00:00:38.460and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:43.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:47.300Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:00:51.020abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:54.640These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:58.680Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:06.760They are not prepared for what's about to happen or what is already happening, which is this flood of AI-generated material being uploaded.
00:01:15.740There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:29.420I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:37.700When Anna Mae Bullock left her abusive husband Ike,1.00
00:01:40.880she famously said that she didn't want any assets,1.00
00:01:43.820Only the stage name that he had given her, Tina Turner.
00:01:48.060So much of our reputation and who we are to the outside world is wrapped up in our names.
00:01:53.240So what if someone was using AI to scam people using your name?
00:01:57.920This is exactly what writer Jane Friedman woke up to find last week.
00:02:02.180Someone was selling bad AI versions of books with her name listed as the author and selling them on Amazon.
00:02:08.060When we sat down to talk about it, I quickly realized that I had Jane mixed up with another woman who was also a big name in publishing, who was also named Jane Friedman.
00:02:18.360Well, you may want to back up and reconsider that question because there's another Jane Friedman in publishing who is the former CEO of HarperCollins and the founder of Open Road.
00:02:30.480So you might want her instead for this podcast.
00:02:36.240I know, not an ideal way to start an interview.
00:02:39.240And I wouldn't ordinarily include my mistakes in the show.
00:02:43.020But I felt like it highlighted the importance of and complexities around names,
00:02:47.680especially in a field like publishing.
00:02:49.900Jane says that she gets confused for the other Jane all the time.
00:02:52.960And I was struck by what a head spinner this all was.
00:02:56.460Jane having to differentiate her name from another Jane in publishing
00:02:59.660while also going up against Amazon to differentiate her name from an AI-enabled scammer.
00:03:06.240Well, I hate that I am starting off this interview with a big mistake, but it does kind of feel relevant to the conversation.
00:03:13.960No, it's totally all right. I completely understand.
00:03:18.460So I started in publishing right out of college, actually while I was still in college.
00:03:22.960I had an internship at a traditional publishing house in the Midwest, in Cincinnati.
00:03:28.420I stayed there for 12 years, which was pretty unusual.
00:03:31.820Most people hop around in publishing jobs, but I stayed put. I took a detour as a writing
00:03:38.820professor for a couple of years, went back into publishing, working for a literary journal,
00:03:44.140the Virginia Quarterly Review. And then around, let's see, this was 2014, I went full-time
00:03:50.280freelance entrepreneur. And so as of today, I write, I publish mainly for an audience of writers
00:03:57.340and publishers. So it's a very meta career that I've developed.
00:04:01.820Something that I read about you in my research for this, which hopefully is the right Shane Friedman, is that you have this reputation of being like an honest broker of information about the publishing space.
00:04:11.580And it's a space that can sometimes be kind of opaque, kind of murky.
00:04:15.780Do you think that's one of the reasons why whoever was trying to use your name to publish these fraudulent books targeted you as someone who is known for giving honest information?
00:04:27.260it it's a fascinating question because i would really love to know what motivated them to target
00:04:33.980me and my name was it actual knowledge of what i do or was it some spreadsheet that told them my
00:04:40.740name ranks well for the topic of ebooks and publishing and they're just like that you know
00:04:45.520and i was just picked out of a hat i'm not sure but certainly there's demand surrounding what i do
00:10:35.660um it's like you know duct tape uh that's how it's surviving at this point so like i could
00:10:42.840understand maybe like they're they don't want to get into that mess however the other side of this
00:10:48.000is amazon itself and how books get uploaded to their site and there are more formal processes
00:10:55.460with what i assume are paid employees looking at these infringement claims which is what i had to
00:11:02.320submit. But there are different tiers. And your initial request is going to go to the lowest level
00:11:09.300tier. And it's like corresponding with AI, ironically. You don't get any sense of if it's
00:11:16.420a human being on the other side, you feel like they're going through this really rigid rulebook
00:11:20.820of did they provide X? Did they provide Y? And if not, close the case. So they're trying to get rid
00:11:27.360of you, in my opinion, as quickly as possible. And I have a tiny bit of sympathy just because
00:11:33.460I've been around writers for so long. A lot of them are going to be upset, annoyed by all sorts
00:11:39.340of things that happen on Amazon site that really don't constitute infringement. They're what I
00:11:44.000would call more of an annoyance. And so Amazon must have to filter through thousands of these0.97
00:11:50.200things a day. So I get it, but they are not prepared for what's about to happen or what
00:11:56.580is already happening, which is this flood of AI-generated material being uploaded.
00:12:02.380So when you first alerted Amazon to what was going on, how did they initially react?
00:12:06.240The person that you reached out to first, what was the vibe?
00:12:10.400So the first response I got was it felt very automated, which was it wanted me to itemize
00:12:16.940the offending products or books and then also link to what work was being infringed upon.
00:12:24.840So it wanted to know, you're the copyright owner of what book and what are the books that are infringing on it? And of course, if it's AI generated, well, A, it's not copyright protected in the first place. And B, it's not necessarily infringing on existing work. It's creating new work in the style of.
00:12:44.440So when I tried to explain this, I was asked for my trademark registration numbers instead.
00:12:52.800But most authors do not trademark their name.
00:16:23.420I'm sure that's in no small part due to my visibility and reputation in the writing and publishing community.
00:16:28.900What will authors with smaller profiles do when this happens to them?
00:16:32.640So first of all, it just seems like so much work on your behalf to have to do to, like, prove that this is going on.
00:16:40.360And then also just the idea, like you said, not many people out there trademark their name.
00:16:45.380And so it's just an incredible burden on the harmed, impacted party.
00:16:50.860Meanwhile, Amazon is just like, OK, well, can you prove your case to us?
00:16:55.100It doesn't seem like the right dynamic to me.
00:16:57.160Yeah, I mean, at minimum, I think they have to implement probably a new process or procedure for this sort of complaint because it just doesn't fall along the same lines as a traditional copyright or infringement claim.
00:17:11.940So I know that eventually, luckily, probably because of your platform on social media and like being a loud, respected voice in the space, Amazon did do, I was going to say the right thing, but I guess really more the reasonable thing and remove these titles from your Goodreads page.
00:17:29.300But I guess my question is, what about writers who maybe don't have the time, the resources, the platform, the energy to go through this incredibly laborious process just to have your Amazon Goodreads page be accurate?
00:17:45.540Is it creating this system where it's this incredible burden on them and they maybe wouldn't be able to have success at doing this?
00:17:51.880Yeah, I think this is the big, big, big problem that we're now facing because anyone with a name that carries value, if it's a name that can be profited on, which describes a lot of authors who depend on their writing for a living, you're now in this position of having to police use of that name on two sites that do a terrible job of policing or verifying author identities and pretty much have a policy of anything goes as long as it's not blatantly illegal.
00:18:20.040So I don't know how that system can stand moving forward, which is why I made such a big stink. That said, I do think authors have remedies that are maybe less laborious when they find infringement.
00:18:35.840So, for example, if you have a traditional publisher, I would certainly be calling them if you still have a relationship with them, if you have a point of contact, they need to know.
00:18:47.800If that's not possible, then hopefully you belong to a writer's organization. The Authors Guild here is particularly helpful, and they did see what was happening with my case and were assisting in the background.
00:19:03.140So they're very effective at getting really clear problem material taken down. It might not happen overnight, but I would say it would happen in a few days if it's a clear case.
00:19:44.600Yeah, so that you don't have to be visiting these sites every day.
00:19:49.380I mean, I do think we're in this weird space now where technology has really progressed at this fast speed, faster than folks can make new rules for or anticipate.
00:20:03.940And now we're all just stuck with this internet where the bottom line default assumption is that it's going to be full of scams and fraud and people misusing your name for their own profit.
00:20:17.340I just feel like we deserve better. Writers deserve better. Like we deserve an internet
00:20:22.280landscape that is not trying to screw you at every turn. Yeah, I agree. And there are certain
00:20:29.680companies that I think have the ability and the resources to be helpful. So Amazon being a case
00:20:37.320in point, they sit at a very important waypoint for all sorts of activity that's both good and
00:20:42.720bad. And they could do so much better. They could take more responsibility. I think they have a duty
00:20:48.980of care. Why they don't, you know, wake up to that, it's hard for me to say other than capitalism.
00:20:57.460But I think they're one of quite a number of companies that I hope can be pressured to do
00:21:05.640better. Yeah. And something about Amazon is because they're such a big player in the space,
00:21:11.120you know, so goes Amazon, so goes the rest. And so they really, when a big platform takes a step
00:21:17.820to make their platform safer or better, a lot of other smaller platforms get in line because they
00:21:23.160really set the tone. And so if Amazon is not setting that tone, they really have this opportunity
00:21:27.480to be a leader and a good actor and a force for good of the internet, but they're just not doing
00:21:34.680it. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I really wish I understood the motivations or lack of
00:21:41.140motivation as the case might be, because it certainly doesn't lead to a good customer
00:21:47.060experience with which they're supposedly concerned about, you know, if people can't
00:21:51.040trust what they find there. What made you suspect that those books were written by AI?
00:21:55.940I think like many writers, I've done my own little experiments with chat GPT
00:22:01.320in particular. And I've used all sorts of vanity prompts because I'm curious what it's capable of.
00:22:07.160And I know for sure that these models have scraped years of my writing off of my blog.
00:22:12.600And so, you know, I'll input something like, how do I get a book published? Or what does Jane
00:22:16.340Friedman say about how to get a book published? Or who is Jane Friedman? And so I've seen the0.63
00:22:23.060sorts of material it's capable of generating, especially in my category. And, you know,
00:22:28.760It's very surface level. It has some substance, but if you try to push it, it starts to repeat
00:22:36.380itself or it gets more and more generic. So when I saw the opening pages of these fraudulent books
00:22:42.780and I read the bio, especially reading the bio, I could tell I'm pretty sure this has been AI
00:22:49.140generated. It's just kind of like bloviating student padded essay material. It's not someone
00:22:58.260writing down and actually trying to present a cogent, you know, instruction guide.
00:23:05.360Yeah, it's so, I mean, I've certainly done what you've just described of like,
00:23:09.300what can you tell me about Bridget Todd as a podcaster? And it's exactly that. I mean,
00:23:13.960everybody's done it. But it's one of those things where like, you know, when something was written
00:23:18.880by a human, even written badly by a human, like, yeah, and when something was written by AI,
00:24:19.980streaming radio and podcasting let us show you at iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com
00:24:27.120when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent
00:24:34.940my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart
00:24:41.000and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying
00:24:48.620shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable
00:24:55.260i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was0.90
00:25:03.100someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted stalked controlled
00:25:10.580and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them they're stories
00:25:16.180about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart
00:25:21.920on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:33.080Let's get right back into it. Jane's situation is just another example of the,0.86
00:25:38.980let's say, complicated relationship that Amazon has with the publishing industry.
00:25:44.320Back in 2021, three of the biggest names in publishing, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the American Booksellers Association,
00:25:54.160sent a joint letter to U.S. lawmakers decrying Amazon's dominance over publishing and warning that it's threatening the entire industry.
00:26:02.300Amazon no longer competes on a level playing field when it comes to book distribution, but rather owns and manipulates the playing field,
00:26:09.440leveraging practices across its platform that appear to be well outside of fair and transparent competition, the letter reads.
00:26:17.140And now, in light of Jane's situation, it seems like Amazon could be doing a lot to make it easier for authors to resolve issues that arise from technology like AI.
00:26:27.220In response to Jane's situation, an Amazon spokesperson said,
00:26:31.380we invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and protect customers and authors from misuse of our services.
00:26:38.180But currently, Amazon doesn't really have any kind of plan to prevent scam books from proliferating on their platform, which is a real problem.
00:26:46.440How can Amazon say that they're interested in providing a trustworthy experience if they aren't doing anything to ensure that and instead are just moving that burden onto authors like Jane?
00:26:56.220What's the relationship between Amazon and the publishing industry right now?
00:27:03.220So it's always been a frenemy situation. Publishers have generally not been that thrilled with Amazon's dominance. And I would say, unfortunately, it's about, I want to say around 60% of books now, regardless of format, are now sold through Amazon.
00:27:24.880So despite them not always being on the same side of Amazon in terms of their practices, they also can't necessarily afford to piss off Amazon either. So it's just a very tortured relationship.
00:27:42.180um with the self-published author community that's yet another side of the story where
00:27:49.700initially self-published authors kind of saw amazon as a savior figure might be going a little
00:27:56.660far but finally opening up paths to a sustainable career without having to rely on the gatekeepers
00:28:03.400of traditional publishing and so many fabulous author careers have been launched because of
00:28:09.120Amazon services, and they do provide something that's super valuable. However, as time has gone
00:28:15.920on, I think everyone's realizing the devil's bargain that's been struck here and how Amazon
00:28:24.360at any time can change the rules, depress earnings, make it so you have to advertise in order to get
00:28:30.860your books noticed at all. So it's, I think everyone at this point today is looking to
00:28:38.360not have all of their eggs in the Amazon basket and try to strengthen their careers so that if
00:28:43.560Amazon does change something in a dramatic way that makes people unhappy, they still have a
00:28:48.660career. That is something I always tell folks about navigating this weird tech time of ours
00:28:56.140is, like, do not put all of your eggs in one digital basket
00:28:59.960because you never know what might change, you know.
00:29:03.480Bezos could wake up tomorrow and be like,
00:29:04.940now it's this, it's been that, but now it's this,
00:29:07.000and your whole thing could be threatened.
00:29:17.340you'll be able to invest in if something changes,
00:29:19.600but it just, I think that's good advice,
00:29:22.060but it makes me sad that that's advice
00:29:23.880that folks like you have to give creatives.
00:29:26.140Yes. Yes. It's become more and more essential over time. And if anyone doesn't grasp it,
00:29:35.480just looking at what's happened with Twitter is like exhibit A for what happens if you rely too
00:29:41.720much on a single platform. So yeah, I want to say that from the beginning, I've always been
00:29:48.040about diversifying. But I think today, people are really listening to that message.
00:29:52.640What do you think is at stake if Amazon just continues to kind of not hold up their end of the bargain on responsibility for keeping platforms accurate, you know, with accurate information and accurate titles and stuff on there? Like, what's at stake for the industry?
00:30:10.780Well, fortunately, I think there are chinks in Amazon's armor. I do think I've noticed a definite tide change in how people think about Amazon and shopping at Amazon. I'm looking at this from the consumer side first, but I have seen so many people shift their purchasing habits to places like bookshop, which is what people call the virtuous alternative to buying from Amazon, at least on the book side.1.00
00:30:35.020and so you know when and when I went through this myself on social media a lot of people said well
00:30:41.980that's it I'm never buying from Amazon again you know these were authors so just people I think
00:30:47.420you know the final straw has occurred for a lot of people over the last few years and that has to
00:30:53.500hurt I would expect Amazon the negative publicity they get from things happening in publishing or
00:31:01.800from their marketplace where there's a lot of knockoffs, counterfeits. I think it has an effect.
00:31:10.460Publishing is in a fortunate position at this moment in time because they're starting to see
00:31:16.660the potential for reaching people that's more organic, that's more community-driven,
00:31:22.960that's not reliant on Amazon. And here I'm thinking of BookTok. Of course, there are some
00:31:29.360problems associated with that as well. I would hate to see publishers now just lean on TikTok
00:31:33.780to solve all their problems. But I think certainly over the last five years in particular, the
00:31:40.720biggest publishers have been more serious about establishing direct-to-consumer relationships,
00:31:47.260whether that's through email newsletters, social media, or other efforts. And certainly small and
00:31:52.360independent publishers, they actually had some of their best performance during the pandemic when
00:31:57.600people we're more conscious of, why don't we buy direct from the publisher? They probably need our
00:32:02.400help. Let's support the things that we believe in. Let's support the companies that share our values.
00:32:07.640That's really good to see. And I have to say, I'm right there with you with the problems around
00:32:13.280BookTok, but I genuinely do feel like I have never felt like I was more part of an engaged
00:32:21.380community of like-minded readers than with BookTok. It definitely has its problems,
00:32:26.960which maybe we'll do another episode on that. But, you know, I like to read thriller books. And,
00:32:31.680you know, I have gotten connected with so many different authors and titles that I would have
00:32:37.020never found otherwise. And I don't know, I think that something about what you're saying,
00:32:42.300it feels like a double-edged sword when it comes to tech right now, that there are all these threats
00:32:46.100and scams and liabilities, but also all of these really exciting ways to use technology
00:32:51.080for readers and authors and publishers to find each other and connect in these new ways that
00:32:55.400are also kind of exciting. Yeah. I mean, despite everything that's happened to me in the last week
00:33:01.500or so, I still remain fairly optimistic. I think that despite some of these scary things that are
00:33:08.600happening, I think the ship will right itself. I don't think we're headed towards total dystopia
00:33:16.540yet. And the so-called creator economy, too, has opened up a lot of options for writers and all
00:33:25.020types of creative people to figure out the business model that fits them. So no one has
00:33:30.860to be reliant on Amazon or a publishing company or a TikTok. I think there are lots of ways to
00:33:35.840go about this. There's a lot of freedom. As all of this was happening to Jane,
00:33:40.400another AI firestorm was brewing. A computer scientist and computational linguist named
00:33:45.800Benji Smith was taking a lot of heat from writers on Twitter for his platform Prosecraft,
00:33:51.080A platform that he built, quote, dedicated to the linguistic analysis of literature, where basically 25,000 books were mined, maybe from pirated sources online, to train machine learning algorithms to recognize which kinds of words can be used in which kinds of contexts.
00:34:09.000And authors were pissed. They were pissed that Benji used their books without permission or consent.
00:34:15.100Benji apologized and took the entire platform down.
00:34:18.520Jane says that it makes sense that authors were upset,
00:34:20.820especially at a time when being in the creative fields feels so fraught and threatened.
00:34:25.460But Jane wonders if this was a distraction from some of the bigger issues in the space.
00:34:30.880I have to ask because the situation that you had with Amazon
00:34:34.620was happening against the backdrop of that prose craft mess.
00:34:38.940Like, I saw that from beginning to end.
00:34:41.600And I saw all those writers rightfully being like,
00:34:44.580hey, you can't just take our books to train your AI.
00:34:47.600like what are you doing what do you think that first of all what did you think about that as a
00:34:52.660as somebody who knows the space very well yeah so this is where my views tend to diverge from the
00:35:00.140the average author I tend to stay pretty calm and rational and look at is there actual harm
00:35:07.680occurring here um and who's behind it and what are their motivations and how far did this reach
00:35:13.520Because I know how writers can jump to fear, anxiety, and outrage very quickly, especially right now with the whole AI situation.
00:35:33.480But when I did, what I saw was a fairly benign project, like a linguistic analysis, a text and data mining thing. And yeah, sure, he scooped up a lot of books that looks like they were from pirate sites. I don't know if he did that intentionally or if he kind of like, you know, turned the other way when his crawler scooped up these books.
00:35:57.380But I don't like I just can't ascribe malicious intentions to this guy. And he's just a guy like he's not Amazon. Right. So I, I think there are like I look at situations differently depending on who has the power. And so I saw author, I saw how authors really acted swiftly, got the got him to take the site down. And I think the fact he took it down so quickly indicates he what his intentions were. He didn't want to upset people.
00:36:26.820So when the whole thing came down, authors got to claim a huge victory. But what I saw was a
00:36:35.940distraction from what the real problems are. This wasn't an AI tool. I mean, I guess, sure,
00:36:41.880he could have somehow profited off that data set. Maybe, like, who knows if he would have,
00:36:49.300if he could have. And so maybe it was right for that to just be nipped in the bud right away.
00:36:54.860But I just think there are bigger fish to fry here. And I'm also not a fan of like piling on someone like that in a way that felt just maybe a little mean-spirited.
00:37:09.400And the other thing is that authors don't have the strongest grasp of copyright law, what their rights are, what others' rights might be.
00:37:21.020And as someone who's followed a lot of legal cases surrounding copyright and fair use, especially there's a really monumental case, the Google Books scanning case that was decided some years ago.
00:37:33.200It took a long time to be decided, but Google scanned millions of books in partnership with libraries.
00:37:40.360The Authors Guild brought a lawsuit against this to prevent it, but Google ended up winning.
00:37:46.060Even though it was ingesting all of these works without compensation to the author, the use was considered transformative and permissible under the law.
00:38:32.960It seemed to me the point of Prosecraft was to, for potential authors to be able to glean information about books to help themselves as authors. So if I know that like X novel that I'm trying to write a similar novel to uses passive voice X percent of the time, I guess my question is, is that useful information for a potential author?
00:38:57.100Part of me is like, is this person taking the books and mining stuff?
00:39:03.280But in addition to that, is this person trying to sell potential authors on something that maybe they don't really need and try to convince them?
00:39:11.620Like, oh, this is going to be the magic bullet that makes your writing a success.
00:39:15.240And maybe kind of preying on the need that potential authors might have for a tool that they're being told is going to be the thing that makes them successful.
00:39:26.320Well, I'm not even sure if I'm asking that in a way that makes sense.
00:39:28.240I think I understand what you're saying.
00:39:30.560He got criticized a lot for the sort of data, the usefulness of the data that he was presenting.
00:39:37.340I mean, people were so harsh about the passive voice, active voice thing.
00:39:43.420You know, I have a very personal reaction to that, which is I was once married to a PhD in computer science.
00:39:52.080and he approached the world in a very different way than I did. And so knowing that this guy,
00:39:59.900Benji Smith, is a computer scientist and on top of that, a linguist, like interested in
00:40:05.800linguistic analysis, to me, he was just nerding out, you know? And yeah, it might have only been
00:40:13.240of interest to him and that's okay. I don't necessarily think anything that he was doing was
00:40:19.600of real value to the average writer, but it was interesting to him. Okay.
00:40:25.080I think that a lot of that is easily lost in our conversations online, especially conversations of
00:40:31.160communities that don't always feel heard, right? If you're someone trying to break into publishing,
00:40:35.200I could imagine that that is a dynamic where it's easy to feel like your voice is just lost
00:40:42.160all the time and that you're constantly pushing up an uphill struggle. And so I wonder if that
00:40:48.560played into some of the big reactions of like, these are a community of people who feel unheard
00:40:53.580a lot. Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Writers feel vulnerable. Like they're
00:40:59.400getting the short end of the stick, that they're under attack, that everyone's trying to take away
00:41:04.200the value that they offer the world. And so like from a psychological perspective or from, from
00:41:11.760or the social, cultural, political moment
00:41:29.980Like in a space at a time where it feels like
00:41:33.360there are technology-enabled threats to the industry,
00:41:37.520how do you stay so pragmatic, so clear-eyed, so grounded?
00:41:41.760Some of it's just probably inherent in my nature, but also having been in the same industry now for going on almost three decades, like, I do feel like I've kind of seen it all.
00:41:53.740Now, there are surprises, there's no question, but I've spoken to so many writers over the years, I've spoken at so many conferences, seen every kind of perspective and outrage.
00:42:07.560And so it's, I feel like I can step back from it all and see just the patterning.
00:42:18.900It's all just patterns and a lot of things, a lot of the same dynamics just repeat themselves
00:42:26.060Yeah, I've talked to a lot of like technologists and AI ethics folks, and they say most of
00:42:32.960them have said some version of what you've just said, that it actually benefits people who make
00:42:38.620AI when we sort of doom and gloom and catastrophize, that's the right word, catastrophize,
00:42:44.760around things like AI, that that's what they want us to be saying. And that there have been hype
00:42:49.820cycles where different kinds of technology were going to change certain industries, decimate
00:42:55.380certain industries, and those things didn't always come to fruition. So recognize that pattern. And
00:43:00.680And rather than following in that pattern again and again and again, stop and ask, like, am I actually amplifying a hype cycle that we don't actually know is going to shift this industry the way it's telling us, the way it's telling us it will?
00:43:16.740I think it started as a podcast, and it's now just a website called The Pessimist's Archive that really, I think, introduces – it really shows this concept and action.
00:43:30.680over many, many decades. And it will dig up old articles from 100, 200 years ago about how this
00:43:38.520or that technology is going to destroy everything that's good. And I did a little bit of my own
00:43:44.780research too, inspired by what they do, to look up what were writers saying about word processing.
00:43:52.800You know, like when it became possible for basically anyone to start writing and typing
00:43:57.200and doing their own thing, or with desktop publishing. I went to the New York Times
00:44:02.380specifically to see what was the reaction. And there was one person who felt like women would1.00
00:44:08.480no longer have jobs as a result of word processing. Because if everyone was typing1.00
00:44:13.900their own stuff, what would women have left to do? Jade, I have to tell you, this is not at all
00:44:20.840the perspective i thought you were going to have it is so refreshing it like it is just really
00:44:27.400refreshing to hear someone be like let's not all like lose it over this just yet you know let's
00:44:33.720take a step back and really do some comparison about how we've talked about things before there
00:44:38.820there's so many insights from history that we can that we can find the way that we've talked about
00:44:43.000emerging technology and i'm just happy that someone who is such a a voice in the space is
00:44:49.960doing that as opposed to sort of jumping on the bandwagon of like completely catastrophizing
00:44:55.820online. Right. Right. Thank you. This situation that happened this week was very unusual
00:45:03.320because prior to this, I've always been fairly artificial intelligence neutral or
00:45:12.320generative AI neutral. And I've gotten taken to task for that by people in my community. They
00:45:19.520think that I am promoting harm or a dangerous technology. And I respect their feelings. I'm
00:45:27.000not going to say nothing bad is going to happen as a result. Obviously, bad things are going to
00:45:30.700happen. And I had someone actually get in touch with me a second time after taking me to task
00:45:36.620when she saw the news cycle. She said, now have you changed your mind? And I said, no,
00:45:44.660no I haven't I'm still on the same page as before well are there guardrails that you would like to
00:45:53.000see platforms like Amazon and Goodreads take to make to try to keep the harm to a minimum when
00:46:01.640it comes to AI and creatives yes they can do so much better and that's really why I raised the
00:46:08.220flag they can do better they must do better and why they haven't is beyond me I really I'm not
00:46:14.180so cynical to say, oh, it's just about profits. I think this harms them in the long run, too.
00:46:21.400So yes, and I would like for there to be respect and transparency from all of the companies that
00:46:28.380are putting forth this technology, whether it's OpenAI or Microsoft or Google. I think authors
00:46:33.400deserve to know if their works have been used in the training of these models. I think they should
00:46:38.620have the right to opt out. I believe in moral rights for authors, and I understand why they're
00:46:43.320upset because they're not getting really access to those moral rights in this situation. So I
00:46:49.080hope to see that come to pass. I believe in more legislation around AI. I hope it doesn't take too
00:46:55.620much longer, but I don't think we should just be shutting the whole thing down. What do you think
00:47:00.120is next for the publishing industry? Well, what's so fascinating, at least for my industry perch,
00:47:08.600is watching publishers navigate this in a way that doesn't upset the author core.
00:47:16.120So they're definitely looking at these tools as ways to be better marketers and promoters
00:47:23.100because publishing companies, marketing departments are desperately understaffed.
00:47:28.060They have so little money and resource to promote the books they publish.
00:47:32.300So I think they're looking at AI as a way to immediately address that situation.
00:47:38.600And Penguin Random House, the biggest of the publishers, already has an AI person on staff, someone who's like a computer scientist type who's looking at how to use this in a responsible way.
00:47:49.520And Penguin Random House is also setting up their own internal models, you know, so they're not feeding the general models.
00:47:57.520But, you know, authors are starting to ask for contractual protections.
00:48:01.600You know, they're asking publishers, I want you to promise you're not going to train my work on AI.
00:48:05.680I want you to make these other promises, too.
00:48:07.380some publishers have been very willing to put that kind of language in the contract and others
00:48:12.920aren't so I am a little bit worried that you know the the biggest five uh publishers in the
00:48:20.820United States have kind of worked authors into a corner on other issues like it's really hard
00:48:26.500to sell a book today without also selling the e-book rights and the audiobook rights it's kind
00:48:30.940of it's it's it's an all or nothing sort of situation same with e-book royalties you can't
00:48:36.740really negotiate those, even with a great literary agent. So I'm really concerned that
00:48:42.640if all of these big publishers kind of, they're not supposed to collude, of course, but if they
00:48:48.260somehow were to unilaterally come to the same conclusion, I would feel bad. I don't think it
00:48:55.340would be right for authors to feel like they have to give up certain rights in order to have a
00:49:00.000decent publisher, if that's what they want. Well, that's a great segue to one of my last
00:49:05.200questions, which is that you've been giving advice to, like, generations of writers. Where can folks
00:49:10.720find your advice? Where can folks connect with you? What's next for Jane?
00:49:16.640Yeah, the best place is my author website. That's janefriedman.com. I do have a range of newsletters,
00:49:24.240both free and paid, that people can subscribe to, and then a blog, which can be delivered via email
00:49:29.360as well. So those are the best places to start. Is there anything that I did not ask that you
00:49:35.680want to make sure gets included in this conversation? I don't think so. That was
00:49:40.000really thorough and great questions too. Thank you. Except for the first one where I got you
00:49:45.020confused with another Jane Friedman. Well, what's it like having another prominent person in the
00:49:50.500space with your same name and then be trying to fight with Amazon about having... I know.
00:49:55.300Like, it's just a head fuck a little bit.0.99