Literacy

There was a post on LinkedIn about the cancellation of the U.S. launch the revenge horror novel "Shy Girl" and it being withdrawn in markets where it was already available. In the LinkedIn post, the author made the following observation:

Use no AI and you're mocked for not being innovative. Use too much and you get cancelled.

Which may be true, but I would note that it wouldn't be by the same people. And that makes the answer relatively simple: know your market and your target audience.

The problem with using generative automation on a revenge horror novel, it seems to me, is that it's the sort of thing that relatively affluent young people read, and, as I understand it, middle-class young people are very opposed to generative automation, especially in the arts. Not that this will stop anyone. Because generative automation will make the process of producing a novel shorter and easier, people are going to keep searching for ways to get around any public distaste. And eventually, someone will succeed, and it won't be until after the book becomes a best seller that word gets out, at which point that damage will have been done. A publisher may be able to claw back the author's part of the proceeds, but the understanding that there's money to be made will push more efforts to repeat trick.

And eventually, people will be faced with a choice. And if history is any indication, they're going to make the one that makes life less expensive for them in the short term. But for the time being, the best things that authors and publishers to do is read the room.