#jane friedman

[nerdby]

If you support AI ANYTHING after reading about this then you are trash.

[aquitainequeen]

There’s not much that makes me angry these days about writing and publishing. I’ve seen it all. I know what to expect from Amazon and Goodreads. Meaning: I don’t expect much, and I assume I will be continually disappointed. Nor do I have the power to change how they operate. My energy-saving strategy: move on and focus on what you can control. That’s going to become much harder to do if Amazon and Goodreads don’t start defending against the absolute garbage now being spread across their sites. I know my work gets pirated and frankly I don’t care. (I’m not saying other authors shouldn’t care, but that’s not a battle worth my time today.) But here’s what does rankle me: garbage books getting uploaded to Amazon where my name is credited as the author. (Here’s but one example.) Whoever’s doing this is obviously preying on writers who trust my name and think I’ve actually written these books. I have not. Most likely they’ve been generated by AI...

Jane Friedman has since updated that the fraudulent books have been removed from both Amazon and Goodreads, but this has become a very serious problem. Friedman mentions in her post that 'When I complained about this on Twitter/X, an author responded that she had to report 29 illegitimate books in just the last week alone. 29!'

[frydawolff]

AI minimizers aren't worth engaging with.

[dabblesco]

Creating a book map

https://plottr.com/features/ As a determined pantser writer, I resist the outline and prefer to thrash out a mini version of my opus in the format of the 3DayNovelContest. Then, once I get it all down, I go back and create a structure around the blathering I’ve just completed. It takes a long time, but eventually I get everything laid out. With my latest book, Spit and Polish, I found I was…

[ahb-writes]

People Are Using A.I. to "Write" Unauthorized Books From Popular Authors and Sell Them on Amazon

Read the Article: "An author says AI is ‘writing’ unauthorized books being sold under her name on Amazon" by Clare Duffy, CNN (article appears in full, below)

Supplemental Reading: "I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires)" by Jane Friedman

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New York (CNN) -- An author is raising alarms this week after she found new books being sold on Amazon under her name — only she didn’t write them; they appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence.

Jane Friedman, who has authored multiple books and consulted about working in the writing and publishing industry, told CNN that an eagle-eyed reader looking for more of her work bought one of the fake titles on Amazon. The books had titles similar to the subjects she typically writes about, but the text read as if someone had used a generative AI model to imitate her style.

“When I started looking at these books, looking at the opening pages, looking at the bio, it was just obvious to me that it had been mostly, if not entirely, AI-generated … I have so much content available online for free, because I’ve been blogging forever, so it wouldn’t be hard to get an AI to mimic me,” Friedman said.

With AI tools like ChatGPT now able to rapidly and cheaply pump out huge volumes of convincing text, some writers and authors have raised alarms about losing work to the new technology. Others have said they don’t want their work being used to train AI models, which could then be used to imitate them.

“Generative AI is being used to replace writers — taking their work without permission, incorporating those works into the fabric of those AI models and then offering those AI models to the public, to other companies, to use to replace writers,” Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the nonprofit authors advocacy group the Authors Guild, told CNN. “So you can imagine writers are a little upset about that.”

Last month, US lawmakers met with members of creative industries, including the Authors Guild, to discuss the implications of artificial intelligence. In a Senate subcommittee hearing, Rasenberger called for the creation of legislation to protect writers from AI, including rules that would require AI companies to be transparent about how they train their models. More than 10,000 authors — including James Patterson, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood — also signed an open letter calling on AI industry leaders like Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to obtain consent from authors when using their work to train AI models, and to compensate them fairly when they do.

A Growing Problem

Friedman on Monday posted a well-read thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, and a blog post about the issue. Several authors responded saying they’d had similar experiences.

“People keep telling me they bought my newest book — that has my name on it but I didn’t write,” one author said in response.

Amazon removed the fake books being sold under Friedman’s name and said its policies prohibit such imitation.

“We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised,” Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek said in a statement, adding that the company accepts author feedback about potential issues. “We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and protect customers and authors from misuse of our service.”

Amazon also told Friedman that it is “investigating what happened with the handling of your claims to drive improvements to our processes,” according to an email viewed by CNN.

The fake books using Friedman’s name were also added to her profile on the literary social network Goodreads, and removed only after she publicized the issue.

“We have clear guidelines on which books are included on Goodreads and will quickly investigate when a concern is raised, removing books when we need to,” Goodreads spokesperson Suzanne Skyvara said in a statement to CNN.

Friedman said she worries that authors will be stuck playing whack-a-mole to identify AI generated fakes.

“What’s frightening is that this can happen to anyone with a name that has reputation, status, demand that someone sees a way to profit off of,” she said.

The Authors Guild has been working with Amazon since this past winter to address the issue of books written by AI, Rasenberger said.

She said the company has been responsive when the Authors Guild flags fake books on behalf of authors, but it can be a tricky issue to spot given that it’s possible for two legitimate authors to have the same name.

The group is also hoping AI companies will agree to allow authors to opt out of having their work used to train AI models — so it’s harder to create copycats — and to find ways to transparently label artificially generated text. And, she said, companies and publishers should continue investing in creative work made by humans, even if AI appears more convenient.

“Using AI to generate content is so easy, it’s so cheap, that I do worry there’s going to be this kind of downward competition to use AI to replace human creators,” she said. “And you will never get the same quality with AI as human creators.”

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Read the Article: "An author says AI is ‘writing’ unauthorized books being sold under her name on Amazon" by Clare Duffy, CNN

Supplemental Reading: "I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires)" by Jane Friedman

[dragonncat]

good news!

Friedman suspects [the removal of the books] is due to her speaking out about the issue on social media.

just another reminder that speaking out WORKS

[younes-ben-amara]

الدرس 3 من دورة جين فريدمان عن كيفية كسب العيش من الكتابة - الجمعة في رديف 🖊️💰

ما هذه المجموعة من المختارات تسألني؟ إنّها عددٌ من أعداد نشرة “صيد الشابكة” اِعرف أكثر عن النشرة هنا: ما هي نشرة “صيد الشابكة” ما مصادرها، وما غرضها؛ وما معنى الشابكة أصلًا؟! 🎣🌐هل تعرف ما هي صيد الشابكة وتطالعها بانتظام؟ اِدعم استمرارية النشرة بطرق شتى من هنا: 💲 طرق دعم نشرة صيد الشابكة. 🎣🌐 صيد الشابكة العدد #174 السلام عليكم؛ مرحبًا وبسم الله؛ بخصوص العنوان فهو ما سنبدأ به إن شاء الله. أتممنا…

[richdadpoor]

'Nonfiction' Book About Maui Wildfire 'Smells of AI'

Wildfires in Maui have devastated the communities in Hawaii over the last week, but a new book listed on Amazon about the natural disaster has raised eyebrows from reviewers. Top 5 Shopping Tips for Amazon Prime Day The book, titled Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui and its Implications for Climate Change, is an 86-page narrative of the recent wildfires in Hawaii that has a tinge of…

[gamesatwork]

e428 — Is you is, or is you AIn’t my AI?

Stories about #AI, #GenerativeAudio, #GenerativeBooks, Jane Friedman #brandjacking experiences, #GenerativeAgents, #NPCs #GenerativeBucketLists from #söka, Benji Smith #prosecraft and much more!

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash Published 14 August 2023 Andy, Michael and Michael get together for a show full of generative AI: audio, bucket lists, books and agents.  Andy starts things rolling with a Nvidia follow on article from last week, and a throwback to e156 from 2016.  Then things start to get exciting with a number of generative AI examples, beginning with Meta’s AudioCraft, an…

[dipstick-university]

Jane Friedman (a great writing and publishing resource) recently discovered fake books on Amazon used her name as the author and is now contending with removal

[biestcallisto]

So this is becoming a thing, huh?

[mikyapixie]

10 years ago today Sonic Boom premiered on Cartoon Network!!!

The episode were short but man they were hilarious!!!😆😆😆

[akultalkies]

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Candice Bergen, Andy Garcia, Don Johnson, Craig T. Nelson, Ed Begley Jr, Wallace Shawn, Richard Dreyfuss, Alicia Silverstone, Mircea Monroe, Katie Aselton, Tommy Dewey,

[roseshavethoughts]

My Top 5 Troma Movies

My Top 5 Troma Movies #Cinema #FilmReview #MovieReview

Troma Entertainment is a film production company known for its low-budget, independent, and often controversial movies. Here are five of my favourite Troma movies, in no particular order: The Toxic Avenger (1984) Directed By – Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman Starring – Mitch Cohen, Mark Torgl, Andree Maranda, Pat Ryan Jr This movie tells the story of a scrawny, bullied janitor who becomes a…

[cecilereads]

Isaacs reading list in Heartstopper

Season 1

Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert

Naruto vol. 72 - Masashi Kishimoto

Quantum Mechanics - Leonard Susskind & Art Friedman

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson

Proud - Gareth Thomas

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Radio Silence - Alice Oseman

Gender Explorers - Juno Roche

The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman

There is no Planet B - Mike Berners-Lee

Season 2

Ace of Spades - Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays - Oscar Wilde

Booklovers - Emily Henry

Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We Are Okay - Nina Lacour

The Outsider - Albert Camus

Birthday - Meredith Russo

The Awakening - Kate Choppin

Crush - Richard Siken

Boy Erased - Garrard Conley

The Swimming Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst

I Love This Part - Tillie Walden

We Have Always Been Here - Samra Habib

Summer Bird Blue - Akemi Dawn Bowman

Ace - Angela Chen