#AI Books Software Review
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AI Books Review – Create Super Profitable Ebooks in Any Niche!
Welcome to my AI Books Review, This is a genuine user-based AI Books review where I will discuss the features, upgrades, price, demo, and bonuses how AI Books can benefit you, and my own personal opinion. This is a brand new AI-powered application that helps you create and sell super profitable eBooks, info products, eBook Covers and lead magnets in just 60 seconds.
Everyone is aware that eBooks often fetch higher prices compared to physical books, and their market growth could be significant due to the increasing adoption of eBooks among consumers. This innovative software program leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline the book creation process from start to finish. Whether you’re a seasoned author facing writer’s block, an entrepreneur seeking to establish brand authority, or an educator crafting captivating learning materials, AI Books promises to be your one-stop shop for efficient and high-quality book creation. We’ll also address potential drawbacks like limited creative control and originality concerns. Ultimately, this review aims to equip you with the knowledge needed to decide if AI Books is the right tool to fuel your book creation journey.
AI Books Review: What Is AI Books?
AI Books promises to be a game-changer for aspiring authors. It’s a software program that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline the book creation process. Imagine this: you input keywords or a basic outline, and the AI engine generates text for various sections of your book. This can be a massive time-saver, especially for those struggling to overcome writer’s block or facing tight deadlines.
However, AI Books is more than just a content generator. It offers a drag-and-drop editor for refining the text, a stock library for visual enhancements, and mobile optimization to ensure your book reads flawlessly on any device. This review goes into more detail about its pros and cons, as well as how it stacks up against other AI writing tools.
AI Books Review: Overview
Creator: Ned King
Product: AI Books
Date Of Launch: 2024-Jul-01
Time Of Launch: 10:00 EDT
Front-End Price: $17 (One-time payment)
Official Website: Click Here To Access
Niche: Tools And Software
Support: Effective Response
Discount: Get The Best Discount Right Here!
Recommended: Highly Recommended
Bonuses: Huge Bonuses
Skill Level Required: All Levels
Discount Code: “AIBOOKS5” To Get $5 Off Full Funnel!
Refund: YES, 30 Days Money-Back Guarantee
>> Click Here To Get AI Books Now & Limited Time Access <<
AI Books Review: Features
Create Unlimited st eBooks to in-depth long eBooks as per your marketing needs.
Loaded With 10K+ DFY Ebooks & PLR Articles.
Fully customizable Drag & Drop Ebook cover builder lets you create amazing ebook covers.
Built-in AI Content & Graphics Generator.
Fully Customizable eBook Builder lets you customize ebook templates and create your eBooks in a flash.
Add Your Branding to eBooks.
Specialized Training to Sell Your eBooks on Amazon Kindle, eBooks.com, Smashwords, Google Play Books etc.
Ready-To-Profit Automatic Account Set Up.
Add and manage unlimited chapters to your eBook.
Flipbook Creator plugin to Convert your eBooks into flip books.
Unlimited Stock Media to use in your eBooks promotion and selling.
Add Conversion Boosting Elements, Lead Magnet Inside eBook.
100% Cloud Based Software
Inbuilt Lead Capture Form for Your Website in Addition to Optin Popup.
Training & Tutorial, plus 24 Hours Support
AI Books Review: How Does It Work?
Just 3 Easy Click is All You Need to Create Engaging eBooks
Step #1:
Choose from DFY eBooks & Articles or Create one from Scratch.
Step #2:
Customize your eBook & Design eBook Cover Using Drag & Drop Editor
Step #3:
That’s it! Download your Stunning eBook and use it anywhere you want or sell it.
>> Click Here To Get AI Books Now & Limited Time Access <<
AI Books Review: Can Do For You
World’s Best AI-Based eBook Creator App
Easy Drag & Drop Fully Customizable Templates to Create eBooks in a Flash
Create and Sell eBooks in Every Possible Niche
Built-In AI-Powered Content and Graphic
Generator
No need to write content and design anything.
100% Cloud-Based Tool Hosted On Reliable Server For Seamless Usage on Any Device
No Tech Skills Required, 100% User Friendly.
Turn Any Article into an eBook with ease.
Fully Customizable eBooks Cover Builder to let you create attractive eBook Covers
Add & Manage Unlimited Chapters to your eBooks
Add Conversion Boosting Elements Inside eBooks — like CTA Button, Images, heads & footer, etc.
Free Commercial License Included
Create a Mini eBook or an in-depth long eBook as per your
need.
Full 30-Day Money Back Guarantee!
AI Books Review: Who Should Use It?
Digital Marketer
Entrepreneur
Podcaster
Affiliate Marketer
SEO Expert
Email Marketer
Coaches
Blogger
Social Media Marketer
ECom Store
Owner
Website Owner
Any Other Possible Niche
AI Books Review: OTO’s And Pricing
Add My Bundle Coupon Code “BOOKADMINMAX″ — For $30% Off Any Funnel
Front End Price: AI Books ($17)
OTO 1: AI Books Pro ($27)
OTO 2: AI Books DFY ($47)
OTO 3: AI Books Flipbooker ($47)
OTO 4: AI Books Agency ($47)
OTO 5: AI Books Reseller 100 ($47)
OTO 6: AI Books Reseller Unlimited ($67)
>> Click Here To Get AI Books Now & Limited Time Access <<
AI Books Review: My Special Unique Bonus Bundle
My Special Unique Bonus Bundle will be visible on your access page as an Affiliate Bonus Button on WarriorPlus immediately after purchase.
And before ending my honest AI Books Review, I told you that I would give you my very own unique PFTSES formula for Free.
AI Books Review: Free Bonuses
BONUS #1: Video Training on How to Publish & Sell Your eBook on Amazon Kindle
Amazon is now the biggest and most trusted online marketplace on the internet, so just having your book published on the Kindle site elicits automatic trust. Publishing your ebook to the Amazon Kindle platform is free and will give you a whole new marketplace full of targeted prospects. So, bring your ebooks into the twenty-first century by publishing them in the hottest marketplace available! And make a successful Internet business.
BONUS #2: Kindle eCover Pack
Inside this bonus package, you are about to receive 50 Kindle covers that will help you make a lot of sales online.
BONUS #3: eBook Creation & Promotion Tricks Newbies
Discover How YOU Too Can Create Your Own Collection of In-Demand, Profit-Pulling Info Products In Just Minutes From Now!
BONUS #4: How To Make Money with Kindle
Marketers that aren’t looking into Kindle are sorely missing out on one of the very best means to generate income currently available online. This is the business model that many rely on because it lets us make nearly 100% profit from all our sales.
BONUS #5: Miscellaneous Stock Photos
Inside this bonus is a bundle of high-definition photos that you can use for your own projects freely.
AI Books Review: Money Back Guarantee
And Your Investment is Risk Free with our 100% Money Back Guarantee
You may purchase with confidence because if you have a technical problem that we cannot handle, just open a ticket within 30 days and we will reimburse you everything, down to the last cent. However, we are certain that once you have AI Books, you will not ask for a refund.
>> Click Here To Get AI Books Now & Limited Time Access <<
AI Books Review: Pros and Cons
Pros:
Increased Efficiency: AI can significantly reduce writing time by generating content, outlines, and character profiles.
Overcoming Writer’s Block: Spark ideas, break creative roadblocks, and keep the content flowing even when inspiration dips.
Content Exploration: Experiment with different writing styles and explore new avenues in your writing.
Accessibility for Beginners: The user-friendly interface makes book creation approachable, even for those with limited writing experience.
Cons:
You need to be connected to the internet to use this tool.
In fact, I haven’t found any additional AI Books issues.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
Q. What is AI Books?
AI Books is an advanced AI-powered tool designed to assist in the creation, editing, and publishing of books across various genres, providing efficiency and quality.
Q. How does AI Books improve efficiency in book creation?
AI Books automates many aspects of the writing process, significantly reducing the time and effort required to produce high-quality content.
Q. Can AI Books be used for self-publishing?
Yes, AI Books is highly effective for self-publishing, offering tools and features that cater specifically to independent authors.
Q. What are the main limitations of AI Books?
Some limitations include issues with creative originality and difficulties in genre-specific writing, which users should consider before integrating it into their workflow.
Q. How frequently is AI Books updated?
AI Books is regularly updated with new features and advanced AI algorithms to enhance its capabilities and user experience.
AI Books Review: My Recommendation
AI Books offers a compelling solution for those seeking to expedite book creation. Its AI-powered features can significantly boost efficiency and overcome writer’s block. However, the crucial question remains: is AI-generated content a springboard to success or a shortcut to mediocrity? This review has equipped you with the knowledge to weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks. Ultimately, the decision of whether AI Books becomes your writing companion hinges on your individual needs, expectations, and commitment to crafting a truly unique and impactful book.
>> Click Here To Get AI Books Now & Limited Time Access <<
Check Out My Previous Reviews: Scalar App Review, AI Gigz Hub Review, WP Funnels Review, Gizmo Review, Auto Health Sites Review, Vocal Clone AI Review, TubeBuildr AI Review, & ClickSchedule Ai Review.
Thank for reading my AI Books Review till the end. Hope it will help you to make purchase decision perfectly.
Disclaimer:
It’s important to note that pricing and specific features of AI Books can change. While this review strives to provide accurate information, referring to the official AI Books website for the latest updates is recommended. Additionally, this review is not a substitute for your own judgment. We encourage you to explore AI Books and similar software options to determine the best fit for your book creation journey.
Note: This is a paid software, however the one-time cost is $17 for lifetime access.
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AppointBee AI 2024: Quick Setup, More Clients in Minutes
AppointBee AI 2024 is a new and advanced AI-powered appointment booking system. It is designed to make appointment scheduling easy and efficient for businesses and their customers.
What is AppointBee AI 2024?
AppointBee AI 2024 is the latest version of a famous appointment booking system. It uses advanced AI to simplify the process of booking appointments. This system is perfect for any kind of business and works on all devices.
The AI in AppointBee AI 2024 helps customers book appointments through a simple chat. This saves a lot of time for both the customers and the business owners.
The Problem: Old Booking Systems
Many local businesses still use old ways to book appointments. This includes phone calls and simple forms. These old methods cause many problems:
High Costs for Call Centers: Many businesses pay a lot for call centers. This is not a good way to book appointments. Mistakes happen often, and fewer people book.
Ineffective Contact Forms: Customers do not want to wait for email replies. This can lead to missed chances and unbooked appointments.
Missed Appointments: No-shows are a big problem. In the U.S., missed medical appointments cost a lot of money each year.
AppointBee AI 2024 can fix these problems. It automates bookings and sends reminders. This makes booking easy and smooth for everyone.
Benefits of Using AppointBee AI 2024
24/7 AvailabilityWith an AI-powered booking system, local businesses can capture appointments any time of day or night. This round-the-clock availability enhances sales by allowing customers to book at their convenience.
Reduction in Staff WorkloadAppointBee AI eliminates the necessity for manual scheduling and constant phone monitoring, enabling staff to concentrate on more critical tasks.
Increased RevenueCustomers, especially younger demographics, prefer online booking options. Research indicates that offering online bookings can boost revenue by up to 125%. Additionally, the ability to accept payments upfront secures revenue and decreases cancellations by 30%.
Improved Customer ControlAppointBee AI empowers customers to view available services, compare prices, and select from various appointment slots, granting them greater control over their bookings.
Optimized PaymentsIntegrated payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe simplify the process for businesses to accept payments during the booking. This streamlines the payment workflow, minimizes missed payments, and allows businesses to impose cancellation fees when necessary.
How AppointBee AI 2024 Solves These Problems
With AppointBee AI 2024, businesses can set up a fully optimized, AI-powered appointment booking system in just 5 minutes. This system is hands-free and very efficient.
AppointBee AI can double the bookings and customers for any local business in a short period of time. Businesses can charge customers on a monthly basis or a one-time fee.
Businesses can also act as an AI appointment booking agency for various other businesses.
Key Features of AppointBee AI 2024
Powerful AI appointment scheduling system for any local business
Clients can book appointments using a simple chat with AI
Auto appointment management using AI
AI showcases all business services
Fully responsive design, customers can book appointments from any device
Works on websites, web pages, landing pages, WordPress, or any CMS
AI collects upfront payment using PayPal
AI sends SMS and email reminders so appointments are never missed
AI rescheduled appointments if required
Captures customer leads and pushes them to your favorite autoresponders
AI tracks time to ensure no double bookings
Full UI customization options to match your brand themes
Extensive appointment settings, covering all businesses
Detailed transaction reports
Export appointments to Excel spreadsheets
Accept appointments for multiple services
Manage multiple service providers or resources
Google calendar integration
Define working hours for service providers/resources
Define vacation days for business
Super easy customization with options panel
Backend appointment calendar and list - customers can see all of their booked appointments at a glance and better manage their time
8 Critical Reasons to Start Using AppointBee AI
1. Solves a Big Problem: AppointBee helps local businesses save time and effort.
2. Affordable Software: There are no monthly fees or hidden costs for you or your clients.
3. Easy to Use: You can set it up on clients' websites in just a few minutes.
4. Quick Setup, Big Earnings: Set up fast and earn over $500 from each client.
5. Simple Client Guide: Get easy steps to find your first client tonight.
6. Great Service for Clients: Build strong relationships by offering helpful appointment booking.
7. Custom Themes: Choose from different designs that fit many types of businesses.
8. Grow Your Income: Help businesses with a needed service and earn more money.
Powerful Features
AppointBee AI 2024 has cool features for local businesses. Here are some of them:
1. Smart Scheduling
AppointBee AI uses smart technology. Clients can book appointments with a chatbot. The AI handles everything else.
2. Easy Appointment Management
The AI helps manage appointments. It can reschedule and send reminders. It also takes payments through PayPal.
3. Works on All Devices
You can use AppointBee AI on phones, tablets, and computers. Booking appointments is easy and smooth.
4. No Double Bookings
The software tracks time well. It prevents double bookings by suggesting new times.
5. Reminders by SMS and Email
AppointBee AI sends reminders to customers. This helps reduce missed appointments.
6. Customizable Look
Businesses can change how the booking system looks. They can set working hours and vacation days.
7. Easy Reports
AppointBee AI gives detailed reports. Businesses can check appointments and customer info.
8. Manage Multiple Services
It helps businesses with different services and workers. You can set hours for each worker.
9. Sync with Google Calendar
All appointments go to Google Calendar. This keeps everyone updated on their schedules.
10. Find New Customers
It helps businesses find new customers too. It collects customer info for follow-ups.
More Features
Easy Appointment Management
You can use a simple dashboard. It shows open slots, bookings, and schedules. Clients can manage their appointments easily. New customers can book appointments without trouble.
Works on Mobile
AppointBee works on all devices. Customers can book appointments on their phones easily.
Built-In Blog
Share important info with our blog feature. This helps attract more visitors from Google. Use a cool image slider to engage them.
Simple Sales Reports
Check recent sales and upcoming appointments. See customer details and payment amounts in one place.
No Double Bookings
AppointBee stops double bookings. Customers get alerts if a slot is taken. They also get other options to choose from.
Custom Appointment Settings
You can change appointment features to fit your needs. Manage time slots, buffer times, and cancellations easily.
Multiple Ways to Embed
Put AppointBee on your website in five ways. Choose from Inline, Popup, or Floating chats.
Get New Leads
Use AppointBee to find new customers. Connect it to your autoresponder to gather leads quickly.
PayPal Payments
Accept payments with PayPal when customers book. You can switch PayPal accounts easily.
Setting Up AppointBee AI: A Simple 3-Step Process
Getting started with AppointBee AI 2024 is quick and easy, allowing you to set it up in just a few minutes. Follow these simple steps:
Configure Business SettingsLog into your AppointBee AI dashboard to input your business information, including services, operating hours, and team members. This setup allows the AI system to efficiently manage appointments, freeing you to focus on your core business activities.
Embed the CodeCopy the easy embed code provided in the dashboard and paste it into your website, landing page, or CMS. AppointBee AI supports various embed types, such as inline, popups, and chat-based embeds, ensuring flexibility for your needs.
Start Booking AppointmentsAfter completing the setup, customers can begin booking appointments through the AI-powered system immediately. The chatbot will assist them throughout the process, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience.
Who Can Benefit from AppointBee AI?
AppointBee AI 2024 is tailored to serve a diverse array of local businesses. The following industries can reap significant benefits from this innovative software:
Real Estate Agencies: Streamline property showings and client meetings effortlessly.
Doctors and Dentists: Manage patient appointments with AI reminders to minimize no-shows.
Chiropractors: Increase appointment bookings without the hassle of phone calls.
Beauticians: Provide seamless booking for services like haircuts and spa treatments.
Consultants and Accountants: Automate meeting scheduling and follow-up reminders efficiently.
Coaches and Course Creators: Manage online course sign-ups and one-on-one coaching sessions effortlessly.
Marketing Agencies: Showcase services and schedule consultations with ease using AI.
How AppointBee AI Helps Agencies
For agencies managing local clients, AppointBee AI offers an excellent opportunity to provide a high-demand service. Local businesses are continuously seeking ways to enhance operations and attract more customers, and an AI-powered appointment system is an ideal solution.
Agencies can swiftly deploy AppointBee AI on client websites, enabling effortless appointment scheduling. The best part? Agencies can charge a premium for this service, either through one-time setup fees or monthly recurring charges. With no hidden costs and a quick 5-minute setup process, it’s a hassle-free method to expand service offerings.
Bonus Point:
AppointBee AI 2024 is packed with exceptional features and exclusive bonuses designed to help you attract more clients and increase your earnings. These bonuses enhance your experience on the platform, making it more user-friendly and effective.
Bonus #1: Ready-made Facebook Ads
Receive expertly designed, ready-made Facebook ads tailored for local businesses. These ads simplify the process of attracting new clients, allowing you to start utilizing them immediately!
Bonus #2: Easy Qr Code For Bookings
AppointBee AI provides a QR code for seamless booking. You can incorporate this code into flyers and business cards, enabling customers to book appointments with just a scan—making the process quick and hassle-free!
Bonus #3: Helpful Powerpoint Presentation
This bonus includes a professional PowerPoint presentation to help you close deals effectively. It contains key insights and persuasive reasons for businesses to choose AppointBee AI, showcasing the value of your service.
Bonus #4: Graphics Pack For Marketing
Access a comprehensive graphics pack to elevate your marketing efforts. This collection includes stunning logos and banners, ensuring your service appears polished and appealing to potential clients.
Bonus #5: Ready-made Logos For Businesses
7 Value)AppointBee AI offers a selection of logos specifically designed for various businesses, such as dental practices and salons. These logos help your clients present a professional image right from the start.
Bonus #6: Special Training Webinar
Join an exclusive training webinar where industry experts will guide you on maximizing your earnings. You’ll learn strategies for client acquisition and how to establish recurring monthly fees.
Bonus #7: Ready-made Brochure
This customizable brochure allows you to effectively showcase your services. Simply add your information, print it out, and distribute it to local businesses to enhance your outreach.
Who should join this?
Local Businesses: Ideal for service-oriented enterprises like salons, spas, dentists, and fitness studios seeking to streamline appointment booking processes.
Service Professionals: Great for freelancers and independent contractors such as consultants, therapists, and trainers who require a reliable scheduling tool to manage client appointments.
Website Owners: Perfect for anyone with a website, CMS, LMS, or landing page aiming to enhance user experience with a professional appointment booking system.
Tech-Savvy Marketers: Suitable for digital marketers and agencies looking to offer appointment scheduling as an added service to their clients.
Entrepreneurs and Startups: An excellent choice for new businesses wanting efficient management without complicated setups.
Business Owners Seeking Automation: Ideal for those wishing to automate reminders and payments, allowing them to focus on other business aspects.
Teams and Organizations: Perfect for businesses with multiple team members who need easy access to and management of appointments.
Clients Who Value Convenience: Attract clients who appreciate seamless integration of appointment scheduling into their daily routines, including SMS and email reminders, as well as payment processing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Appointbee Ai 2024?
AppointBee AI 2024 is an advanced AI-powered appointment booking system for local businesses, optimizing client interactions and scheduling.
How Does Appointbee Ai Save Time?
AppointBee AI automates bookings via chat, reducing manual scheduling and minimizing missed appointments.
Can Appointbee Ai Work On Any Device?
Yes, AppointBee AI is fully responsive and works across all devices, ensuring seamless user experience.
What Businesses Can Use Appointbee Ai?
Any local business needing appointment scheduling can benefit, including medical, beauty, and service industries.
How Does Appointbee Ai Reduce Missed Appointments?
AppointBee AI sends SMS and email reminders, ensuring clients remember their appointments.
Is It Easy To Set Up Appointbee Ai?
Yes, AppointBee AI offers a simple 5-minute setup process, making it user-friendly for any business.
Does Appointbee Ai Handle Multiple Services?
Yes, it can accept and manage appointments for multiple services and service providers.
How Does Appointbee Ai Manage Payments?
AppointBee AI collects upfront payments using PayPal, ensuring secure and streamlined transactions.
What Are The Customization Options In Appointbee Ai?
AppointBee AI offers full UI customization to match your brand’s theme and preferences.
Can Appointbee Ai Integrate With Other Tools?
Yes, it can capture customer leads and push them to your favorite autoresponders for seamless integration.
Top Online Scheduling Software for Better Appointment Management
AppointBee AI 2024 is a done-for-you appointment software that can be set up in just 2 minutes. It is perfect for local and services businesses and provides easy onboarding.
Discover more about AppointBee AI 2024 and how it can transform your appointment booking system today.
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I'm either very stupid or very smart. After reading apocaliptic predictions about AI from people working on AI, I really want to see a computer turning evil without human input that made it evil.
#god dammit#you're working on ai and warn people about dangers of ai#the only threat in this situation is people wanting more power#or money#we measure everything by our standards#the software creating an image of the pope on a scateboard for you is neither good nor bad#and now for something completely different#ai#i read an article and it made me angry#sorry#london review of books
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Ai Kid Book Review-Start Generating Sales and Traffic Effortlessly.
Introduction: Ai Kid Book Review
Welcome To My Ai Kid Book Review Post.
With the appearance of AI, the manner of creating enticing and academic children’s books has been revolutionized. It’s faster, smarter, and tailored to meet the evolving demands of nowadays younger readers.
In place of simply providing a route at the modern use of AI in kid’s eBook introduction, ‘ve taken a jump forward. I gift this course with private Label Rights (PLR).
Why? Due to the fact I envision a ripple impact – in which you no longer only benefit from the insights however can also brand, tailor, and resell this course, transferring its large fee in your clients.
With the AI kids Books Academy, you’re no longer just buying a path; you’re making an investment in a destiny-ready device. A tool that empowers you to
The “AI kid Books Academy” features a wealth of treasured features designed to empower customers with the tools they want to excel in AI kid Books advent and marketing. From complete getting to know materials to professional graphics and advertising assets, this product equips entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, and content material creators with the method to thrive within the ever-evolving digital panorama.
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AI Childrens Book Maker - Commercial License by Eric Holmlund Review
AI Childrens Book Maker – Commercial License by Eric Holmlund – You Can Use These Tools To Create Projects For Clients. You Can Offer Your Writing And Illustration Services To Other Authors, Publishers, Or Companies In Any Niche. AI Childrens Book Maker – Commercial License by Eric Holmlund. As you’ll see on this page, this technology is 100% real and ready for you to use today. To order now…
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Unpersoned
Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!
My latest Locus Magazine column is "Unpersoned." It's about the implications of putting critical infrastructure into the private, unaccountable hands of tech giants:
https://locusmag.com/2024/07/cory-doctorow-unpersoned/
The column opens with the story of romance writer K Renee, as reported by Madeline Ashby for Wired:
https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/
Renee is a prolific writer who used Google Docs to compose her books, and share them among early readers for feedback and revisions. Last March, Renee's Google account was locked, and she was no longer able to access ten manuscripts for her unfinished books, totaling over 220,000 words. Google's famously opaque customer service – a mix of indifferently monitored forums, AI chatbots, and buck-passing subcontractors – would not explain to her what rule she had violated, merely that her work had been deemed "inappropriate."
Renee discovered that she wasn't being singled out. Many of her peers had also seen their accounts frozen and their documents locked, and none of them were able to get an explanation out of Google. Renee and her similarly situated victims of Google lockouts were reduced to developing folk-theories of what they had done to be expelled from Google's walled garden; Renee came to believe that she had tripped an anti-spam system by inviting her community of early readers to access the books she was working on.
There's a normal way that these stories resolve themselves: a reporter like Ashby, writing for a widely read publication like Wired, contacts the company and triggers a review by one of the vanishingly small number of people with the authority to undo the determinations of the Kafka-as-a-service systems that underpin the big platforms. The system's victim gets their data back and the company mouths a few empty phrases about how they take something-or-other "very seriously" and so forth.
But in this case, Google broke the script. When Ashby contacted Google about Renee's situation, Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson insisted that the policies for Google accounts were "clear": "we may review and take action on any content that violates our policies." If Renee believed that she'd been wrongly flagged, she could "request an appeal."
But Renee didn't even know what policy she was meant to have broken, and the "appeals" went nowhere.
This is an underappreciated aspect of "software as a service" and "the cloud." As companies from Microsoft to Adobe to Google withdraw the option to use software that runs on your own computer to create files that live on that computer, control over our own lives is quietly slipping away. Sure, it's great to have all your legal documents scanned, encrypted and hosted on GDrive, where they can't be burned up in a house-fire. But if a Google subcontractor decides you've broken some unwritten rule, you can lose access to those docs forever, without appeal or recourse.
That's what happened to "Mark," a San Francisco tech workers whose toddler developed a UTI during the early covid lockdowns. The pediatrician's office told Mark to take a picture of his son's infected penis and transmit it to the practice using a secure medical app. However, Mark's phone was also set up to synch all his pictures to Google Photos (this is a default setting), and when the picture of Mark's son's penis hit Google's cloud, it was automatically scanned and flagged as Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, better known as "child porn"):
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches
Without contacting Mark, Google sent a copy of all of his data – searches, emails, photos, cloud files, location history and more – to the SFPD, and then terminated his account. Mark lost his phone number (he was a Google Fi customer), his email archives, all the household and professional files he kept on GDrive, his stored passwords, his two-factor authentication via Google Authenticator, and every photo he'd ever taken of his young son.
The SFPD concluded that Mark hadn't done anything wrong, but it was too late. Google had permanently deleted all of Mark's data. The SFPD had to mail a physical letter to Mark telling him he wasn't in trouble, because he had no email and no phone.
Mark's not the only person this happened to. Writing about Mark for the New York Times, Kashmir Hill described other parents, like a Houston father identified as "Cassio," who also lost their accounts and found themselves blocked from fundamental participation in modern life:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
Note that in none of these cases did the problem arise from the fact that Google services are advertising-supported, and because these people weren't paying for the product, they were the product. Buying a $800 Pixel phone or paying more than $100/year for a Google Drive account means that you're definitely paying for the product, and you're still the product.
What do we do about this? One answer would be to force the platforms to provide service to users who, in their judgment, might be engaged in fraud, or trafficking in CSAM, or arranging terrorist attacks. This is not my preferred solution, for reasons that I hope are obvious!
We can try to improve the decision-making processes at these giant platforms so that they catch fewer dolphins in their tuna-nets. The "first wave" of content moderation appeals focused on the establishment of oversight and review boards that wronged users could appeal their cases to. The idea was to establish these "paradigm cases" that would clarify the tricky aspects of content moderation decisions, like whether uploading a Nazi atrocity video in order to criticize it violated a rule against showing gore, Nazi paraphernalia, etc.
This hasn't worked very well. A proposal for "second wave" moderation oversight based on arms-length semi-employees at the platforms who gather and report statistics on moderation calls and complaints hasn't gelled either:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/12/move-slow-and-fix-things/#second-wave
Both the EU and California have privacy rules that allow users to demand their data back from platforms, but neither has proven very useful (yet) in situations where users have their accounts terminated because they are accused of committing gross violations of platform policy. You can see why this would be: if someone is accused of trafficking in child porn or running a pig-butchering scam, it would be perverse to shut down their account but give them all the data they need to go one committing these crimes elsewhere.
But even where you can invoke the EU's GDPR or California's CCPA to get your data, the platforms deliver that data in the most useless, complex blobs imaginable. For example, I recently used the CCPA to force Mailchimp to give me all the data they held on me. Mailchimp – a division of the monopolist and serial fraudster Intuit – is a favored platform for spammers, and I have been added to thousands of Mailchimp lists that bombard me with unsolicited press pitches and come-ons for scam products.
Mailchimp has spent a decade ignoring calls to allow users to see what mailing lists they've been added to, as a prelude to mass unsubscribing from those lists (for Mailchimp, the fact that spammers can pay it to send spam that users can't easily opt out of is a feature, not a bug). I thought that the CCPA might finally let me see the lists I'm on, but instead, Mailchimp sent me more than 5900 files, scattered through which were the internal serial numbers of the lists my name had been added to – but without the names of those lists any contact information for their owners. I can see that I'm on more than 1,000 mailing lists, but I can't do anything about it.
Mailchimp shows how a rule requiring platforms to furnish data-dumps can be easily subverted, and its conduct goes a long way to explaining why a decade of EU policy requiring these dumps has failed to make a dent in the market power of the Big Tech platforms.
The EU has a new solution to this problem. With its 2024 Digital Markets Act, the EU is requiring platforms to furnish APIs – programmatic ways for rivals to connect to their services. With the DMA, we might finally get something parallel to the cellular industry's "number portability" for other kinds of platforms.
If you've ever changed cellular platforms, you know how smooth this can be. When you get sick of your carrier, you set up an account with a new one and get a one-time code. Then you call your old carrier, endure their pathetic begging not to switch, give them that number and within a short time (sometimes only minutes), your phone is now on the new carrier's network, with your old phone-number intact.
This is a much better answer than forcing platforms to provide service to users whom they judge to be criminals or otherwise undesirable, but the platforms hate it. They say they hate it because it makes them complicit in crimes ("if we have to let an accused fraudster transfer their address book to a rival service, we abet the fraud"), but it's obvious that their objection is really about being forced to reduce the pain of switching to a rival.
There's a superficial reasonableness to the platforms' position, but only until you think about Mark, or K Renee, or the other people who've been "unpersonned" by the platforms with no explanation or appeal.
The platforms have rigged things so that you must have an account with them in order to function, but they also want to have the unilateral right to kick people off their systems. The combination of these demands represents more power than any company should have, and Big Tech has repeatedly demonstrated its unfitness to wield this kind of power.
This week, I lost an argument with my accountants about this. They provide me with my tax forms as links to a Microsoft Cloud file, and I need to have a Microsoft login in order to retrieve these files. This policy – and a prohibition on sending customer files as email attachments – came from their IT team, and it was in response to a requirement imposed by their insurer.
The problem here isn't merely that I must now enter into a contractual arrangement with Microsoft in order to do my taxes. It isn't just that Microsoft's terms of service are ghastly. It's not even that they could change those terms at any time, for example, to ingest my sensitive tax documents in order to train a large language model.
It's that Microsoft – like Google, Apple, Facebook and the other giants – routinely disconnects users for reasons it refuses to explain, and offers no meaningful appeal. Microsoft tells its business customers, "force your clients to get a Microsoft account in order to maintain communications security" but also reserves the right to unilaterally ban those clients from having a Microsoft account.
There are examples of this all over. Google recently flipped a switch so that you can't complete a Google Form without being logged into a Google account. Now, my ability to purse all kinds of matters both consequential and trivial turn on Google's good graces, which can change suddenly and arbitrarily. If I was like Mark, permanently banned from Google, I wouldn't have been able to complete Google Forms this week telling a conference organizer what sized t-shirt I wear, but also telling a friend that I could attend their wedding.
Now, perhaps some people really should be locked out of digital life. Maybe people who traffick in CSAM should be locked out of the cloud. But the entity that should make that determination is a court, not a Big Tech content moderator. It's fine for a platform to decide it doesn't want your business – but it shouldn't be up to the platform to decide that no one should be able to provide you with service.
This is especially salient in light of the chaos caused by Crowdstrike's catastrophic software update last week. Crowdstrike demonstrated what happens to users when a cloud provider accidentally terminates their account, but while we're thinking about reducing the likelihood of such accidents, we should really be thinking about what happens when you get Crowdstruck on purpose.
The wholesale chaos that Windows users and their clients, employees, users and stakeholders underwent last week could have been pieced out retail. It could have come as a court order (either by a US court or a foreign court) to disconnect a user and/or brick their computer. It could have come as an insider attack, undertaken by a vengeful employee, or one who was on the take from criminals or a foreign government. The ability to give anyone in the world a Blue Screen of Death could be a feature and not a bug.
It's not that companies are sadistic. When they mistreat us, it's nothing personal. They've just calculated that it would cost them more to run a good process than our business is worth to them. If they know we can't leave for a competitor, if they know we can't sue them, if they know that a tech rival can't give us a tool to get our data out of their silos, then the expected cost of mistreating us goes down. That makes it economically rational to seek out ever-more trivial sources of income that impose ever-more miserable conditions on us. When we can't leave without paying a very steep price, there's practically a fiduciary duty to find ways to upcharge, downgrade, scam, screw and enshittify us, right up to the point where we're so pissed that we quit.
Google could pay competent decision-makers to review every complaint about an account disconnection, but the cost of employing that large, skilled workforce vastly exceeds their expected lifetime revenue from a user like Mark. The fact that this results in the ruination of Mark's life isn't Google's problem – it's Mark's problem.
The cloud is many things, but most of all, it's a trap. When software is delivered as a service, when your data and the programs you use to read and write it live on computers that you don't control, your switching costs skyrocket. Think of Adobe, which no longer lets you buy programs at all, but instead insists that you run its software via the cloud. Adobe used the fact that you no longer own the tools you rely upon to cancel its Pantone color-matching license. One day, every Adobe customer in the world woke up to discover that the colors in their career-spanning file collections had all turned black, and would remain black until they paid an upcharge:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process
The cloud allows the companies whose products you rely on to alter the functioning and cost of those products unilaterally. Like mobile apps – which can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking legal liability – cloud apps are built for enshittification. They are designed to shift power away from users to software companies. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it. A cloud app is some Javascript wrapped in enough terms of service clickthroughs to make it a felony to restore old features that the company now wants to upcharge you for.
Google's defenstration of K Renee, Mark and Cassio may have been accidental, but Google's capacity to defenstrate all of us, and the enormous cost we all bear if Google does so, has been carefully engineered into the system. Same goes for Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and anyone else who traps us in their silos. The lesson of the Crowdstrike catastrophe isn't merely that our IT systems are brittle and riddled with single points of failure: it's that these failure-points can be tripped deliberately, and that doing so could be in a company's best interests, no matter how devastating it would be to you or me.
If you'd like an e ssay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service
Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
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Other Fandom Archives
At least, other ones running on the otw-archive software!
SquidgeWorld Archive
Open to all fandoms, SqWA is run under the nonprofit squidge.org! In addition to the archive there, Squidge also offers image hosting, podfic hosting and a bunch of other excellent services. Beyond that, it utilizes more extensive archive warnings than AO3 and also accommodates two additional relationship categories! SqWA has a no-AI policy that is both up front legally and implemented behind the scenes through various coding measures.
The TOS is here. The information about the additional warnings can be found here.
--
Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive
A single-fandom Star Trek fanfiction archive, this one's home for any and all Trek fandom! Using the same warnings as AO3, but a much stricter (and therefore searchable) tagging scheme, Ad Astra's also connected to one of the friendliest and most supportive Trek communities on the internet! We run weekly challenges, monthly review/comment hunts and like the other archives, we take a very hardline stance against AI both in actual terms and in firewalling the site. AI 'bots can't even reach the server before getting sucked into a black hole of 4XX errors and bannination jail!
There's an additional QPR (Queer-platonic relationships) tag accepted in the form of Character A ~ Character B, as well. Two invitations go out once a day, unless you want to contact me directly, then I can send one immediately.
Find the site FAQs here, please pay special attention to the posting rules!!
--
superlove
Run off of a macbook by a very talented young person, superlove is for all fandoms and original fiction and pretty much whatever else melo wants to open the doors for! In addition to the same archive warnings and relationships available to people using AO3, superlove also has a few more warnings that users can use and both QPR and vs. tags for queer-platonic and adversarial relationships. Given this is largely a private project, please make sure you review the rules carefully.
--
Comic Fanfiction Authors Archive
The CFAArchive is an archive built specifically for comic book and comic animation adjacent fandoms, rather than live-action properties! It uses the same archive warnings as AO3 and Ad Astra, but has the two additional tags QPR and vs. for queer-platonic and adversarial relationships! Much like Ad Astra, the tagging scheme on the CFAA is very strict to maximize searchability and minimize tag-spamming. There's also an attached Discord, where we run a bi-weekly writing challenge, the occasional comment/review hunt and a monthly focus feature where everyone reads a book, discusses it and creates based on it! If you love comic books and comic animation properties, this is the place for you!
Much like Ad Astra, the filtering out of AI 'bots is extremely strict; they get 4XX'd into oblivion and so far, none have gotten through since the new firewall rules were implemented, so you actually can leave works unlocked if you like with minimal (though never nonexistent) concern about them being scraped.
Two invitations go out once a day, unless you want to contact me directly, then I can send one immediately.
The TOS is here; please read the rules carefully! The tagging FAQ is here; don't be intimidated, it's not hard once you get into the swing!
#squidgeworld#ad astra#trek fanfic#superlove#cfaarchive#comic book fanfiction#otw-archive#feel free to signal boost!
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Comprehensive List of Tips for Self-Publishing Authors
Cover Design
"Never judge a book by its cover" is a philosophy very rarely followed by most readers, so it's important to make sure your cover is as eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing, and true to your story as possible. The cover should encompass what your story is about and it should give the reader a glimpse into the world you've spent years creating.
For most of us who are not artistically inclined, trying to create a cover design on our own is incredibly challenging. When you find yourself unable to generate an exemplary product, you may need to turn to a freelance designer or a company that specializes in poster/book cover graphics. Here are some options for you to explore:
Fiverr - budget-friendly, ample reviews from previous customers, and examples of work are provided by the designer, but make sure to be aware of AI use so your product is made authentically.
BespokeBookCovers - this company asks that you give a short synopsis of your book, along with some basic details, then you will be contacted to discuss more about what you are looking for. They do require a 50% deposit prior to beginning the design, but you do receive the product within 12 business days. They also ensure you are completely satisfied with the product before the transaction is complete. This company may not be the best for fantasy authors as most of their covers have more of a Colleen Hoover-esque aesthetic.
Miblart - This is a wonderful cover design company for fantasy writers, as evident in the examples provided on their website's home page. They do not require prepayment and offer payment installations in case the total cost at once puts a financial strain on you.
Editing and Formatting
Similarly to traditional publishing, you need to thoroughly self-edit your work before submitting it for professional editing. Suppose you feel as though you are proficient enough in editing that you do not require professional services or you cannot accommodate the cost. In that case, I suggest using workbooks or software to make sure your grammar and syntax are as high quality as possible. Here is a list of editing tools that can help you review your work:
Grammarly - a good resource for spelling, but it often flags intentional word-choice and sentence structure to make it more simple, which may be incompatible with your writing style. Also be aware of incorrect suggestions.
The Copyeditors Handbook - offers a guide to book publishing and addresses common writing errors. Does come with a workbook to help you exercise your skills.
It's also important that you understand the risks of self-editing. Sometimes it's hard to see flaws in your own story/writing because you already know all of the details. The reader does not have this knowledge, so certain plot points, wording, or details may be lost on them. Having a second set of eyes is incredibly beneficial to help you solve this problem. Here are some outside editing tools:
UpWork - allows you to list a job and review applicants. Each applicant is verified to be real, and you can sample some of their work and their credentials by viewing their profile.
Reedsy - employs Big Five editors to find a proper match for your writing
Raab & Co. - a self-publishing company that helps match you to a professional editor
ISBN
An ISBN number can help readers identify and find your book across multiple platforms, given that an ISBN is a unique number. You can buy an ISBN through Bowker or ISBN.org. An ISBN number on this website costs about $150 USD. This is not a necessary step, so no worries if you don't get one. It simply helps your book be more recognizable and appear more professional.
Pricing
The best way to figure out how to price your book is to look at similar publications on the platform you intend to publish on. Amazon is the most common, so look at your options. Generally, you can publish the book for a fixed price, or you can use Kindle Unlimited. Here's a list of pros and cons for Kindle Unlimited:
Pros:
Paid per page read, which is amazing for longer works or series
Saves a lot of time and effort as most of the work is done by Amazon, and it can generate more income than other platforms
Gain popularity because each time someone checks out your book or adds it to their library, it counts as a sale in your sales rank, which can boost your profile
Cons:
Unable to publish more than 10% of your book on any other platform while it is available on Kindle Unlimited, which limits your ability to reach a greater audience
Sometimes the length of the book affects income more so than the quality of the writing itself, so your book may be incredible well-written but have a lower sales rank.
#book blog#authors#bookish#books#bibliophile#bookworm#books & libraries#book review#booklr#self publishing#self publication#author#independent publishing#writing tips#writing resources#basics of self publishing#creative writing#writing#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writers and poets#writerscommunity
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about me [2]
tags
media
Some of the things I enjoyed watching are listed below, in case you want to talk about them with me or just know more about my personality! I love to chat with other people. I am an open book.
Bold is something I love.
- movies/shows -
sci-fi > 2001: A Space Odyssey, Avatar: Rise of the Na'vi, Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation, Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, Person of Interest, Resident Evil, Snowpiercer, Tomorrowland, V for Vendetta, Wall-E
fantasy > My Little Pony, Puella Magi: Rebellion, Steven Universe, The Batman 2022, Witcher
- anime -
Demon Slayer, Dungeon Meshi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Terror in Resonance, Magia Record, My Hero Academia
- misc. fandom -
Create for Minecraft, Dano's Rose Garden, Friendship is Optimalverse, Human Domestication Guide, KoboldAI, Nova Sector, OpenPony for Second Life, Open Source Free Realms, OS/OR Objectum [Disembodied AI], Riddler Year One, Retro Demoscene, Retro Text to Speech Software/Hardware
- youtube -
💚entertainment:
Trixie Mattel, Upper Echelon, WigWoo1, oompaville
🖥️ tech :
hacking > F11snipe, John Hammond, Kevin Fang, Loi Liang Yang, The PC Security Channel, Tyler Ramsbey
news > Computer Clan, Cybernews, Digital Trends, Gamers Nexus, Seytonic, Techquickie, ThrillSeeker
repair > Connor Leschinsky [Vintage Animatronics], EEVBlog, Louis Rossmann, northwestrepair, Paul Daniels
scambaiting > Jim Browning, Kitboga, NanoBaiter, Scammer Payback, The Hoax Hotel
production > Berry Bunny [Crystal Frost Viewer], DankPods [MP3 Player 'Nugget's], Engineered Arts [AMECA], Jauwn [Cryptogame Scammers], pacarena abel cirilo [OsakaOS]
🎮 games :
minecraft > Mischief of Mice, Mr. Beardstone, PitFall, Qwuiblington, SalC1, slicedlime, The Duper Trooper, TheMisterEpic, Zaypixel, zman1064
mmorpgs > Force Gaming, Josh Strife
misc > Acai, CrabBar, Freylaverse, habie147, H.O.D, Laacer, Leaf, Let's Game It Out, Luke Stephens, MONI, penguinz0, Shirley Curry, SidAlpha, Sorenova, SunlessKhan, Vinesauce Joel
production > Muno, Rebelzize [Skyblivion], TeamFOLON [Fallout: London], Unitystation
🎥 'edu'tainment :
docuseries > Ahoy, PleaseBee, Computerphile, Journey to the Microcosmos, Moth Light Media, Past Eons Productions, Quinton Reviews, Technology Connections, danooct1
education > Josh's Channel, Branch Education, SciShow, Kurzgesagt, 3Blue1Brown, Alan Zucconi, Art of the Problem, Defunctland, Dodoid, Lily's Cutie World, Philosophy Tube
programming > Black Hat, Code Bullet, sentdex, OALabs, RetroDemoScene, Sun Knudsen, Tech Rules, Travis Baldree
entertainment > Captain Disillusion, Michael MJD, Harry101UK, Jim Abernethy, K Klein, Legal Eagle, LEMMiNo, Lindsay Ellis, NHRL, Strange Parts, William H Baker, Coffeezilla, The Official Channel, Kira
🥣 cooking :
BORED, emmymade, Haphazard Homestead, The Nature Nerd, The Pasta Queen, Townsends
technology
I own a Steam Deck, gaming PC and laptop. Technology is my special interest; I hyperfixate on machine learning, hardware repair, programming and hacking.
👾 programming :
I know a little bittle of Assembly, CSS, C#, C++ and JS, and a lottle of HTML and LSL!
I've written a Google Gemini API bridge for Second Life. I've also written a worn headpatter that lets people feed you snacks and a dynamic terrain footstep "library", and heavily modified the Ostiabs' Elevenlabs TTS.
I wrote a feed-forward non-parallel reinforcement network before - it was a pet doggy! I've modified pretrained genetic perceptrons. I selfhost an ethically trained 20b fp32 8-bit quant'd gguf GPT-3, and sometimes an ethically trained 13b 8bit gguf llama3 GPT-3.5.
Closing thoughts: my beliefs on AI are strong, just because I love machine learning doesn't mean I have to capitulate my values... I don't like company solutions (barring, say, runbox). I take little issue with ethically trained models save for AI art models. We just don't live in a society where they are capable of being ethically or morally feasible.
🤫 hacking :
I once got to have a conversational spot with a cybersecurity analyst who is famous on YouTube!!
I've done a miniscule amount of reverse-engineering for the ForgeLight engine, its' packet opcodes and its' asset server hierarchy.
I've reverse-engineered one of the scantly mentioned annoying crash exploits performed by Minecraft masscan botnets... it intentionally crashes Fabric servers in a magically stupid way via a popular library!
I love WinDBG and am well-versed in reading dmp files from it, and you should totally send me your full untampered memory dump right now. [/j]
🕹️gaming :
singleplayer > Audiosurf 2, Flight Rising, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, FATE: The Cursed King, GemCraft, Jurassic World 2, Orwell, Planet Zoo, Resident Evil, Sims 2
multiplayer with mod > Creatures: Docking Station, Peggle, Rimworld, Sims 3, Sims 4, Skyrim, Slime Rancher, Subnautica, Webkinz
multiplayer > ARK:SE, Bloons TD 6, Depth, Dino Run SE, Distance, Don't Starve Together, Dying Light, Fall Guys, Golf With Your Friends, Guild Wars 2, Minecraft, MultiVersus, Path of Titans, Party Animals, Palworld, Risk of Rain 2, Second Life, Space Station 13, Space Station 14, Starbound, The Isle, Tower Unite, Unitystation
🔎 misc. factoids :
I have autism, C-PTSD, OCD, chronic pancreatitis and gastroparesis. I don't have a gallbladder. I used to have some malingering psychosis dx when I was younger, but for some reason I grew out of experiencing visual or physical hallucinations and only get sound ones or the feeling of being watched (good thing I made it Weird. That's a great coping mechanism actually, highly recommend) and I don't really think I fit in that dx at all.
Part of my autism is being hyperspecific and logorrheic. It's a big part of my life, sorry!
I am transmasc, and I don't have fallopian tubes, ovaries* or a uterus. 😎
I love matcha green tea, soymilk, maple, sweet red bean, setsumaimo and honey. My favorite food is avocado sushi or veggie cabbage dumplings.
I love medicine, especially biotechnology and pharmacology. I love reading medical papers. I love pirating them!! Shout out to Elsevier for hosting such piratable ones!!!
I'm super bodily transhumanist. I have a Freestyle Libre and a PEG-J feeding tube!
I'm completely immune to the entire class of benzodiazepines and my body doesn't process morphine. I have no idea if it's just not demethylating or I have opioid receptor polymorphism, but the latter is more likely than the former. That makes me tough :3c
I totally fully believe everything my favorite characters do is morally correct and will imitate it in real life, and I fully condone all of their horrible actions! /j/j/j/j
Thanks for reading, I hope we can be friends!
*I have one free-floating ovary, technically...
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MagicStory Books Review – Create & Profits HQ Kids’ StoryBooks
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MagicStory Books Review: Overview
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MagicStory Books Review: Pros and Cons
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No issues reported, it works perfectly!
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Check Out My Previous Reviews: OneAI Review, CreateBank Review, VideoCourseAI Review, AutoNichePro Review, MindBuddy AI Review, RapidStoreZ Review, & PetSites AI Review.
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Book Review: ‘Service Model’
A robot valet sets out in search of a brain
June 7, 2024 Dan Friedman
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new book, Service Model, follows the picaresque adventures of an android valet as he wanders around a post-apocalyptic world trying to execute his task list. Although civilization is in rubble, Uncharles – the service model of the title — is resolutely intent on finding a master whose laundry he can iron and whose clothes he can lay out.
Tchaikovsky is best known for writing multiple series of space opera: thrillers of the future with blasters and lasers galore. Service Model, however, is an intentional change of genre and the wry Service Model, never steps off Earth.
The blurbs hail it as a mix between Martha Wells’ Murderbot—about a laconic, self-conscious, reformed mercenary killer robot — and John Scalzi’s Redshirts — about protagonists who become increasingly aware of their status as protagonists in someone else’s story. And there are similarities, But it has an equally close connection to TJ Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets.
Where Klune pulls deeply on the Pinocchio story for Puppets’ androids in a post-human future, Tchaikovsky takes the Wizard of Oz for his tin man’s adventures. Though he continuously, and fascinatingly perceives her as another tin man, Uncharles even develops a Dorothy when he encounters The Wonk at the Diagnostics department of Central Services.
Uncharles was called Charles when he carried out an unfortunate, fatal razor slice while shaving his master. This murder — which even his memory logs cannot explain or even fully describe — kicks off the plot. After an investigation into the murder by a comically bad android police detective, the AI house majordomo uncouples from the valet, effectively exiling Charles. His search for a software fix and then new station takes up the rest of the book.
He adventures through a wasteland mostly denuded of humans, meeting a variety of other robots fulfilling their tasks in ways that their instructors had not intended: from a repair station that clears its waiting room with a compactor, to a library that archives information down to its minimal binary units, from war robots that must continually fight and then consume one another, to a court robot that has decided everybody is guilty.
All the while, The Wonk—and eventually Uncharles—consider whether Uncharles’ own emerging abilities to deal with life are evidence that he has gone beyond the coding of his own “human-facing” abilities to show symptoms of the mythic “Protagonist virus.” Which is just another way to say, does he have a brain? I won’t spoil the ending, but if you’ve seen the film of the Wizard of Oz, you won’t need spoilers.
No longer just a fictional concept, AI grows ever harder to write about. We feel like children when faced with it, so employ children’s myths to confront it. The Wizard of Oz is a good start for a satirical allegory and — like Gulliver’s Travels which Service Model also resembles — the simplicity of the plot’s premises belie a philosophical depth as they unfold, play out, and layer up. As with Jonathan Swift, Tchaikovsky relishes the absurdities he has invented and, though both the humor and its content can be bleak, it’s often delicious and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.
There ends up being no place like home for Uncharles and The Wonk, but how they find a place for themselves in a mostly post-human future is worth reading.
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artificial intelligence is not whimsical magic, it's theft
AI is to art and creativity what the Dementor's Kiss is to wix: extraction of the soul
Artificial intelligence technologies work like this:
Developer creates an algorithm that's really good at searching for patterns and following commands
Developer creates a training dataset for the technology to begin identifying patterns - this dataset is HUGE, so big that every individual datapoint (word/phrase/image etc) cannot be checked for error or problem
Developer releases AI platform
User asks the platform for a result, giving some specific parameters, often by inputting example data (e.g. images)
The algorithms run, searching through the databank for strong matches in pattern recognition, piecing together what it has learned so far to create a seemingly novel response
The result is presented to the user as "new" "generated" content, but it's just an amalgamation of existing works and words that is persuasively "human-like" (because the result has been harvested from humans' hard word!)
The training dataset that the developers feed the tool oftentimes amount to theft.
Developers are increasingly being found to scrape the internet, or even licensed art or published books - despite copyright licensing! - to train the machine.
AI does not make something out of nothing (a bit like whichever magical Law it is, Gamp's maybe? idk charms were never my main focus in HP lore). AI pulls from the resources it has been given - the STOLEN WORDS AND IMAGES - and mashes them together in ways that meet the request given by the user. It looks whimsical, but it's actually incredibly problematic.
Unregulated as they are now, AI technologies are stealing the creative ideas, the hearts and souls of art in all forms, and reducing it to pattern recognition.
On top of that, the training datasets that the technologies are given initially are often incredibly biased, leading to them replicating racist, misogynistic, and otherwise oppressive stereotypes in their results. We've already seen the "pale male" bias uncovered in the research by Dr Timnit Gebru and her colleagues. Dr Gebru has also been vocal about the ethical implications of AI in terms of the ecological costs of these softwares. This brilliant article by MIT Technology Review breaks down Dr Gebru's paper that saw her fired from Google, the main arguments of which are:
the ecological and financial costs are unsustainable
the training datasets are too large and so cannot be properly regulated for biases
research opportunity costs (AI looks impressive, but it doesn't actually understand language, so it can be misleading/misdirecting for researchers)
AI models can be convincing, but this can lead to overreliance/too much trust in their accuracy and validity
So, artificial intelligence technologies are embroiled in numerous ethical issues that are far from resolved, even beyond the very real, very important, very concerning issues of plaigarism.
In fandom terms, this comes to be even more problematic when chat bots are created to talk with characters, like the recently discussed High Reeve Draco Malfoy chatbot that has some Facebook Groups in a flurry.
Transformative fiction is tricky in terms of what is ethical/fair transformation of transformative works. I will argue, though that those hemming and hawings are moot since Sen removed Manacled from ao3 because she is creating an original fiction story for publication after securing a book deal (which is awesome and I'm very excited to support them in that!).
Moreover, the ethical problems redouble when we take into consideration that feeding Manacled to an artificial intelligence chatbot technology means that reproductions and repackagings of Sen's work is out of their hands entirely. That data cannot be recovered, it will never be erased from the machine. And so when others use the machine, the possible word combinations, particular phrasings, etc will all be input for analysis, reforming and reproduction for other users.
I don't think people understand the gravity of the situation around data control (or, more specifically, the lack of control we have of the data we input into these technologies). Those words are no longer our own the second we type them into the text box on "generative" AI platforms. We cannot get those ideas or words back to call our own. We cannot guarantee that someone else won't use the platform to write something and then use it elsewhere, claiming it's their own when it is in fact ours.
There are serious implications and fundamental (somewhat philosophical, but also very real and extremely urgent) questions about ownership of art in this digital age, the heart of creativity, and what constitutes original work with these technologies being used to assist idea creation or even entire image/text generation.
TLDR - stop using artificial technologies to engage with fandom. use the endless creative palaces of your minds and take up roleplaying with your pals to explore real-time interactions (roleplay in fandom is a legit thing, there are plenty of fandoms that do RP; this is your chance to do the same for the niche dhr fandoms you're invested in).
Signed, a very tired digital technologies scholar who would like you all to engage critically with digital data privacy, protection, and ethics, please.
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My Book Review
"If you're not paying for it, you're the product."
Your Face Belongs to Us is a terrifying yet interesting journey through the world of invasive surveillance, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and biometric data collection by way of the birth and rise of a company called Clearview AI — a software used by law enforcement and government agencies in the US yet banned in various countries. A database of 75 million images per day.
The writing is easy flowing investigative journalism, but the information (as expected) is...chile 👀. Lawsuits and court cases to boot. This book reads somewhat like one of my favorite books of all-time, How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt (my review's here), in which it delves into the history from birth to present while learning the key players along the way.
Here's an excerpt that keeps you seated for this wild ride:
“I was in a hotel room in Switzerland, six months pregnant, when I got the email. It was the end of a long day and I was tired but the email gave me a jolt. My source had unearthed a legal memo marked “Privileged & Confidential” in which a lawyer for Clearview had said that the company had scraped billions of photos from the public web, including social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to create a revolutionary app. Give Clearview a photo of a random person on the street, and it would spit back all the places on the internet where it had spotted their face, potentially revealing not just their name but other personal details about their life. The company was selling this superpower to police departments around the country but trying to keep its existence a secret.”
#your face belongs to us#kashmir hill#thechanelmuse reviews#book recommendations#articifial intelligence#facial recognition#hoan ton that#clearview ai
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Hello writers,
Besides Audible and Audiobooks, have you had your books converted to speech/voice? If so, what company did you use?
If not, have you thought about using AI text-to-speech software over using a live narrator? How does one turn the audio file into an audiobook and release it to the wild?
-- So, with that in mind, I asked Co-Pilot this same questions - here's what it said: "Converting Books to Audiobooks Using AI Text-to-Speech Software" There are several tools and platforms that allow you to convert your books or other written content into audiobooks using AI-driven text-to-speech technology. Here are some options:
1) Narakeet: Narakeet offers an online service that can transform your Word documents, EPUB files, or PDFs into audio recordings using lifelike text-to-speech voice generators. You can choose from a variety of voices in over 100 languages. Simply upload your book chapters, select a voice, and let Narakeet generate the audio for you. You’ll receive an MP3, WAV, or M4A file. This is a great option if you want a quick and efficient way to create audiobooks without hiring voice artists.
2. TTSReader: TTSReader allows you to upload EPUB files and converts them into spoken audio. It’s particularly useful for turning ebooks into audiobooks. You can find thousands of free EPUB books on sites like Project Gutenberg. After conversion, you’ll have an MP3 or WAV file ready for distribution.
3) Speechki: Speechki is an AI audiobook generator with a wide range of voices available in over 80 languages. It provides realistic text-to-speech voiceovers and can transform any text into high-quality audio content. You can use it to create audiobooks, podcasts, and more.
4) http://VEED.IO: http://VEED.IO offers an audiobook maker that uses AI text-to-speech technology. Select a suitable voice, paste your text, and let the AI read it aloud. It’s perfect for self-published authors.
"How to Release Your Audiobook" Once you’ve created your audiobook, the next step is to release it to the world. Here’s a brief guide:
1) Editing and Quality Assurance: Make sure your audio is error-free. Listen carefully for glitches, background noise, or any issues. Correct any mistakes and ensure the overall quality meets professional standards.
2) Choose a Distribution Platform: Platforms like Audible, ACX (Amazon’s audiobook platform), and Findaway Voices allow you to distribute your audiobook. Research their requirements, terms, and royalty rates. Choose the one that aligns with your goals.
3) Format Your Files: Most platforms accept specific audio formats (usually MP3 or WAV). Make sure your audiobook files meet their technical specifications.
4) Upload and Publish: Follow the platform’s instructions to upload your audiobook. Provide metadata (title, author, description, cover art) and set your pricing.
5) Promote Your Audiobook: Leverage your existing fan base, social media, and email newsletters to spread the word. Consider running promotions or offering free review copies to gain initial traction.
6) Monitor Sales and Reviews: Keep an eye on sales and reviews. Engage with listeners and gather feedback. -- https://ttsreader.com/ https://speechki.org/ https://www.veed.io/ https://www.narakeet.com/ https://murf.ai/ https://elevenlabs.io/ https://speechify.com/
-- And I also checked out with Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiobooks/comments/168y02a/best_programwebsite_for_texttospeech_audiobook/
Feedbacks are appreciated
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Submission Window: November 1st - December 31st, 2023 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: Resource Scarcity We are seeking stories for an anthology to be titled We Are All Thieves of Somebody's Future which will collect stories with the theme: Resource Scarcity - using up the last of a critical resource and dealing with the aftermath. While stories could be dystopic (ex. the last tree), authors could also explore hopepunk (losing a resource leads to something unforeseen and positive), solarpunk (a pollution laden resource leads to a better solution), fantasy (the last dragon). We are open to all genres. All stories are requested to be between 1000 and 3000 words in length. Authors may explore any genre with their stories and we encourage a wide variety of ideas and interpretations. Submission Dates Submissions open: November 1st, 2023 Submissions close: December 31st, 2023 Reading/Review begins: January 1, 2024 Reading/Review ends: February 29, 2024 All authors will be contacted by: April 15, 2024 General Submission Information We like to seek out new authors and book ideas ourselves rather than be contacted directly because we are a small, self-funded press, and only publish 4-5 books a year. We usually offer open call submissions on anthologies we decide to do, or we contact authors directly if we have particular needs. We pay $0.08/word for the stories we publish. Most of our books are limited editions of between 100 and 200 copies and we prefer to print physical books over creating ebooks. The Air and Nothingness Press is interested only in publishing works created by the individual, creative efforts of human authors. We are not completely opposed to the use of AI as a tool to develop art or writing, rather we are opposed to the use of it in place of art or writing. If you "wrote" a story by supplying an AI with a prompt, we are not interested. Stories by authors who have employed any AI text-generation software, apps, services, or any other computer-assisted service or program in the writing of their submissions, including plot generators, human-machine "collaboration," titling, outlining, or any other form of computer driven influence on their creative process other than spelling and grammar checking will not be considered. Via: Air and Nothingness Press.
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Dirty words are politically potent
On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.
Making up words is a perfectly cromulent passtime, and while most of the words we coin disappear as soon as they fall from our lips, every now and again, you find a word that fits so nice and kentucky in the public discourse that it acquires a life of its own:
http://meaningofliff.free.fr/definition.php3?word=Kentucky
I've been trying to increase the salience of digital human rights in the public imagination for a quarter of a century, starting with the campaign to get people to appreciate that the internet matters, and that tech policy isn't just the delusion that the governance of spaces where sad nerds argue about Star Trek is somehow relevant to human thriving:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell
Now, eventually people figured out that a) the internet mattered and, b) it was going dreadfully wrong. So my job changed again, from "how the internet is governed matters" to "you can't fix the internet with wishful thinking," for example, when people said we could solve its problems by banning general purpose computers:
https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/
Or by banning working cryptography:
https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/
Or by redesigning web browsers to treat their owners as threats:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership
Or by using bots to filter every public utterance to ensure that they don't infringe copyright:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/today-europe-lost-internet-now-we-fight-back
Or by forcing platforms to surveil and police their users' speech (aka "getting rid of Section 230"):
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/
Along the way, many of us have coined words in a bid to encapsulate the abstract, technical ideas at the core of these arguments. This isn't a vanity project! Creating a common vocabulary is a necessary precondition for having the substantive, vital debates we'll need to tackle the real, thorny issues raised by digital systems. So there's "free software," "open source," "filternet," "chat control," "back doors," and my own contributions, like "adversarial interoperability":
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability
Or "Competitive Compatibility" ("comcom"), a less-intimidatingly technical term for the same thing:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/competitive-compatibility-year-review
These have all found their own niches, but nearly all of them are just that: niche. Some don't even rise to "niche": they're shibboleths, insider terms that confuse and intimidate normies and distract from the real fights with semantic ones, like whether it's "FOSS" or "FLOSS" or something else entirely:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/262/what-is-the-difference-between-foss-and-floss
But every now and again, you get a word that just kills. That brings me to "enshittification," a word I coined in 2022:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
"Enshittification" took root in my hindbrain, rolling around and around, agglomerating lots of different thoughts and critiques I'd been making for years, crystallizing them into a coherent thesis:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
This kind of spontaneous crystallization is the dividend of doing lots of work in public, trying to take every half-formed thought and pin it down in public writing, something I've been doing for decades:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/
After those first couple articles, "enshittification" raced around the internet. There's two reasons for this: first, "enshittification" is a naughty word that's fun to say. Journalists love getting to put "shit" in their copy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/crosswords/linguistics-word-of-the-year.html
Radio journalists love to tweak the FCC with cheekily bleeped syllables in slightly dirty compound words:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/projects/enshitification
And nothing enlivens an academic's day like getting to use a word like "enshittification" in a journal article (doubtless this also amuses the editors, peer-reviewers, copyeditors, typesetters, etc):
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=enshittification&btnG=&oq=ensh
That was where I started, too! The first time I used "enshittification" was in a throwaway bad-tempered rant about the decay of Tripadvisor into utter uselessness, which drew a small chorus of appreciative chuckles about the word:
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1550457808222552065
The word rattled around my mind for five months before attaching itself to my detailed theory of platform decay. But it was that detailed critique, coupled with a minor license to swear, that gave "enshittification" a life of its own. How do I know that the theory was as important as the swearing? Because the small wave of amusement that followed my first use of "enshittification" petered out in less than a day. It was only when I added the theory that the word took hold.
Likewise: how do I know that the theory needed to be blended with swearing to break out of the esoteric realm of tech policy debates (which the public had roundly ignored for more than two decades)? Well, because I spent two decades writing about this stuff without making anything like the dents that appeared once I added an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable to that critique.
Adding "enshittification" to the critique got me more column inches, a longer hearing, a more vibrant debate, than anything else I'd tried. First, Wired availed itself of the Creative Commons license on my second long-form article on the subject and reprinted it as a 4,200-word feature. I've been writing for Wired for more than thirty years and this is by far the longest thing I've published with them – a big, roomy, discursive piece that was run verbatim, with every one of my cherished darlings unmurdered.
That gave the word – and the whole critique, with all its spiky corners – a global airing, leading to more pickup and discussion. Eventually, the American Dialect Society named it their "Word of the Year" (and their "Tech Word of the Year"):
https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/
"Enshittification" turns out to be catnip for language nerds:
https://becauselanguage.com/90-enpoopification/#transcript-60
I've been dragged into (good natured) fights over the German, Spanish, French and Italian translations for the term. When I taped an NPR show before a live audience with ASL interpretation, I got to watch a Deaf fan politely inform the interpreter that she didn't need to finger-spell "enshittification," because it had already been given an ASL sign by the US Deaf community:
https://maximumfun.org/episodes/go-fact-yourself/ep-158-aida-rodriguez-cory-doctorow/
I gave a speech about enshittification in Berlin and published the transcript:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel
Which prompted the rock-ribbed Financial Times to get in touch with me and publish the speech – again, nearly verbatim – as a whopping 6,400 word feature in their weekend magazine:
https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5
Though they could have had it for free (just as Wired had), they insisted on paying me (very well, as it happens!), as did De Zeit:
https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2024-03/plattformen-facebook-google-internet-cory-doctorow
This was the start of the rise of enshittification. The word is spreading farther than ever, in ways that I have nothing to do with, along with the critique I hung on it. In other words, the bit of string that tech policy wonks have been pushing on for a quarter of a century is actually starting to move, and it's actually accelerating.
Despite this (or more likely because of it), there's a growing chorus of "concerned" people who say they like the critique but fret that it is being held back because you can't use it "at church or when talking to K-12 students" (my favorite variant: "I couldn't say this at a NATO conference"). I leave it up to you whether you use the word with your K-12 students, NATO generals, or fellow parishoners (though I assure you that all three groups are conversant with the dirty little word at the root of my coinage). If you don't want to use "enshittification," you can coin your own word – or just use one of the dozens of words that failed to gain public attention over the past 25 years (might I suggest "platform decay?").
What's so funny about all this pearl-clutching is that it comes from people who universally profess to have the intestinal fortitude to hear the word "enshittification" without experiencing psychological trauma, but worry that other people might not be so strong-minded. They continue to say this even as the most conservative officials in the most staid of exalted forums use the word without a hint of embarrassment, much less apology:
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/chairman-of-irish-social-media-regulator-says-europe-should-not-be-seduced-by-mario-draghis-claims/a526530600.html
I mean, I'm giving a speech on enshittification next month at a conference where I'm opening for the Secretary General of the United Nations:
https://icanewdelhi2024.coop/welcome/pages/Programme
After spending half my life trying to get stuff like this into the discourse, I've developed some hard-won, informed views on how ideas succeed:
First: the minor obscenity is a feature, not a bug. The marriage of something long and serious to something short and funny is a happy one that makes both the word and the ideas better off than they'd be on their own. As Lenny Bruce wrote in his canonical work in the subject, the aptly named How to Talk Dirty and Influence People:
I want to help you if you have a dirty-word problem. There are none, and I'll spell it out logically to you.
Here is a toilet. Specifically-that's all we're concerned with, specifics-if I can tell you a dirty toilet joke, we must have a dirty toilet. That's what we're all talking about, a toilet. If we take this toilet and boil it and it's clean, I can never tell you specifically a dirty toilet joke about this toilet. I can tell you a dirty toilet joke in the Milner Hotel, or something like that, but this toilet is a clean toilet now. Obscenity is a human manifestation. This toilet has no central nervous system, no level of consciousness. It is not aware; it is a dumb toilet; it cannot be obscene; it's impossible. If it could be obscene, it could be cranky, it could be a Communist toilet, a traitorous toilet. It can do none of these things. This is a dirty toilet here.
Nobody can offend you by telling a dirty toilet story. They can offend you because it's trite; you've heard it many, many times.
https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/lenny-bruce/how-to-talk-dirty-and-influence-people/9780306825309/
Second: the fact that a neologism is sometimes decoupled from its theoretical underpinnings and is used colloquially is a feature, not a bug. Many people apply the term "enshittification" very loosely indeed, to mean "something that is bad," without bothering to learn – or apply – the theoretical framework. This is good. This is what it means for a term to enter the lexicon: it takes on a life of its own. If 10,000,000 people use "enshittification" loosely and inspire 10% of their number to look up the longer, more theoretical work I've done on it, that is one million normies who have been sucked into a discourse that used to live exclusively in the world of the most wonkish and obscure practitioners. The only way to maintain a precise, theoretically grounded use of a term is to confine its usage to a small group of largely irrelevant insiders. Policing the use of "enshittification" is worse than a self-limiting move – it would be a self-inflicted wound. As I said in that Berlin speech:
Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).
Finally: "coinage" is both more – and less – than thinking of the word. After the American Dialect Society gave honors to "enshittification," a few people slid into my mentions with citations to "enshittification" that preceded my usage. I find this completely unsurprising, because English is such a slippery and playful tongue, because English speakers love to swear, and because infixing is such a fun way to swear (e.g. "unfuckingbelievable"). But of course, I hadn't encountered any of those other usages before I came up with the word independently, nor had any of those other usages spread appreciably beyond the speaker (it appears that each of the handful of predecessors to my usage represents an act of independent coinage).
If "coinage" was just a matter of thinking up the word, you could write a small python script that infixed the word "shit" into every syllable of every word in the OED, publish the resulting text file, and declare priority over all subsequent inventive swearers.
On the one hand, coinage takes place when the coiner a) independently invents a word; and b) creates the context for that word that causes it to escape from the coiner's immediate milieu and into the wider world.
But on the other hand – and far more importantly – the fact that a successful coinage requires popular uptake by people unknown to the coiner means that the coiner only ever plays a small role in the coinage. Yes, there would be no popularization without the coinage – but there would also be no coinage without the popularization. Words belong to groups of speakers, not individuals. Language is a cultural phenomenon, not an individual one.
Which is rather the point, isn't it? After a quarter of a century of being part of a community that fought tirelessly to get a serious and widespread consideration of tech policy underway, we're closer than ever, thanks, in part, to "enshittification." If someone else independently used that word before me, if some people use the word loosely, if the word makes some people uncomfortable, that's fine, provided that the word is doing what I want it to do, what I've devoted my life to doing.
The point of coining words isn't the pilkunnussija's obsession with precise usage, nor the petty glory of being known as a coiner, nor ensuring that NATO generals' virgin ears are protected from the word "shit" – a word that, incidentally, is also the root of "science":
https://www.arrantpedantry.com/2019/01/24/science-and-shit/
Isn't language fun?
Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system
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