An Open Letter
...to our publishers, and the fears behind it.
I will most likely have a longer diatribe about generative AI at some point but wanted to quickly say: GenAI is terrifying. It is terrifying as an artist to watch my creations, and the creations of others, be consumed and regurgitated by platforms with no guardrails, no watermarks, and no legislation. No compensation. No licensing. No acknowledgement of who is being stolen from, and what the intention of the theft is:
Replacement.
I will also add - while it is excruciating to known tech billionaires are behind platforms stealing from artists to enrich themselves, it is so disheartening to see our own book community engage with and support GenerativeAI. It is a soulless creation stealing my creative work and your creative abilities, destroying your opportunities to grow and improve as a writer, an artist, etc.
I’m not stupid. I know the proverbial cat is out of the bag. The best I can hope for now is legislation to hopefully create guardrails like required licensing, compensation for the artists upon whose work the AIs are trained, environmental protections, and watermarking. Unfortunately, our current government is hell bent on restricting all legislation on AI for the next ten years.
It both makes no sense, and perfect sense at the same time. The point is profit, and, in an added bonus, destroying our abilities to think critically. And creatively.
Several of my colleagues and I have signed an open letter to our publishers asking for protections, and promises, to make us feel a bit safer in an increasingly unsafe world for artists.
Author friends & colleagues, if you would like to add your name, you can at the link above.
Thanks for reading, and listening. I appreciate it, and I know we are in this together.
Love,
Victoria
GenAI is terrifying. And not just because livelihoods and the environment are at stake, but because I can’t help but wonder how us as humans will carry on when our stories are no longer written by us, but by machines. We have had stories before we had written language. They were not just something to pass the time but it can be argued that they were key to survival and acted as a guides. And continue to guide us through the world today. Give me a lot of existential anxiety, as if we didn’t have enough
I would be interested to hear more on your AI diatribe because maybe we can also have wise dialogues that aren’t driven by the emotional extremes of being hooked into “rage bait” “pity bait” or ‘FOMO bait.” How many other emotional hooks are secretly embedded….lets see so we aren't only blindsided. Someone recently suggested we use gen AI ONLY to amplify our greatest strength. I am still curious what that looks like…or is it a fantasy? .Maybe it is a Plot Twist podcast inquiry or you can choose how when and where you continue this “AI diatribe”…cos you are the wise Queen, Victoria🙂.