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When news broke last week that Hachette had canceled publication of a buzzy thriller due to allegations that large portions of it were AI-generated, our own Sharifah Williams described it as “a nightmare publishing story for our times.”
Indeed, the incident has set the literary internet aflame, as authors, readers, and publishing professionals weigh in on how this happened and what it means.
Here’s a sampling of the responses to catch you up:
- Thriller author Andrea Bartz predicts a multi-pronged crisis of trust between authors, publishers, and readers.
- Writer and editor Emily Hughes, who read Shy Girl last year, reflects on how she missed the AI usage, noting: “When a self-pub book gets picked up by a traditional publisher, the amount of editing that happens in between is almost always minimal.”
- Longtime publicist Kathleen Schmidt wonders about the industry’s mixed incentives: “A lot of people allegedly read ‘Shy Girl’ in its self-published form. What does that say about the consumer?”
- Technology analyst and sci-fi author Adario Strange argues that human connection is more important than literary quality: “Humans write pulpy, cliché books all the time, so it’s only natural that an AI-generated book could be passed off as human. But it’s when readers find out that the book didn’t come from a human that they seem to feel duped.”
- Writer Lincoln Michel makes an interesting and probably controversial distinction between plagiariasm and creation using LLMs
- Publisher/coach/editor Brooke Warner offers a comprehensive round-up of even more coverage and analysis
For a glimpse at readers’ responses, look no further than our Instagram post, where readers express outrage about AI use and concerns about the accuracy of AI detection tools, the elitism of equating popular writing with AI, and more.
