NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� For a vast number of book writers, is a threat to their livelihood and the very idea of creativity. More than 10,000 of them endorsed an open letter from the Authors Guild this summer, urging AI companies not to use copyrighted work without permission or compensation.
At the same time, AI is , and no longer just in science fiction.
As present in the imagination as politics, the pandemic or climate change, AI has become part of the narrative for a growing number of novelists and short story writers who only need to follow the news to imagine a world upended.
鈥淚'm frightened by artificial intelligence, but also fascinated by it. There's a hope for divine understanding, for the accumulation of all knowledge, but at the same time there's an inherent terror in being replaced by non-human intelligence," said Helen Phillips, whose upcoming novel 鈥淗um鈥� tells of a wife and mother who loses her job to AI.
鈥淲e've been seeing more and more about AI in book proposals,鈥� said Ryan Doherty, vice president and editorial director at Celadon Books, which recently signed Fred Lunzker鈥檚 novel 鈥淪ike,鈥� featuring an AI psychiatrist.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the zeitgeist right now. And whatever is in the cultural zeitgeist seeps into fiction,鈥� Doherty said.
Other AI-themed novels expected in the next two years include Sean Michaels' 鈥淒o You Remember Being Born?", in which a poet agrees to collaborate with an AI poetry company; Bryan Van Dyke鈥檚 鈥淚n Our Likeness,鈥� about a bureaucrat and a fact-checking program with the power to change facts; and A.E. Osworth鈥檚 鈥淎wakened,鈥� about a gay witch and her titanic clash with AI.
Crime writer Jeffrey Diger, known for his thrillers set in contemporary Greece, is working on a novel touching upon AI and the metaverse, the outgrowth of being 鈥渃ontinually on the lookout for what鈥檚 percolating on the edge of societal change,鈥� he said.
Authors are invoking AI to address the most human questions.
In Sierra Greer's 鈥淎nnie Bot,鈥� the title name is an AI mate designed for a human male. For Greer, the novel was a way to explore her character鈥檚 鈥渦rgent desire to please,鈥� adding that a robot girlfriend enabled her 鈥渢o explore desire, respect, and longing in ways that felt very new and strange to me.鈥�
Amy Shearn鈥檚 鈥淎nimal Instinct鈥� has its origins in the pandemic and in her personal life; she was recently divorced and had begun using dating apps.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so weird how, with apps, you start to feel as if you鈥檙e going person-shopping,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I thought, wouldn鈥檛 it be great if you could really pick and choose the best parts of all these people you encounter and sort of cobble them together to make your ideal person?"
鈥淥f course,鈥� she added, "I don鈥檛 think anyone actually knows what their ideal person is, because so much of what draws us to mates is the unexpected, the ways in which people surprise us. That said, it seemed like an interesting premise for a novel.鈥�
Some authors aren't just writing about AI, but openly working with it.
Earlier this year, journalist Stephen Marche used AI to write the novella 鈥淒eath of An Author,鈥� for which he drew upon everyone from Raymond Chandler to Haruki Murakami. Screenwriter and humorist Simon Rich collaborated with Brent Katz and Josh Morgenthau for 鈥淚 Am Code,鈥� a thriller in verse that came out this month and was generated by the AI program 鈥渃ode-davinci-002.鈥� (Filmmaker Werner Herzog reads the audiobook edition).
Osworth, who is trans, wanted to address comments by 鈥淗arry Potter鈥� author J.K. Rowling that have offended many in the trans community, and to wrest from her the power of magic. At the same time, they worried the fictional AI in their book sounded too human, and decided AI should speak for AI.
Osworth devised a crude program, based on the writings of Machiavelli among others, that would turn out a more mechanical kind of voice.
鈥淚 like to say that CHATgpt is a Ferrari, while what I came up with is a skateboard with one square wheel. But I was much more interested in the skateboard with one square wheel,鈥� they said.
Michaels centers his new novel on a poet named Marian, in homage to poet Marianne Moore, and an AI program called Charlotte. He said the novel is about parenthood, labor, community, and also "this technology鈥檚 implications for art, language and our sense of identity.鈥�
Believing the spirit of 鈥淒o You Remember Being Born?鈥� called for the presence of actual AI text, he devised a program that would generate prose and poetry, and uses an alternate format in the novel so readers know when he's using AI.
In one passage, Marian is reviewing some of her collaboration with Charlotte.
鈥淭he preceding day鈥檚 work was a collection of glass cathedrals. I reread it with alarm. Turns of phrase I had mistaken for beautiful, which I now found unintelligible,鈥� Michaels writes. 鈥淐harlotte had simply surprised me: I would propose a line, a portion of a line, and what the system spat back upended my expectations. I had been seduced by this surprise.鈥�
And now AI speaks: 鈥淚 had mistaken a fit of algorithmic exuberance for the truth.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
