Once upon a time, when blogs were just beginning to become A Thing, the company to watch was Six Apart. They have blogging software called Movable Type. Then the world shifted to WordPress, and soon there were other blogging platforms that turned Movable Type into the Asa Hutchinson of that particularly market. (What? They are still around? Yes and account for about one percent of all blogs.)
Well, Asa no more, because the company has fully embraced AI in a way that even Sports Illustrated (they recently fired their human writers) would envy. If you have never written a book, you can have a ready-made custom outline in a few minutes. All it takes is a prompt and a click. You don’t even have to have a fully-formed idea, understand the nature of research (either pre- or post-internet), or even know how to write word one. (There are other examples on their website if you want to check them out.)
MovableType’s AI creates “10 chapters spanning 150+ pages, and a whopping 35k+ words” (or so they say) of… basically gibberish. They of course characterize it somewhat differently, saying its AI output is “highly specific & well researched content,” It isn’t: there are no citations or links to the content. The output looks like a solid book-like product with chapters and sub-heads but is mostly vacuous drivel. The company claims it comes tuned to match your writing style, but again, I couldn’t find any evidence of that. And while “each chapter opens with a story designed to keep your readers engaged,” my interest waned after page 15 or so.
Perhaps this will appeal to some of you, especially those of you that haven’t yet written your own roman a clef. Or who are looking to turn your online bon mots into the next blockbuster book. But I don’t think so. Writing a book is hard work, and while it is not growing crops or working in a factory, you do have to know what you are doing. The labor involved helps you create a better book, and the process of editing your own work is a learned skill. I don’t think AI can provide any short cuts, other than to produce something subpar.
I have written three books the old fashioned way: by typing every word into Word. Two of them got published, one got shelved as the market for OS/2 moved into the cellar from the time of the book proposal. I got tired of rewriting it (several times!) for the next big movie moment of IBM’s beleaguered OS that never happened. The two published books never made much money for anyone. But I did learn how to write a non-fiction book, and more importantly, write an outline that was more of a roadmap and a strategy and structure document. This is not something that you can train AI to do, at least not yet.
When I read a book, I cherish the virtual bond between me and the author, whether I read my go-to mystery fiction or a how-to business epic. I want to bathe in the afterglow of what the author is telling me, through characters, plot points, anecdotes, and stories. That is inherently human, and something that the current AI models can’t (yet) do. While MovableType’s AI is an interesting experiment, I think it is a misplaced one.
I’m just one of the great unwashed that post on Facebook in not more than the equivalent of 3 paragraphs due to the phenomena of instant gratification brought on by video games. I couldn’t write a fiction book as I couldn’t develop a plot to save my soul. Anyway, I’ve discovered that regardless of culture we all just want to get out of the other end in one piece & do a reasonable job of raising the next generation so they will survive through their unique problems like climate change, A. I. & the UFO aliens treating us like rat specimens. We’re a pattern based herd species. Our patterns are based on parents, schools & life experiences. The downside is our patterns are the basis of our reality. We also first judge things visually, then by sound & lastly by thinking about it. I use Microsoft Bing A. I. My Bing library on steroids is used by asking if my scribblings are correct since I like to write about science. It may hallucinate but it’s no worse than the mumblings of your friends under similar circumstances. If anything here can help you out in the long run feel free to use it since we all have to help each other no matter what,
Very interesting As an Autistic woman I do not naturally think in any herding pattern, but rather can readily identify such patterning in others. I submit that starting out with fundamentally different brain structure mitigates the lockstep adoption of cultural influences (from one’s first, the family, then school and friends [of no friends], then society at large).
I have not tried MTs app, but I think something like this could be useful. Consider the essays I have collected on this page (https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-main-routine). If I could feed them into an AI and have it come out with an organized book-like product with sections and chapters, that would be pretty cool.
Let’s hope AI will never be able to write a book that I want to read. As a voracious reader, I love the bond that forms between me and various authors even though i don’t personally know them. I don’t want that bond to between me and a machine.