Authors Unite Against AI in Publishing: Over 1,000 Sign Petition Urging Publishers to Limit AI Use

Authors call on publishers to limit their use of AI | TechCrunch

An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators. The letter argues that authors' work has been "stolen" by AI companies: "Rather than paying writers a small percentage of the money our work makes for them, someone else will be paid for a technology built on our unpaid labor." Among other commitments, the authors call for publishers to "make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machine" and "not replace their human staff with AI tools or degrade their positions into AI monitors." While the initial letter was signed by an already impressive list of writers, NPR reports that another 1,100 signatures were added in the 24 hours after it was initially published. Authors are also suing tech companies over using their books to train AI models, but federal judges dealt significant blows to those lawsuits earlier this week.

Authors petition publishers to curtail their use of AI

A group of more than 70 authors including Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire and Lauren Groff released an open letter on Friday about the use of AI on the literary website Lit Hub. It asked publishing houses to promise "they will never release books that were created by machines." Addressed to the "big five" U.S. publishers -- Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan -- as well as "other publishers of America," the letter elicited more than 1,100 signatures on its accompanying petition in less than 24 hours. Among the well-known signatories after the letter's release are Jodi Picoult, Olivie Blake and Paul Tremblay. The letter contains a list of direct requests to publishers concerning a wide array of ways in which AI may already -- or could soon be -- used in publishing. It asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors' consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators -- among other requests. "The writing that AI produces feels cheap because it is cheap. It feels simple because it is simple to produce. That is the whole point," the letter states. "AI is an enormously powerful tool, here to stay, with the capacity for real societal benefits -- but the replacement of art and artists isn't one of them." Until now, authors have mostly expressed their displeasure with AI's negative impacts on their work by launching lawsuits against AI companies rather than addressing publishing houses directly. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman are among the biggest names involved in ongoing copyright infringement cases against AI players. Some of these cases are already starting to render rulings: Earlier this week, federal judges presiding over two such cases ruled in favor of defendants Anthropic AI and Meta, potentially giving AI companies the legal right under the fair use doctrine to train their large language models on copyrighted works -- as long as they obtain copies of those works legally. Young adult fiction author Rioghnach Robinson, who goes by the pen name Riley Redgate, and is one of the organizers of the letter and petition, said these rulings only make the need for safeguards feel more urgent. "With courts allowing AI access to copyrighted texts as fair use, the next -- and possibly last -- line of defense has to be the publishers" she said. "Without publishers pledging not to generate internally competitive titles, nothing's stopping publishing houses from AI-generating their authors out of existence. We're hopeful that publishers will act to protect authors and industry workers from, specifically, the competitive and labor-related threats of AI." The authors said the "existential threat" of AI isn't just about copyright infringement. Copycat books that appear to have been written by AI and are attached to real authors who didn't write them have proliferated on Amazon and other platforms in recent years. The rise of AI audio production within publishing is another big threat addressed in the letter. Many authors make extra money narrating their own books. And the rise of machine narration and translation is an even greater concern for human voice actors and translators. For example, major audio books publisher Audible recently announced a partnership with publishers to expand AI narration and translation offerings. "Audible believes that AI represents a momentous opportunity to expand the availability of audiobooks with the vision of offering customers every book in every language, alongside our continued investments in premium original content," Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said as part of the announcement. "We'll be able to bring more stories to life -- helping creators reach new audiences while ensuring listeners worldwide can access extraordinary books that might otherwise never reach their ears." Robinson acknowledged the steps publishers have taken to help protect writers. "Many individual contracts now have AI opt-out clauses in an attempt to keep books out of AI training datasets, which is great," Robinson noted. But she said publishers should be doing much more to defend their writers against the onslaught of AI. "There are major concerns that publishers might create generative AI titles of their own that could swallow the publishing landscape, or replace editorial workers with AI tools, or the like," she said. NPR 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."

Author's petition requesting publishers swear off AI recieves over 1,000 signatures in first 24 hours

Everyday I find myself writing about AI in some capacity. Occasionally, I get to write about the very cool things people are using AI tools to achieve but usually this isn't the case. Instead, I see endless cases where AI has been used to replace artists and creators, and worse yet it's usually been trained on stolen work from those very people. In efforts to protect themselves, we're seeing growing court cases and petitions like this one put together by authors against the use of AI in books. According to NPR, over 70 authors have come together to release an open letter asking publishers to swear off AI. The group which includes authors Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire, and Lauren Groff posted the letter to Lit Hub, asking publishers to promise "they will never release books that were created by machines." The accompanying petition received over 1,1000 signatures within 24 hours, and has only continued to grow. It sends a clear message to publishers that authors are against the use of AI, but given its their jobs on the line they have a vested interest to be. Thankfully the terms aren't just restricted to saving their jobs, but also doesn't want AI editors or publishers either. The letter isn't just opposed to work written with AI, but any use which includes audiobook readings. The letter states this is because the work that AI does in these creative fields, frankly isn't up to snuff. "The writing that AI produces feels cheap because it is cheap. It feels simple because it is simple to produce. That is the whole point," the letter states. "AI is an enormously powerful tool, here to stay, with the capacity for real societal benefits -- but the replacement of art and artists isn't one of them." AI works have been a hugely disruptive and scary introductions to book sales. Amazon has been flooded with copycat titles blatantly trained on the work of existing authors to get a quick profit. There have even been cases where fake books are attributed to real authors, alongside blatantly made up properties. It's the wild west of algorithms throwing words at walls and seeing what sticks, and hardworking humans are suffering for it. This is only further spurred by things like Audible launching further into AI narration and translation offerings. The fact is that translation has always been available but previously it would cost more because they'd have to pay skilled humans to do it. I'm expecting some very 90s anime dub vs sub situations when it comes to these AI translations and readings. While it's great to see books being offered in more languages, it comes at the cost of real human jobs who'd get those translations right in meaningful ways. This is one of the many things the open letter addresses in its requests to publishers safeguarding the future of these written creations. This is in lieu of the law doing so, with recent decisions ultimately just generating more confusion. What's going to be interesting is whether or not publishers comply, and if reputations will be garnered from publishers who choose to publish AI created content. As someone who's primary medium of entertainment consumption is videogames, I'm also really curious to see how this will flow into my favourite hobby. We've seen Steam overrun with shovelware trash before, but imagine when AI gets its grips fully into gaming. If our comrades in books can help us determine some policy or best practices in advance, then hopefully we'll come out slightly less dog-eared for their lessons.