REAL BOOKS FOR REAL PEOPLE

It was lovely to arrive home from work on World Book Day to find April’s edition of Writing’ Magazine in my letterbox.

I write on this significant day in response to points made in previous editions by Piers Blofeld and

Gary Dalkin about the troubling potential impacts of AI on writing and publishing.

Piers pointed out that editors and writers are ‘time consuming and expensive’ to publishers who may in future come to prioritise profits by using an editor and teams of AI inputters to publish books (in some genres of fiction). Piers would like to see those works clearly branded so that consumers know what they are buying. I, for one, would never knowingly buy such a book.

Meanwhile Gary’s Robots Write On feature in the same issue (WM Jan) highlights the significance of 18 August 2023, which he says may come to be seen as a ‘turning point’. ‘On that date in the US, a federal judge upheld a finding from the US Copyright Office that art created by AI is not open to protection’. Gary asks what publisher will invest time, money and effort in a book knowing anyone else can legally have a version on sale online within hours of publication, if that decision holds in the US, which will apply worldwide.

Meanwhile I agree with Piers that we ‘mild mannered bookish folk’ should ‘take off our spectacles and put on our crimson capes’ to fight for real culture and real rewards. I wonder if one way we can do this would be to deploy the small but significant super power – of choosing not to buy any book which is not the product of a human writer - and their human editor.

It may be that, as Piers hopes, Jeff Bezos will turn out to be right - that ‘where book people go, everyone else eventually follows.’

SARAH NUTTALL Horsham, West Sussex