Publishing scammers are using AI to scale their grifts

[APP]

An interesting article on this subject, but no real surprises,

https://www.vox.com/culture/23827325/publishing-ai-scams-large-language-models

[Hopscotch]

Perhaps AI writing should be considered another genre and sold that way, ending the grift by offering competition to the human-made?

[Bill Hiatt]

Legally, the possibility that AI was trained from scraping pirated copies makes a court defeat for the AI programmers much more likely.

[PJ Post]

AI isn't the problem here. Amazon has always had bogus/scam book submissions. Con artists aren't new.

If the book is well written and engaging, it doesn't really matter how it came to be. And if it is straight up plagiarism, then it is straight up infringement and therefore actionable. QED

We need to stop focusing on AI as some supervillain enabler and start focusing on the humans and their wholly human intent.

[Bill Hiatt]

Ai may be a facilitator here rather than the actual villain. There's certainly no question that Amazon needs to better monitor what it distributes.

[Post-Crisis D]

AI may be more like a meth lab.  Maybe occasionally it cooks up a meal on the burner or gives up some of its stock of cough medicine to a sick child, but most of the time it's up to no good.

[APP]

Dear Author, Are You Human? Certifying Authenticity
https://writerbeware.blog/2023/08/11/dear-author-are-you-human-certifying-authenticity/

Will this approach work? I'd like to think it would, but to be truthful, I'd be shocked if it did. Bottom line: I've become jaded through the years.

[Post-Crisis D]

Dear Author, Are You Human? Certifying Authenticity
https://writerbeware.blog/2023/08/11/dear-author-are-you-human-certifying-authenticity/

Will this approach work? I'd like to think it would, but to be truthful, I'd be shocked if it did. Bottom line: I've become jaded through the years.

I don't think self-certifying is going to work.  I certainly wouldn't pay for such a service.  I mean, when I file for copyright, I am basically self-certifying at that point that I wrote the work.  Why would I want to pay $55 to the Copyright Office and then pay $50 to self-certify on a website so I can stick a label on it?  Wouldn't my registered copyright already do that?  And I only have to pay that once per work, not annually.

[She-la-te-da]

Well, the court has ruled that "AI" can hold copyright, so it needs to be removed from Amazon and elsewhere. Though it's mostly Amazon, because that's where the cheating pays off.

Guess the cheats and lazy "make a million on kindle" types will need a new hustle. Low content without "AI" may be pushed harder again.

[TimothyEllis]

Well, the court has ruled that "AI" can hold copyright, so it needs to be removed from Amazon and elsewhere.

That doesn't make sense. Did you leave a word out of that?

There is plenty of not in copyright stuff on Amazon. All the public domain works are on there multiple times.

[Bill Hiatt]

I think the intent was, "AI can't hold copyright..."

But yes, public domain stuff is available on Amazon. I'd also be in favor of removing AI work, but via a specific Amazon rule. After all, for years Audible excluded audiobooks that weren't narrated by humans, and still does. Amazon could certainly have a rule excluding AI books if it wanted to. At the moment, they do create a poor customer experience.

[She-la-te-da]

Yes, I mistyped it. Should be "can't". Since Covid struck, I can't type for you-know-what, it's worse than ever. And I used to be a perfect typist. :(  Usually I catch these things, but lately, not always. Sorry about the confusion.

[She-la-te-da]

Amazon allows public domain, but they have restrictions. They require at least 25% new work, which means even if the "AI" created stuff was public domain, it would have to have more stuff added, like commentary, illustrations and so on to comply with the rules.

I really don't see how anyone is going to get this stuff published. You can't claim the copyright on it, no matter how much you do to it (and most of this stuff? Nothing was done, it was uploaded as is).

One thing for sure, Amazon, et. al., needs to settle down and make some firm rules on how this is going to go. They also need to figure out how they're going to explain to their customers how this stuff is coming up on searches, most of it's very bad, and customers have already shown their disfavor.

In the meantime, expect upload times to get longer, searches to get worse, and readers to get angry.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, I mistyped it. Should be "can't". Since Covid struck, I can't type for you-know-what, it's worse than ever. And I used to be a perfect typist. :(  Usually I catch these things, but lately, not always. Sorry about the confusion.

I sometimes make errors like that as well, but with no good reason for them. 

I've heard that long Covid can be tough. I'm hoping a cure will arise as time goes on, or at least, a more effective treatment. I'm sure we'll all be keeping a good thought for that.

[She-la-te-da]

As far as I can find, there's really nothing for long Covid. I've seen stuff about supplements, Vitamin D3 and such. I've started back on some of my various supplements, not seeing a noticeable improvement. Oh, well, we shall see. :D

[LBL]

As far as I can find, there's really nothing for long Covid. I've seen stuff about supplements, Vitamin D3 and such. I've started back on some of my various supplements, not seeing a noticeable improvement. Oh, well, we shall see. :D

It's hard to know what works and what doesn't. Some say masks minimize viral load intake, some say masks do nothing at all. Some say Vitamin D's a cure-all, some say it helps a little bit, if at all. Same goes for so many other supplements and medications. And, let's not even get into the whole vax debates.

Some interventions work, and some don't - depending on the person. Or... so it seems?

Still, I can't help but feel a lot of the time - for all of our health-focused intrusions - we're really, simply prisoners to our own specific, inherited genetics which (probably) ultimately have the biggest say over each of our individual health outcomes, regardless if it's COVID or any other condition.

Long COVID's an especially tough one given we haven't had the virus nor the illness itself around long enough to build a comprehensive enough historical dataset we could then compare, and contrast i.e. study with various sufferer's individual genetic makeups.

Tough one for sure. I hope you're finding something that works.

[Hopscotch]

I can't help but feel a lot of the time - for all of our health-focused intrusions - we're really, simply prisoners to our own specific, inherited genetics which (probably) ultimately have the biggest say over each of our individual health outcomes, regardless if it's COVID or any other condition.

That's true, but some claim that dancing naked under a blue moon cures covid.  I've two left feet and rather take my chances with masking/vaxxing/eating my veggies and trying not to imagine 330M of my fellow citizens naked dancing on any blue moon night.

[LilyBLily]

I can't help but feel a lot of the time - for all of our health-focused intrusions - we're really, simply prisoners to our own specific, inherited genetics which (probably) ultimately have the biggest say over each of our individual health outcomes, regardless if it's COVID or any other condition.

That's true, but some claim that dancing naked under a blue moon cures covid.  I've two left feet and rather take my chances with masking/vaxxing/eating my veggies and trying not to imagine 330M of my fellow citizens naked dancing on any blue moon night.

Seriously? Dancing naked under the blue moon we had last month? Oops. Too late--and a good thing, too. 

[writeway]

There were scamming generations before AI. There has been scamming on retailers since retailers were invented and it always will be. The bottom line has nothing to do with AI but scammers. Scammers are gonna scam, period. AI seems to have become the scapegoat for AI-haters but AI didn't invent scamming.

[Bill Hiatt]

No, but AI does make some scams easier.