recovery from leg injuries?
If a thing is bad at its job, no amount of push and propaganda will keep it in position of primacy while *also* being utter crap at utility. FOMO and new! thing shiny goodness will wear off like cheap paint over time. If it sucks, it’ll still suck around that time, more than like.
When the digital camel first thrust its nose under the tent, it WAS bad. Hilariously so. What we disliked most was its badness. Not cool, that. Do better, bro. If it gets more useful, it will stick around. Despite all the problems with the market today, and boy howdy are there *some,* capitalism is inevitable.
People trading things with each other, freely. That’s capitalism in its most distilled essence. AI is a tool. A thing. Should it be useful it *will* be used.
I didn’t get a whole lot of oversight by my parents as a child, but the one thing I observed early on was that my (Jewish) father was an easy mark for book requests. He took the simple route of “Time/Life Series” of (damn near anything at all non-fiction), which I quite enjoyed. He had also kept, out of childhood sentiment, all his own very large hardbound fairy tale collections from the early 1900’s which I devoured, and that satisfied fiction for a while (it was like browsing the Encyclopedia Britannica reading in bed).
My Belgian war-bride mother, on the other hand, actively read (audited local college courses, too), so her bookshelves were eminently fruitful of random material (too old for me, generally, though that didn’t necessarily stop me — I remember her startled look when she realized I was reading James Bond books, sex and all).
Once they sort of noticed me as a person, through, things massively improved (I had long since devoured the grade school library). First there were school book fairs, where my shopping lists were long (and indulged). And then my mother began including me on her downtown bookshop expeditions (this predates Waldenbooks, etc.) and I never looked back. When I got permission to sign for purchases for Barnes & Noble, my adolescent life was complete, and the great SFF exploration took off in full force.
Reading Tolkien when the LOTR first became available (and specifically the appendices) was the spur that sent me actively haring down the track of mythology and dead languages. That dictated my choice of major in college.
So, yeah, I remember the important input. Doesn’t matter to me where the story comes from, whether by the direct intent of the author or by a random/guided amalgam of past authors (AI). The story is what matters. AI is just a tool. If the final result is a good story, who cares how it got there.
‘…right now I see an ugly witch hunting mood developing…”
There are some people who simply are not happy unless they have a witch to hunt. You should know, Sarah, they’ve been hunting for Sad Puppies since 2013. That there haven’t even been any Sad Puppies since 2017 matters not. The hunt goes on.
What those people do is of no interest, and I do not notice their ravings.
On the other hand, I actually bought books a couple days ago. Three of them. First time since Covid. So maybe there’s hope for me yet. ~:D
There’s one reason to be suspicious of AI writing, and that is fraud. I have a recent example: I was looking up “107 Days,” the Kamala Harris book, on Amazon (I was curious about the sales numbers). I noticed that my search was pulling up two books with very similar titles. The second book listed an author with a name that seemed fake and had a cover illustration that was obviously AI, and not done well. I got suspicious.
So then I looked at the Harris book sample, which was poorly written and seemed to fit the definition of “AI slop.” Then I did a search for the author’s name. There were six books published under that name within the past 12 months, all purporting to be biographies of celebrities who had had actual biographies published within the same period of time – I remember one was Dave Barry.
I reported this to Amazon, and the books all disappeared a day later. Granted, this example is a bit of a tangent from the subject of this post, but as AI improves we might be seeing more cases similar to this.
Dinosaurs and history, and parents who would not get toys, but books were almost always purchased, or given for Christmas and birthdays. And folk tales and mythology, because why not?
I agree with Alice that part of the AI-hunt is fraud. Like the guy in Pakistan who was uploading Anne McCaffrey’s books with different titles, author names, and covers, and changing a few words in the first chapter. The ‘Zon finally banned his IP address as well as him (the McCaffrey estate has lawyers, good lawyers). No, he wasn’t using AI (not available yet), but things like that, or what she observed, will push some people. Snobbery and “I know more than you do” will drive others.
Is it a tool that can and will be abused? Of course. Do I have some serious misgivings about mega-scale data crunching centers, and about how LLMs develop bad feedback loops? You bet. Do I want people accusing all and sundry of “This is AI, I know it!!!”? Oh heck no.
CS Lewis’s comments on Inner Ring Syndrome come to mind.
Right now I am reading a popular history of air conditioning (“Cool”) lent to me by a sibling. I do read, although lately it’s been my own work (revisions for an upcoming release plus I got sidetracked in one of the space operas when I was looking for a blog post quote.)
As far as AI drafted works go, I am not offended at their existence, I’ve just not seen anything in that field that floats my boat except short form (few thousand words tops) fanfic written to my specifications, and that was a very momentary gratification thing. I follow a guy on YouTube who does wrangle ai into first drafting for him, but mostly because he also offers advice on prompts and automations that are useful in other ways.
I am primarily a “read for fun” person, although I will read nonfiction out of curiosity or research needs (I don’t much bother with politician/celebrity memoirs or biographies, because I can usually count on their admirers, or sometimes their haters, to tell me the good parts.) The comfort reads discussion here on Monday made me realize that in the half decade since 2020 I have largely burned through my comfort reread, and am not quite ready to face most of them again just yet.
Some non fic is FUN.
Personally, I think AI could be wonderful in animating stories that just can’t be shown through standard movie storytelling due to expenses. I would LOVE to see the video Faith Smith (from Ringo’s **Black Tide Rising** series set to *Tub Thumping* that was talked about in the book. I laughed so hard at that scene.
And I typically read for the fun of it. Though occasionally, such as now, I read to expand my knowledge. Since they keep calling us “fascists” I figured I would go to the source and see exactly what the original fascist meant by the term, so I’m reading **The Autobiography Of Benito Mussolini** which I picked up from Gutenberg
I can think of several comics stories that would be wonderful if done well with AI, because they’ll never get made into a movie otherwise.
Not quite the same thing but I’ve also seen some fake movie trailers that are hilarious. There’s one guy on YouTube that has a whole series of movies re-done with Elvis in them. Everything from Night of the Living Dead to Planet of the Apes. They’re pretty well done.
Then there’s the AI trailer someone did for a disco version of LoTR titled ‘Lord of the Funk’. It apparently has Galadriel dressed in 70’s disco fashion among other things. I’ve yet to be brave enough to look at that one.
A “friend” sent the LotR One Funk to Rule them All video. Um, yeah. It’s brilliant, in a very warped and funky way. The fact that someone even made it causes me to fear for the future of civilization.
Could be worse….. LOTR meets Miami Vice…..
It’s scandalously fun, yes.
My feelings about AI are more…ambivalent than most people here, and with this being the last day before Christmas that I have no commitments, I don’t have time to argue them here. But I do want to say something about this point:
And I hear crazy things, like people saying you should watch an artist paint to be sure he does the painting himself, and not get it from AI.
If I’m good enough with the AI prompts to create a picture that you can’t tell is AI any other way, I’m almost certainly good enough with the AI prompts to use it to create a video of me painting that you won’t be able to tell is AI in any other way.
(Although, in my case, you don’t need it. You can just look at my paintings and be pretty sure that they’re nothing that an AI would ever create!)
This reminds me of the brilliant comedic character created by Matthew Holness: author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor, Garth Marenghi.
“I’m one of the few people you’ll meet who’ve written more books than they’ve read.”
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/264fbfd6-badb-414c-a74f-14414959d858
I have not tried to prompt any AI writing, but I have been playing around with local image generation for about a year now. And just like using DAZ Studio, it takes a good while to actually get the hang of it (instead of just typing in a prompt and pushing generate).
I’ve also combined the two. I recently took some old DAZ renders that were too dark (from my period of “must have realistic lighting even if it’s only candles and torches”) and ran them through an AI workflow to adjust the tone mapping. In under 10 minutes (including the time to set up the workflow once I found directions) I had the whole set fixed. Would have taken many hours to re-render all the images in DAZ. (If I ever find the time to figure out how to use controlnets, I can see a lot more combined approach going on, as making very specific poses is very hit or miss with AI gen images. Take DAZ render with pose, use controlnet based on render to feed into AI workflow, get SF/F scene the way it is in my head.)
Yep. And then video is another level.
I started reading because the house I grew up in was full of books. I kept reading because of the compelling characters I found in them.
AI is a pattern engine. It is very good, and getting better at taking a fleshed out character as describing how they will react in any given situation. I find it is less like stories than it is like a DnD campaign with well developed characters.
And if you want more of a character’s slice of life, it can be very good at that.