It's the Dead Internet Theory in action. While it stays a conspiracy for the Internet as a whole, it is definitely true at particular websites. There are many communities which are just controlled by bots and have no real people there.
It really sucks that we're facing the digital equivalent of climate change with regards to the internet and the content economy on top of the decline of the actual economy and actual climate change. It's all so much.
Yeah, I absolutely can't imagine being a writer who is trying to break in this space. Discoverability is going to be a nightmare going forward.
This is my daughter at the moment. Just gone 21, at university studying Creative Writing. Thing is she was doing so well with Biology etc. Changed about 3 months into her first year. She's had a couple of self published books on Amazon, nothing more than a dozen or so sales. She's going to find it hard to find full time work etc. in her chosen field.
I thought about bringing up technical writing, then I realized that it's a possibility that even that job isn't safe within the next 5 years considering the promising development of Spiking Neural Net. This is something I would probably suggests to your daughter at this point that she should probably reconsider her chosen field and try to enter biology or some stable job.
And work with AI not against it. I mean if AI can quickly make a filler chapter that can be tweaked, more time can be used to make it all get together etc etc. Or so I figure.
That's a really good point. Use the AI to bridge gaps and for short segments. Probably a good way to get around some writer's block.
That's a really good point. Use the AI to bridge gaps and for short segments. Probably a good way to get around some writer's block.
Been there, done that. She has her own mind, so I'll just have to get on board.
Kids eh?
Guess that all you can do, yep.
I dunno, people have been trying to automate technical writing for at least 30 years. The results have been mostly garbage. I'm not sure an LLM is going to understand what's going on any better than the folks doing this work now, it tends to involve lengthy discussions.
There are active researches on world model working alongside with llm. The idea generally is that llm is used for generating text, but world model provide more context for llm to understand the world.
Honest questions: What worthwhile alternatives exist already? If there are none, what can be done? What can be built to improve discoverability of authors while moderating what is visible?
Libraries and some bookstores are great about picking favorites and putting blurbs about them right on the shelf.
Powell's always has great recommendations, I've found lots of fantastic new reads there. I wish everyone had access to one in person, I love that store so much.
This is going to be the real result of the large language model hype train, massive floods of basically worthless “content” made simply to pump metrics and fool investors.
I’m not saying that there is no useful applications for the tech just that none of those are particularly marketable nor do they generate a lot of monetizable utility.
And more importantly it’s not AI anymore than auto complete, spell check are. People insisting otherwise almost seem like they’re trying to start cults.
"Meanwhile the government" by Rentlar
The company was founded in the late afternoon by its founder in a rush to create a more prominently displayed flag. I don't want your kids to know when you get to work.
...View this and much more riveting writing coming soon to the Amazon Bestsellers list!
Be the change you want to see in the world!
I had to pull my kindle unlimited membership… it’s just a pile of crap.
I, for one, can’t wait to read Apricot bar code architecture
Sounds like an indie band
"Folding Ideas" does amazing work on YouTube around exposing grifters in well structured, long form explanations of their grifts.
One of their videos looked into a group of growth hustler type folks, a pair of twins. Part of their scam was automating the process of creating fake books like this from start to finish to sell them online for passive income.
Highly recommend anything this channel creates. Worth your time to have a focused sit to watch the journey unfold (especially if interested in the main subject of this post).
Anyone that buys anything from Amazon is also part of the problem. Support your local bookshop while you still can.
I mean, most of my reading comes from authors who are literally only on amazon. And they're only on amazon because it's impossible to make a living trying to sell your book anywhere else. Brandon Sanderson has brought attention to this issue.
I'm supporting indie authors in a sub-genre that you literally can't even find in a physical bookstore. I get that bookstores are hurting, but I had to make a choice between small time authors and small time book stores.
I, too, have snorted scornfully at this shameful state of affairs.
Behind the Bastards just did a two-parter on this phenomenon but with children’s “books.” Icky stuff. Great episodes, but ugh that this is even a thing.
Part One: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-bastards/id1373812661?i=1000617646703
Part Two: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/behind-the-bastards/id1373812661?i=1000617949358
If this indeed breaks Amazon then at least that is one silver lining of AI. It's a shame indie authors are losing their platform, but they'll find another.
It would make it even more important to have sites like Goodread where books are recommended by communities.
There's even a federated alternative, BookWyrm!
...I guess these days the Fediverse is my hammer of choice, and every problem with the internet is a nail.
To be fair, it a REALLY good hammer.
Welp..this is a problem we have to expect now. What a time to be alive. The scary part is this is basically gen 1. Wait till the books are actually good
When I first heard of the Elon and Zuckerberg cage match, I assumed it was some deep fake thing. I literally had my first experience of not knowing if something was real or AI. I just assumed it was AI. Not until days later did I know it was a real thing.
We should stop making rankings of books...
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