Generative AI
Generative AI has become widely available due to companies like OpenAI who develop Ai tools and have them available for free. For three years now OpenAI’s service, ChatGPT, released in 2022 has made headway in a new Several other companies have AI services, like Grok by X (formerly known as Twitter), Gemini by Google, and Meta AI, created by Meta, the parent company of Facebook. All of these services are generative AI, a type of technology that can create images, writing, code, and even answer questions. Generative AI works by processing data and information from the internet to build large language learning models. Language models are a more sophisticated type of predictive text, where they take data from a large database and look for patterns and distribution odds to fill in the blanks. Some companies advocate for the use of AI, such as Penguin Random House, known for being one of the ‘big 5’ publishers.
Perception of AI in the industry
The big 5 publishers are publishers that dominate the market, especially in the US. It consists Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster. Penguin Random House’s CEO Nihar Malaviya, is quoted by the New York Times as saying, “Hopefully, A.I. will help, making it easier to publish more titles without hiring ever more employees” (NYT). Thomas Rabe, CEO of Bertelsmann the parent company to Penguin Random House, said that AI is “an opportunity for the creative industries” and, “despite copyright issues, machine-generated content can be ‘very positive’” (Ryzhko).
But even if this perception in the publishing industry, AI can’t help publishers to publish more titles without hiring more people. AI can’t be used without human intervention. It is a tool to serve humanity, to speed up the process of writing and publishing, but the number of employees needed will be the same. AI has several issues that hold the technology back from being truly useful, as I fundamentally disagree it should be used at all.
Issues with AI
There are issues of copyright, ethicality, legality, and Ai’s abilities are limited in their efficacy. AI has biases that can affect the type of writing it creates, as well as having a racial bias in the language it prefers. However, since several companies do think of AI positively, it is clear there is interest and motivation for the technology to be used. So in that case, how can AI be used> However, due to its biased nature, the ethicality of using AI, and the practicality of AI, AI cannot be used without a human present. It cannot be the final word on any decision. It is not an infallible, perfect machine. The reason why people use AI is because it is treated as though it is a neutral 3rd party. However, the emergence of this new technology to many is exciting. For many, the future of AI is bright.
The future of AI
Fast-dining establishment Teriyaki Madness is going to air an entirely AI-generated series of commercials this year, and it’s not the first. In 2024, Coca-Cola aired its Christmas commercial. Rob Wrubel, founder at Silverside AI, who worked with Coke on the campaign, said “The intensity of the creative process that used to happen over weeks and months can now happen every two hours” (WSJ). The ads had their detractors and critics, but “System1, a U.K.-based company that tests the effectiveness of ads, found that Coke’s holiday ads scored very highly among consumers, hardly any of whom noted the AI-generated flaws and glossy faces highlighted by critics.” Now that AI is better, the critics will have less to comment on when it comes to the AI’s flaws. The WSJ article these quotes are spruced from, “AI Ads Can Look Weird. Brands Like Coca-Cola Are Making Them Anyway,” also gives examples of ToysRUs and Mango, a Spanish fast-fashion company, also using AI for promotional photos and videos. The question then becomes, is this the future? That isn’t possible to answer at this time. E-readers were once the future of the publishing industry, and have largely fallen out of favor. As the technology stands, I have my objections.
It is important to note that publishers already use AI.
Use in the industry
Penguin Random House published an article in August of 2024 entitled ‘Penguin’s approach to generative artificial intelligence,’ which detailed their stance on AI. The first thing they note is that Penguin Random House and other publishers have already been using AI. An article on their website self-professes this. “We’ve been using AI of one kind or another for a decade or more. Our data science teams, for example, have been developing machine learning tools for sales forecasting and stock management” (Penguin Random House). AI services as a whole are not new; they are generative services that, as Penguin states, “generate some very particular challenges for creative businesses like ours” (Penguin). Penguin Random House then shares three principles for how they plan to share and use AI services. The first principle is “Penguin Champions Human Creativity,” and the third is “We Will Innovate Responsibly.” The one I will focus on is about copyright. “Second principle: we must advocate for intellectual property. We are a major investor in human creativity, and our investment – together with our authors’ – rests on a basic principle – that as a society we value creative work and have mechanisms to reward it. We will vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists” (Penguin Random House).
I don't believe this is true. Authors like George R. R. Martin are suing OpenAI for using their content to train their LLM's without their consent.