JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A large number of authors have a crystal-clear message for publishers - keep AI out of the industry. More than 70 writers wrote an open letter recently outlining their issues with the use of AI in the literary world. Their main demand is for publishing houses to never release books that were created by machines. Solving the problem of when to use AI, if at all, along with the fear of being replaced by AI is a challenge dozens of industries are facing. To talk more about that open letter and how many authors are viewing the fight against AI, I'm joined by best-selling romance novelist Jasmine Guillory. Welcome back.
JASMINE GUILLORY: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: So Jasmine, as I mentioned, you are among those more than 70 writers who signed on to this letter against the use of artificial intelligence in publishing. Just start by setting this up for us. What are some of the issues that you all are seeing, and what are some of the demands that you have?
GUILLORY: The biggest demand that we have is that publishers not use AI in creating books. So that is, ensure that the books that they publish are written by actual humans. But it's more than that. It's that the art that goes on our covers is made by actual humans, that the editors are people, that our copy editors are people. It sounds weird to say that we want humans to be the ones writing and editing and creating books, but that is exactly the main goal of the letter. And I will add that since the letter came out, thousands more authors have joined in and signed.
SUMMERS: Was there something that made you feel like you had to sign on to this? Was there an event that happened or a development in your industry that made you realize you wanted to join into this effort?
GUILLORY: I think it's just been a lot of little things - hearing that covers have been made with AI, hearing that publishers have used, for instance, AI translators to translate books of ours into other languages, you know, vice versa.
SUMMERS: I mean, one of the things that really struck me as I was reading this letter was the emphasis not just on the writing itself but the editors, the copy editors, the publicists, the publishers who have helped to care for and develop and launch the books that you and the other authors have written. Can you spell out a bit how AI is impacting these groups?
GUILLORY: Yeah. I mean, I think publishing already doesn't have enough people working in it, right? Like, editors are swamped. Copy editors are swamped. Assistants trying to join the industry aren't getting the mentoring that they need because editors have too much work. And now they want to take some of that work and give it to AI, whereas we want more people involved, right? We want publishing to continue to be an industry that is about people creating art, people learning from one another, people talking to one another about it.
SUMMERS: One line in the letter that stuck out to me, and I'm going to read it. It says that, "AI is an enormously powerful tool, here to stay, with the capacity for real societal benefits, but the replacement of art and artist is not one of them," end quote. You all acknowledge clearly that AI is indeed here to stay, but you also make note of what you all feel it can't replace. The question I guess I have is, given the fact that AI is likely here to stay, do you see a path forward for authors like yourself in working with it? Is it realistic to think that it won't play any role in writing or publishing?
GUILLORY: You know, there are lots of things in publishing where AI can make a job faster. If you're putting together a book, I'm sure there are certain things that AI can do to make the kind of machinery of it more efficient. But I think the important thing is that the art part of creating a book is made by humans. And that something that I learned in elementary school is that plagiarism is wrong, right? I feel like...
SUMMERS: Right.
GUILLORY: ...We all kind of learned that in an early stage. I feel like we're all recognizing that. But I think too many people don't recognize that AI is plagiarism, that trying to use our work to create AI works is just theft without giving us either credit or compensation for it.
SUMMERS: If the demands that are stated here aren't met by these publishing houses, how do you see that impacting your work, other authors' work?
GUILLORY: We're all kind of talking about that internally. A lot - I've talked to a lot of authors who have put AI clauses in their contracts to ensure that, you know, there will be actual people working on their books. And I think some of that has to start with the top down, right? It has to start with authors who have power to put that in their contracts, and then trickles down to, you know, debut authors who may not think about it or who may not have the power and are trying to work together for this movement and to help one another.
SUMMERS: Author Jasmine Guillory, thank you so much. When NPR first reported on this story, we reached out to all five of the publishing houses named in the letter and received one response ahead of the publication deadline. Simon & Schuster takes these concerns seriously, spokesperson Susannah Lawrence said in a statement. We are actively engaged in protecting the intellectual property rights of our authors. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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