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Here's another little epilogue to the AI problem. Robin Hobb (AKA Meghan Lindholm) has discovered that she and other authors' work have been used by Meta in a data set to train AI without their consent. Here's a couple of links to the Author's Guild about the issue... https://authorsguild.org/news/meta-libgen-ai-training-book-heist-what-authors-need-to-know/
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Everyone thinks that AI is going to destroy the world in the same manner that you see in Terminator, I, Robot or Humans, but in actuality it's going to be through spreading mis-information through over consumption of power/water contributing to climate change, AI generated content, copyright infringement, bogus crafting patterns that don't work and fake art.
In other news, Harper-Colins is once again having a 50% off sale, so I managed to snag four Raymond E. Feist books, and a Meghan Lindholm...
Stuff like this really pisses me off, and it's an insult to my grandmother's generation... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynxz2ypv8o
I was hoping to have an afternoon on LOTRO, but it looks like it's their maintenance day. Always seems to happen...
One thing that cracks me up is when you're cleaning, reorganizing, packing up to move home/unpacking after you've moved home, you always find a random object that you didn't know how you came to possess it, what is actually is or what it's used for, all you know is that you have no use for it or that it's trash...
bright-eyes
4 months ago
Random metal objects that seem to come from something mechanical/DIY seem to be the most common, plastic second.
I thought that you might be interested in doing a piece about this on the blog portion of the Reading Project. I've noticed over the past year or so that there are a lot of low quality e-books showing up on Amazon in particular - you can usually tell them because the author doesn't have a fantastic fiction page about them and their books, and they usually have
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bright-eyes
4 months ago
a series of books which have a lot of books in them in an inconceivably short period of time. https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-slop-is-already-in-your-public-library-3/
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readingproject
4 months ago
I've been noticing ads pop up on my feed promoting 'AI' programs that will get your novel written in the afternoon so you can have it published and selling by dinner, sort-of-thing. I made comment about this sort of thing in the sidebar for a recent review on Richard Osman's We Solve Murders. It's a depressing situation
readingproject
4 months ago
I've just finished reading the article. It's really terrible. I hadn't thought about the issue librarians face, of trying to curate their collections and the problems of paying to use low-quality AI-produced material that is not clearly labelled as AI generated. I was speaking to several authors last year who were also depressed about how this is changing their industry
bright-eyes
4 months ago
It is. I first came across the problem with Kindle e-books because I looked up some that looked interesting and then when I opened the page, they were badly written. There are several apps that e-mail kindle book suggestions to you which you can download for free, or low cost and I suspect that most of those are AI generated, or at least poorly written and edited. I now only buy/download kindle books from authors I
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bright-eyes
4 months ago
recognize. It is frustrating as a reader and it's probably equally as frustrating for authors, especially new ones because people will be reluctant to buy/read their work. In some ways, I wished I'd bought a different e-reader because I don't see the same problem associated with other e-readers, and kindle unlimited isn't that useful.
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readingproject
4 months ago
I had an ereader many years ago but didn't enjoy the experience. Reading old fashioned books mitigates this problem to a large degree. But I can see scenarios, long-term, where even that could be affected.
There's a nazi bloke on dreamwidth moaning about people with disabilities and chronic illnesses like it's some kind of spiritual and moral failing. Should I tell the guy that it could happen to anyone, including him? My partner was diagnosed with a heart condition last year, his son in law almost died from a brain hemorrhage in the summer and has only now gone back to work (I hope he stays ok), countless people -
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bright-eyes
5 months ago
we've known have become ill and died with cancer, one friend witnessed a bloke getting shot in the head while he was at work and getting severe ptsd from it, folks in the military can at any time, get permanently injured during their day's work, a person can get injured while crossing the road, a baby can be born with genetic condition...
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We have a normal winter, relatively speaking, compared to what we've had for yonks... OK, it could be because we are further north than we have lived before, but still... So we have a normal winter, and the BBC posts this rubbish... What do you want? We have a normal winter and you try to say that it is abnormal, but ignore years of warm winters because it's more -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn938ze4yyeo
bright-eyes
5 months ago
There you have it, folks. A normal winter is more abnormal than an abnormal one...
Time marches on... But what I think is worrying in conjunction with all of this, is the rise of the far-right all over the world, not just in the US (for obvious reasons), but also elsewhere. I've been following the Bulletin for a number of years now (heck, it always surprises me that the seconds countdown was only announced a couple of years back - it seems longer to me!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqifSCvzaFI
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bright-eyes
5 months ago
Moving it on one second only seems a little bit optimistic - I would have moved it on further. I wonder if Starmer and the rest of the politicians will grow up and start making sensible moves to make things better? Probably not, because we wouldn't be in this mess if they had.
If tech companies can rip off creators with AI, then fan ficers, fan artists, musicians, etc, should be able to make money of work that isn't their own too. (I don't believe that, but changes in law to allow tech companies to use AI to generate money like this is a farce.) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8xqv9g8442o
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Is Channel 5 feeling alright? An actual, traditional, sci-fi space show? I didn't know that those were made now adays...
Storm Eowyn is wrecking havoc with our internet connection and has blown down a panel of the rickety fence... Just about what I would expect from a storm named after the slayer of the Witch-King.
Here's my response to people moaning about students - I want more students because I want more books!
Just come back from a bookshop crawl around town. It was OK, if a bit cold and wet. Now, I'm knackered.
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https://actionnetwork.org/letters/authors-guild-author-letters-to-ai-companies?source=direct_link&fbclid=IwY2xjawJQswBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZjfvr4Rcv1PM5lJzlBuxWyETzRhMZ6ZOOVylGc2Z7nSg3SgT3xRCbGbjw_aem_Oq2_P3YA-rmzjKpn5pCvBA
I did a search on this site to see which authors are in the Lib Gen database, and works from everyone I looked up came up in it, from authors like Tolkien to modern day writers like Marie Brennan.
It's pretty disgusting. You've obviously been following this. You suggested I do a blog post last month about it. I think I'll wait to the beginning of next month when the post will be active for longer. Think I will also include something in my next newsletter. If you want to write anything for either of those I'd be happy to include it in either of those. Thanks