JMS on why AI won't replace human writers any time soon

[Toby Frost]

I could imagine that you could soon get an AI to write a sort of derivative pulp novel reasonably easily*, where there was no innovation. There's a certain types of novel, both in SF and mainstream, that could be turned out quite easily, although they would probably be very bad examples of the subgenre.

The question of what constitutes quality is an interesting one. Someone once recommended an epic fantasy series to me, with the caveat that the first three books (about 600,000 words) weren't very good, but it picked up after that. With SP books, it does seem that some readers take the sheer quantity of novels as a sign of quality. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions.


* Another aspect of 1984 becomes reality! Yay!

 

[cyprus7]

Maybe some meetbag should apply what William Burroughs did long ago; take one of these BS AI 'books', cut it up, and then reassemble as a living art form?

AI-Generated Books of Nonsense Are All Over Amazon's Bestseller Lists

Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited bestseller list was full of books with titles like “Apricot bar code architecture” and “Jessica’s Attention” earlier this week.

www.vice.com

 

[Wayne Mack]

Maybe some meetbag should apply what William Burroughs did long ago; take one of these BS AI 'books', cut it up, and then reassemble as a living art form?

AI-Generated Books of Nonsense Are All Over Amazon's Bestseller Lists

Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited bestseller list was full of books with titles like “Apricot bar code architecture” and “Jessica’s Attention” earlier this week.

www.vice.com

I am less concerned about AI generated books being published than the fact that they are on a 'best seller' list. This is especially true in that the books seemed to be on the list on Tuesday and not on Wednesday. What criteria constitute a best seller in this case?