The first thing I wrote that I actually got paid for was a short story. It was published in a science fiction anthology (children’s, this is a book, as if it were printed on paper) about 15 years ago. I was paid by the word, and the pay was very modest. I was happy.
The first thing I wrote that I actually got paid for was a short story. It was published in a science fiction anthology (children’s, this is a book, as if it were printed on paper) about 15 years ago. I was paid by the word, and the pay was very modest. I was happy.Like any aspiring writer, when I first got paid, I already had a desk drawer full of unpublished books: letters, academic papers, half-finished manuscripts. However, success breeds success, and just two years after that first short story, I landed a paid freelance article for law firm websites. I’ve written thousands of them over many years and in many different roles. Although I will now no longer recognize the vast majority of these articles as my own writing, there are still some examples that I look back on with nostalgia, and perhaps even pride.
Today, well, you have a pretty good idea of what I’m writing, considering you’re currently reading some of it. I’m not too worried about the AI replacing me at this point, its guardrails would never allow it to risk offending as many people as me.
But big AI language models may end up taking over things like my initial forays into the imagination and my subsistence work on law firm websites. If this happens, it will crush a new generation of would-be authors who will give up or who will need to get a real job before they have a chance to hone their craft.
Ironically, this may actually help many well-known authors who are now suing OpenAI, Microsoft, and other tech companies claiming that their copyrighted material has been misused to train large language models like ChatGPT. Notable authors who have lent their names to the proposed class action include Jonathan Franzen, George R.R. Martin, and John Grisham.
No offense to John Grisham if he happens to be reading this — ah, sir, I realize you’ve done a pretty good job for yourself, and this way more people (and machines) will read your stuff than they ever will read mine, please don’t bash me on Twitter or X or something else – but no one reads John Grisham’s novels because of the quality of the prose. People read John Grisham’s novels because they were written by John Grisham.
Maybe ChatGPT or some other large language model can one day produce, after a good editor has proofread the manuscript, a somewhat serviceable John Grisham-style novel. What an AI can’t conjure up from scratch is its brand, personality, and loyal fan base.
So, someone like John Grisham could potentially benefit from the rapid progress we’re seeing in chatbots and other types of generative AI. While a machine can’t replace him, some new human authors of modern legal thrillers perhaps can. The people who might stand a chance of making this happen are the kinds whose budding writing careers will wither away from large linguistic paradigms.
Of course, there are other ways to compose beyond your years of toiling as a composer. For example, Jonathan Slaght, author of one of my favorite books, Eastern Ice Owls, says he became an author of popular nonfiction only by chance because of the work he was doing to become a scientist. Whatever the capabilities of artificial intelligence, at least some humans will still develop as gifted writers for their own, perhaps non-economic, reasons, through the distinctively human qualities of grit and persistence.
None of this means that authors at any level shouldn’t get some sort of ownership when large language models train their work. If a human reads your book, you certainly hope that person will learn something from it and go on to use that knowledge in future endeavors; Just as an author is generally compensated for this through book sales, shouldn’t the author also get paid when a machine does the same thing more quickly and efficiently?
Advanced AI chatbots like ChatGPT will disrupt the talent pipeline in the literary world. Those big-name authors suing over this will be fine, and they may even benefit from AI stifling increasing human competition.
Hopefully most of these powerful writers will recognize the dynamics of this situation and make a somewhat altruistic case so as not to drag the ladder after them in front of all the literary talent developing out there. I hate to think it’s just a money grab for a few already wealthy people.
Jonathan Wolfe is a civil litigator and author Debt-free Jordanian dinar (affiliate link). He taught legal writing, wrote for a wide range of publications, and made it his work and his pleasure to be a financial and scientific intellectual. Any opinions expressed are likely to be pure gold, but are nonetheless his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He didn’t want to share the credit anyway. It can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
The emergence of big language models in AI technology has ignited a debate about the potential impact on human creators and competitors. As these models become increasingly sophisticated, there are concerns that they could surpass the abilities of human writers, threatening the livelihoods of established authors. This fear has been further exacerbated by the involvement of AI chatbots in creating content, leading to legal battles between authors and technology companies. The implications of these developments on the future of human competitiveness and intellectual property rights are at the forefront of discussions in the literary world.