A reckoning is coming for all those authors who for years traded on mediocre prose that can now be replicated and often surpassed by AI. It is very hard for me to feel sorry for these authors, but I'll give it a go, I suppose.
Thanks, Sean. And yeah I do think continually improving the quality of our writing and having a unique voice are the things that move the needle and make writers "AI-proof", so to speak.
HAHA. Well, look, I'm not going to defend Meyers as a stylist but I do understand what made Twilight such a massive success and I don't think AI could replicate it. Not saying it's a great reason either, just that there are some lessons to learn from reading it.
I think we're now in a similar situation with the quality of prose. With the best-written books -- my current favourite is by a young English writer H. Gareth Gavin -- the best I can say is that I doubt AI could *conceivably* replicate its prose for at least 3/5/10/20 years. And the higher that figure goes the greater a prose stylist the writer must be.
If you're interested, my whole Auraist project is founded on this issue (that's why I jumped in here) and is a methodical attempt to find the books whose prose couldn't conceivably be written by AI for at least a decade. From the About page:
A good number of books enthused about by mainstream reviewers and nominated for major literary prizes contain prose that at best isn’t very impressive, and at worst could conceivably have been written by AI. Books like this shouldn’t receive nominations for important prizes or appear on prestigious year-end lists and the like, we believe, no matter how accomplished or original their ideas, stories, or characters. But some lists and reviews feature books clearly written by a human, and occasionally beautifully so.
Auraist’s main purpose, then: to cherrypick from prize shortlists, end-of-year lists, and major reviews the most stylishly, most humanly written books, and in doing so to help support those who write them.
Yeah totally. Not recommending you read it either. It just does a few things really, really well for the market it was intended for. Again, don't even really think they are good things, but enlightening once you see it.
And yeah the actual prose leaves a lot to be desired haha
A reckoning is coming for all those authors who for years traded on mediocre prose that can now be replicated and often surpassed by AI. It is very hard for me to feel sorry for these authors, but I'll give it a go, I suppose.
Thanks for the interview. A fascinating piece.
Thanks, Sean. And yeah I do think continually improving the quality of our writing and having a unique voice are the things that move the needle and make writers "AI-proof", so to speak.
Twilight
HAHA. Well, look, I'm not going to defend Meyers as a stylist but I do understand what made Twilight such a massive success and I don't think AI could replicate it. Not saying it's a great reason either, just that there are some lessons to learn from reading it.
"and I don't think AI could replicate it."
Not yet, Brady, but twenty years from now?
I think we're now in a similar situation with the quality of prose. With the best-written books -- my current favourite is by a young English writer H. Gareth Gavin -- the best I can say is that I doubt AI could *conceivably* replicate its prose for at least 3/5/10/20 years. And the higher that figure goes the greater a prose stylist the writer must be.
If you're interested, my whole Auraist project is founded on this issue (that's why I jumped in here) and is a methodical attempt to find the books whose prose couldn't conceivably be written by AI for at least a decade. From the About page:
A good number of books enthused about by mainstream reviewers and nominated for major literary prizes contain prose that at best isn’t very impressive, and at worst could conceivably have been written by AI. Books like this shouldn’t receive nominations for important prizes or appear on prestigious year-end lists and the like, we believe, no matter how accomplished or original their ideas, stories, or characters. But some lists and reviews feature books clearly written by a human, and occasionally beautifully so.
Auraist’s main purpose, then: to cherrypick from prize shortlists, end-of-year lists, and major reviews the most stylishly, most humanly written books, and in doing so to help support those who write them.
https://auraist.substack.com/about
I've never read it, I've just heard that the writing is terrible. I won't deny that it is or was popular.
I don't think an ai book could. Cuz I just don't think ai will ever be able to have the creativity that we humans do.
Yeah totally. Not recommending you read it either. It just does a few things really, really well for the market it was intended for. Again, don't even really think they are good things, but enlightening once you see it.
And yeah the actual prose leaves a lot to be desired haha
Thanks for reading
Finally catching up on my stacks of stacks... Great conversation here.