The Rise of the Machines

A few weeks ago, I discovered that my novels were used to help create artificial intelligence programs. My books, alongside the works of Stephen King, Zadie Smith, and much better-known writers, were fed into what is called a Large Language Model (LLM), which is a program that generates text after being trained to predict the sequence and order of words from scanning and analyzing other written works.1 The Atlantic revealed that OpenAI and Meta, among others, used a file called Books3 to train its models.

I suspected that might be the case when I first used ChatGPT. I asked it to write a passage in my style. It came up with a couple paragraphs about Nathaniel Cade, my fictional vampire, that almost, kinda, maybe sounded like my work if someone was trying to copy it. It was amazing if the program had never seen any examples of my work; if it had, it was just bad plagiarism.

I’m not sure where the copies of our books came from, but I suspect they were grabbed from pirate sites all over the Net. And now they’re a part of ChatGPT and other AI bots that promise to tell you a story and talk to you without any human involvement.

But nobody asked me, or the other authors whose works were stolen, for our permission. The Authors Guild has launched a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI for using the books, and a group of other writers, including Margaret Atwood, Sarah Silverman, and Nora Roberts, have also sued Meta and OpenAI for pirating their works to train the LLMs.

I doubt I’ll ever see a dime from these lawsuits, even if I am eventually put on the list of plaintiffs. But still, this contributed to a general feeling of dissatisfaction with tech I’ve had for a long time now: this is not the future I signed up for.

I was a tech reporter for a while, and generally, I am a big believer in the capacity for humanity to invent its way out of problems. We have conquered diseases, beaten starvation, and saved countless lives in the last century through new technology.

And then I see something like this, and I think maybe we need to smash every computer built made after the 70s.

I agree with the sentiment I’ve seen over and over on social media: I don’t want a robot to make art or write books for me. I want a robot to mow my lawn and clean my house so I have time to make art and write books.

More importantly, I don’t want AI-generated art. I like to think I can tell the difference between AI output and real human effort. I’ve taken those spot-the-AI quizzes and scored 100 percent every time. I couldn’t tell you how. But something about it always makes my eyes itch.2

I’ve used AI enough to know that it’s not better than anything people can make, only faster. And it depends entirely on the unpaid and unacknowledged work of millions of artists and writers and designers. There is nothing revolutionary or surprising in it.

AI can’t make art because art is, by definition, the exploration of what it means to be human.

Without a human operator to tether it to what we consider reality, AI just spews random numbers and output. There is never a moment where the program stands back from its work and looks at it and decides it’s finished.

That’s not art. That’s a spreadsheet.

This is technology that is, at its heart, not just inhuman but anti-human. It promises to improve our lives, but makes them smaller. It literally cheapens our greatest efforts.

AI, right now, is a solution in search of a problem. We’re building a tool we don’t know how to use to do things we already know how to do. That’s not very smart.

Despite all that, I’m not against Artificial Intelligence. I just want us to apply a lot more human intelligence to our world before we give that job to the machines.

FRIENDS AND WELL-WISHERS

Team Evie For the Win: My friend Duane Swierczynski and his family are once again honoring his daughter Evie’s memory by providing books for kids at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles with their annual Holiday Book Drive. This year, they are focusing on the books that have been banned or challenged across the country. If you can, please support Team Evie and support the freedom to read by donating some of these books to kids who really need them. They especially need new, clean books because they cannot risk infection. You can find the link to the wishlist here. Please select the shipping address for the Evelyn Swierczynski Foundation.

Back to the Future: My online friend Sandra Newman has written a retelling of Orwell’s 1984, told from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover, titled 1984: Julia. Sandra’s The Heavens was not only beautifully written, but an incredibly smart take on the ideas of alternate histories and parallel worlds, wrapped in a story of Shakespeare. She has the ability to make big ideas comprehensible while also conveying what it means when those ideas hit people in practice. The dystopia of 1984 is a perfect match her skills and talent, and I am looking forward to seeing what she does with it.

Kill Your Lawn: My buddy David Madison has done the impossible: he’s made watching grass grow interesting. Or, to be more accurate, he’s made yard work funny. David has a new show out, called “Kill Your Lawn,” hosted by Joey Santore and Al Scorch, is all about tearing up a traditional lawn for more eco-friendly, water-saving alternatives. They’re currently shooting season two, but season one is available on DirecTV right now.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

Finally, my first novel, BLOOD OATH is on sale for a limited time. If you’ve already got your copy, tell a friend.

And as always, reviews and recommendations are available in the comments.