Meta’s chief AI scientist slammed for saying authors should give books away

[German Translator]

Meta’s chief AI scientist slammed for saying authors should give books away for free—while selling his on Amazon for $20

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/yann-lecun-free-books/

....on Monday, LeCun kicked off the year by sparking a firestorm of controversy when he tried his hand at a prognosis for the publishing business. LeCun’s suggestion was simple. Given that many authors make barely any money from publishing, authors should instead give their books away for free.

“Only a small number of book authors make significant money from book sales,” LeCun wrote in a post on X. “This seems to suggest that most books should be freely available for download. The lost revenue for authors would be small, and the benefits to society large by comparison.”

[Matthew]

Unfortunately, I can't eat from the benefits to society...

Honestly despite what he says, it feels like a contradiction. To paraphrase: "It's sad most creatives can't make a lot of money, so let's give them nothing at all."

And to supplement writing income, some authors already are teaching or selling classes like his jazz musicians.

The open source software comment is rather tone deaf as well. People have been leaving open source development (myself included) simply because we still need to eat, and nobody would give us any money. If an open source project becomes popular, companies will cannibalize your revenue streams where the license allows. Otherwise, bigger projects tend to have corporate sponsorships / paid developers anyway.

Of course, in software, there will always be those who espouse freedom and want to share, for free, on principal. The same is already true of books -- tons of people are giving away books for free.

Honestly, let's not talk about how predatory academia is. People who write papers often have to pay out of their own pocket for peer review at worst. At best, they don't get any money for sales of articles despite the fact that the big journals charge access to the papers. Sometimes they get government money for the research, so I'm a fan of requiring publicly-funded research to be publicly-available. The Meta guy is a clown.

But the only way we can really release our work for free is if we're supported in some other way. Whether that's another full-time job, supportive spouse, or some magical universal basic income that will probably never materialize.

[Lorri Moulton]

I'd think about it if someone wanted to pay for advertising like paid/streaming vs. free shows on Roku TV.

[LilyBLily]

Stupid, ignorant comment. It's too easy to go on and on about how stupid he is. So I won't keep saying this guy is stupid. 

[Jeff Tanyard]

It's easy to be generous with other people's stuff.

[PJ Post]

Wreaks of entitlement.

[Post-Crisis D]

How does society benefit from having more books people aren't even willing to pay for?

True, there are plenty of good (i.e., well-written, enjoyable, etc.) books that do not sell.  But, they do not sell not because people aren't willing to pay for them but because people may not see them or the blurb isn't good or the cover isn't appealing or a number of other factors which have little to nothing to do with the actual content of the book itself.

If those books are free, they suffer the same problems.  Maybe a very tiny percentage of people might give them a try because they are free but probably not.  And some people will just download them because they are free and then never read them.

Giving books away as part of a marketing strategy is not the same as giving books for free because whatever.

On the flip side, you have books that people don't buy because they are just bad books and not worth paying for.  They are also not worth downloading for free.  They are not worth wasting your time reading.  They are just bad and no one buys them because they are bad.  And if you make them free, they are still bad.

How does society benefit from having access to a huge virtual library of bad books?  I would say it probably doesn't except as examples of how not to write a book and the target audience for that is authors and I think we've all come across our fair share of bad books and I'm doubtful we would benefit from being able to access hundreds of thousands more.

[Post-Crisis D]

On top of that, the guy is an AI scientist, right?  Supposedly.  Well, why doesn't he develop an AI that would work as a recommendation engine to help those quality books that do not sell reach their potential audience?  You could tell the AI what books you've enjoyed and the AI could suggest other books--including works by indie authors--that you might also enjoy?  Seems like a win-win for society and authors, right?

But, of course, building AI to make art and write books and stuff to try to put artists and authors out of business, while making billions for the AI companies themselves, and then suggesting artists and authors just give their stuff away for free because they can't make money anyway, is easier and more profitable, right?

Maybe by "society" he meant himself and his AI coding buddies, not actual society.

[PJ Post]

Seems like a win-win for society and authors, right?

There's no place for rational thinking around here, this is the internet ffs!   /s

[Bill Hiatt]

How much stuff does Meta give away? You can use FB for free, true, and have an author page (for example) for free. But to do anything with it, you have to pay through the nose. It's especially grating when people in an unabashedly for-profit business want others to give things away. I'll start giving away my books when Meta starts giving small business free, unlimited advertising.

Most authors, even trad authors, don't make enough to live on. That's true. But most authors make something, particularly those who stick with it. And many are motivated by the hope of making more. Removing that motivation also removes the incentive to keep producing books, at least for many people.