Artificial intelligence is increasingly used on the market. Also literary, which may end for literature… differently.
Artificial intelligence and the book market
Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in our lives. Or more precisely: it is being talked about more and more often. Do writers use it?
The latter is different. For example, Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the world, has published a book of poetry. There would be nothing strange about it if it weren't for the fact that the author of the poems is ChatGPT. The item “I Am Code. “An Artificial Intelligence Speaks: Poems” is unlikely to be a breakthrough in the history of lyric poetry, but it raises questions about the sense of such publications. Maybe someone will buy such a volume out of curiosity, but will it have actual value? For many people, the barrier will be the fact that the poems were written by a program and not a real person with real emotions.
But what if we didn't know that ChatGPT was behind “I Am Code…”? Anyone who has “played” with this program knows that it does not create fully professional texts, at most correct ones. At least for now. The use of AI by lazy writers and greedy publishers may make the market situation even worse. We are already inundated with mediocre literature. And it will probably be even worse in the future. Simply “writing” will become faster and easier.
The best writers have nothing to fear. Just ask, for example, ChatGPT to write us “something like Andrzej Sapkowski”. The program cannot reproduce the writer's unique style. “That something” is missing. Average authors, but with the potential to become better, may still have problems. Publishers may choose authors like Remigiusz Mróz, who write quickly but poorly. AI will only make this problem worse.
Avalanche of ads
Another way of using artificial intelligence can be seen in the case of Penguin Random House. This publishing house uses an automatic advertising tool – BookBoost. This, in turn, serves to generate an avalanche of book advertisements. Posts go to social media. Amazon uses “generative artificial intelligence to summarize reviews of products, including books.”
As you can see, AI is starting to be used in the publishing market. There are many indications that this will be to the detriment of the quality of literature and will drive the so-called ghost writers. Authors like the above-mentioned Mróz or Harlan Coben, who create “literary hamburgers”, will probably start using AI programs to write their predictable, formulaic novels.
On the other hand, over time, a fashion for reading books written by people may develop. Publications will even be promoted with stickers: “written by a living person!” (yes, I know it sounds weird today). After all, that's why we reach for literature – to feel real emotions and understand what the author wanted to convey to us. Machines will probably not give us this for many years. If at all.
