Meet Ammaar Reshi. He was having fun chatting with a new AI bot called ChatGPT when an idea struck him. Within the span of a weekend, he used AI like this bot and Midjourney for the images to create and publish a children’s book. It sparked a massive uproar when he shared this news on social media platforms like Twitter.
Publishing a book within a weekend is no mean feat. It takes planning, preparation, and time to design the artwork. Not for Reshi and his AI tools. Thanks to machine learning, the 12-page story was completed in no time, including illustrations and a book cover.
On the one hand, this is impressive. It means that anyone that’s wanted to publish a book but doesn’t know how to write can now do so. Also, for actual authors like me who can’t pay for cover designers and sucks at illustrations, it means I have a new solution. It also means I can get illustrations for the creatures in my horror novel, something I’ve appointed three different human artists for in the last two years and still failing.
Then we have those completely opposed, which also includes me. I’m talking about artists and writers. Firstly, artists are upset that AI has learnt from their styles and art to make these illustrations. In some way, that’s still plagiarism without compensation. While it’s not a thing yet, I’m sure AI will also learn from writers like me and may even start stealing from our stories.
While this is the most voiced concern, I believe there’s an underlying fear. The more we teach AI how to illustrate and write like us, the less the world will need us for art and books. Game developers can save so much money and increase profits by simply getting AI to write the quests and create the entire world in the game. We’re helping machines take work away from us.
Strangely, Reshi feels our pain. “I think there’s a real concern, and I actually do hear out those artists. It’s really important that the tech industry that’s working on these tools involves them in the process of creation.”
The consideration is appreciated, yet, the book is still for sale. For my future novels, I’ll put a disclaimer “This book was created by a human, and not AI.”
