Why Are Huge Tech Companies Getting Into the Book Business?
Do they want to help writers or destroy them?
I never expected Microsoft to enter the book business.
But on November 18, this huge tech company quietly announced that it is now a publisher. But there was an interesting twist.
Microsoft is “not currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts.”
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Let’s be totally fair. Nobody at Microsoft claims that it plans to replace human writers with AI slop. But this company has invested a staggering $13 billion in AI—it’s their top priority as a corporation.
So what you do think their goals are in the book business?
If you’re looking for a clue, I note that Microsoft’s publishing arm is called 8080 Books. Yes, they named it after the 8080 microprocessor.
How charming!
And just a few hours after Microsoft announced this move, TikTok did the exact same thing.
ByteDance, the company behind the video-sharing platform TikTok, has announced that it will start selling print books in bookshops from early next year, published under its imprint, 8th Note Press. 8th Note Press will work in partnership with Zando to publish print editions and sell copies in physical bookstores starting early 2025.
Here, too, nobody is claiming that they will replace humans with bots. But why would a company that has built its empire with online social media have any interest in the slow and stodgy business of selling printed books on paper?
Oh, by the way, TikTok’s parent is investing huge sums in AI. The company has even found a way around export controls on Nvidia chips. Just a few weeks before entering the book business, ByteDance’s sourcing of AI tech from Huawei was leaked to the press.
And as if these coincidences weren’t enough to alarm you, another AI publishing development happened at this same time—but (here too) with very little coverage in the media.
Tech startup Spines raised $16 million in seed financing for an AI publishing business that aims to release 8,000 books per year.
Here, too, the company says that it wants to support human writers. Maybe it will run a new kind of vanity publishing business. But is that a sufficient lure to attract $16 million in seed financing?
Many traditional publishers are openly mocking these AI competitors. Others are skeptical or fearful.
The company claims it will help writers—but writers are already condemning it.
If all this sounds a bit confusing, don’t feel bad. There’s very little transparency in AI right now.
For example:
It’s hard to figure out which new books on Amazon are AI generated. Nobody wants to tell you.
It’s hard to figure out which songs on the streaming platforms are AI generated. Nobody wants to tell you.
It’s hard to figure out which news articles are AI generated. Nobody wants to tell you.
Do you notice a pattern?
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This is your clearest warning sign of how destructive this technology really is. If AI-generated slop were really so tasty, they would brag about it. But they are ashamed—and for good reason.
Writers should look at what’s happening to musicians—because this is a template for other AI initiatives.
A new study from CISAC predicts that AI will steal almost a quarter of musicians’ income within the next 4 years.
Today musicians only keep 8% of streaming revenues, but AI will squeeze them further. Four years from now, musicians will only receive 6.4% of streaming revenues
Streaming platforms can do this, because they are switching users to passive, algorithm-driven listening. By substituting AI slop for human songs, these platforms can reduce costs and boost profits significantly.
The gaslighting is over—you can’t fool musicians anymore. They now fully grasp the AI business model—which is to destroy their livelihood and replace human music with bot slop.
And it will get worse. It’s bad enough if I get tricked into consuming AI music or AI writing. But soon it will be AI bots pretending to be doctors, lawyers, therapists, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc.
Yeah, some of those frauds are already happening. But it will get worse—much worse.
The bigger issue is that deception is now built into the AI business model.
That’s why I praise publisher HarperCollins for announcing a very clear and fair policy on AI.
Authors can opt-in at their discretion. Revenues are clearly stated and divided equally. Limits on AI use are specified. Agreements have a defined termination point. Etc.
We need this kind of transparency from other players in the AI space. And you should be skeptical of any huge company that refuses to provide it.
Here’s where we stand.
We are now at stage three in the AI revolution:
Phase one was a time of grand promises—we were told that this exciting new technology would empower our efforts and improve our lives.
Phase two was a time of disappointment and controversy. AI did so many strange and destructive things to our culture, resulting in hallucinations, lies, and deceptions—with economic losses for a growing number of victims.
Phase three is a period of open war. The gaslighting doesn’t work anymore—artists and creators now understand the risks and damages. They have figured out that the business model is built on their economic impoverishment. But tech companies are investing trillions(!) of dollars to steamroller all opponents. Hence, a conflict is underway, and will intensify.
That’s the bottom line—this ‘innovation’ cannot be implemented without upheaval and conflict. Everybody will soon pick a side. That’s because this tech will hit you close to home, sooner or later, even if you’re not on the front lines today with the writers and musicians and other creatives.
This is not an ideal situation. But I welcome the clarity that comes with phase three.
People are waking up. Just look at the surveys on public perceptions of AI, and how they have changed over time.
The more they know about it, the less they like it.
Maybe a trillion dollars has been wagered on ‘disruption’ but it won’t happen without a fight. And even trillion dollar bets don’t always win. Sometimes they merely accelerate the reversal.
Yes, they’re coming at us very hard. But as they say in the reggae song, the harder they come, the harder they fall.
Did anyone else have a visceral negative reaction to the smiling quartet of tech bros in the photo. These aholes will destroy anything for money.
I am teaching a little course on Orwell's journalism and just this week came across some interesting comments from him that seem to foreshadow AI publishing.
"It is just thinkable that books may someday be written by machinery, and it is quite easy to imagine poems being produced partly by fortuitous means--by some device similar to the kaleidoscope, for instance." (From a review of Herbert Read. Orwell is not claiming that this development would be desirable.)
"Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.... [T]he history of totalitarian societies, or of groups of people who have adopted the totalitarian outlook, suggests that loss of liberty is inimical to all forms of literature.... Probably novels and stories will be completely superseded by film and radio productions. Or perhaps some kind of low-grade sensational fiction will survive, produced by a sort of conveyor-belt process that reduces human initiative to the minimum. It would probably not be beyond human ingenuity to write books by machinery.... Imagination--even consciousness, so far as possible--would be eliminated from the process of writing." (These are widely scattered quotes from his essay "The Prevention of Literature.")
And of course this, from his invaluable "Politics and the English Language": "A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you--even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent--and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself." I read that last passage rather differently this time than I have read it in the past.
Ted, thanks for helping keep us abreast of this rapidly changing landscape.