Albert Ignoramus, AI, is a wannabe writer. He would like you to think he is a CHATty sort of guy—or gal.
I have friends who think we are crazy for driving electric cars. “Where are we going to get the electricity!” Good question—I mean, where are we going to get the electricity? Not for the cars. For AI. One source claims that ChatGPT uses 0.0029 kWh per query. Our Tesla (an old one) averages about 0.3 kWh per mile. (A gas car uses ±1.1 kWh per mile if the car gets 30 mpg.)
So, I get to decide—103 querys or drive my car a mile. You gas folks will have to forego 387 querys if you want to drive to get a latte-mocha-whatever. I guess you would have to walk back or skip another 387 queries.
Now we get to Albert Ignoramus’s books. Reema Saleh wrote an article, “Books by Bots” in the September-October edition of the magazine, american libraries. (No capitals in the masthead.) Saleh notes that a search on Lukeman Literary Management Ltd search yields more than 2000 entries. “Material Excluded: text generated by artificial intelligence.” It goes on to say that 60% to 80% of the writing is original and human-written. For the portions that are AI-generated, nearly 100% of what was AI -generated has either been revised, rearranged, or rewritten by a human writer.
So, as many writer have lamented, Al’s books are out there. But, how do we make our books do not look like Al’s books? Saleh gives suggestions for librarians to use to eliminate AI books. I have reverse engineered her comments.
- Make sure the prospective reader can “Look Inside.” Many of Al’s books don’t offer sample text.
- Make sure you have a presence in media. Have a webpage with an About You, with real facts. The days of hiding and penning the Great American Novel may be over.
- Don’t make your title or cover copy a popular book. AI’s books imitate. AI covers look like it. I question some great writers, because their cover characters are a little too flawless.
- Saleh says Amazon and other small pressed don’t weed out AI’s books, so make sure your ads, posts, and webpages make it obvious you are a real person.
And for those of you who are burning up miles having AI write your books, I don’t know what to tell you, except what I used to tell my 6th graders about cheaters: “If you get appendicitis, you better hope your doctor didn’t cheat on the appendix test.” And, better not do an interview about your book or your writing techniques. Just tell them you make up for it by driving an electric car or riding a bicycle.
