There are actually quite a lot of troubling issues around AI which really don’t seem to be discussed, or get discussed in the shallowest way.
The thing that everyone, and I mean everyone overlooks, is that AI is not a public resource. It is private property. It’s owned. And the owners are pouring money into it, with the intention of getting a profit out of it.
In pursuit of their profit, they are literally stealing everyone’s information. The works of artists, the works of writers of books and novels. We’ve seen language inserted everywhere to try and allow AI to take your zoom conversations, your phone calls, your social media posts, all taken without permission or compensation, for the ultimate purpose of the owners of AI and their investors to make a lot of money.
It was recently revealed that one of these AI companies early on considered paying for peoples work, they decided it was too expensive, and they’d just steal it instead. Wow. Well, that’s a completely ethical stance. Decide to steal, and then argue a self serving justification, and throw a bunch of lawyers at it, maybe buy a few judges.
I have to say, I find that viscerally offensive. Let me explain where I’m coming from.
I wrote a book about a television series called LEXX, I titled it eventually “Lexx Unauthorized, Backstage at the Dark Zone.” I admit, not the greatest title. I didn’t enter a few prompts, sit back and popped my book out, with no time or effort.
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“D.G. Valdron has written a thoughtful, insightful book on one of the quirkiest, most surreal science fiction TV shows ever made…
a don’t-miss book for anyone interested in SF (“sci-fi”), as well as the show LEXX. Well written and lively, Valdron offers facts, trivia, and opinions in a book that rivals David Gerrold’s “Trouble With Tribbles” as an inside view of how TV gets made, especially in a place — Halifax, Nova Scotia — that the world views as an out-of-the-way noplace!”
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I spent three years on the project. I travelled to Halifax and Toronto, I visited sets, production studios, I met and interviewed most of the cast and crew, the creators,I interviewed people in Germany and Canada at length, ran up huge phone bills, hotel, airfare, thousands of dollars of my own money. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of my time just on research. And then on the writing, more hundreds of hours, then editing, going round to publishers, eventually self publishing.
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“There isnt much written on Lexx, so to find this Labour of love is a real find. The author has deep insights into the show, both its strengths and weaknesses, and has an enormous range of perspectives and reflections from the cast and crew. If you read this, you wont see Lexx in the same way, you will see it with so much more insight.”
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I’m never going to get my time or money back. I’ve sold a few hundred copies maybe, but it’s not even close. But this was a labour of love, a passion project. I wrote a damned good book, and I’m proud of it.
I have another book, Starlost Unauthorized, years of work, off and on, building ideas, analysis, research, interviews. There are only two Starlost books out there, and the other one is practically a pamphlet I’ll not make my money back from it, I won’t be famous, it’s not going to be a best seller. But at least it’s mine. It represents a piece of my, my thoughts and insights, my soul. Someone buys the book, reads it… that means something.
“An important and well-researched work on a unique expression of Canadian cultural history.”
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“This is a terrific book on a much-maligned or otherwise-unremembered science fiction TV show from 1973… Valdron’s sympathetic viewpoint towards STARLOST is perfect: it lets us see the hurdles the show’s producers had to jump, in order to produce any kind of show at all; he gives us explanations for the show’s flaws, but never doles out fannish excuses…. And it’s such a good hearted and thoughtful work as well (and funny, and approachable, too).
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“Valdron has combined years of research and interviews along with episode synopsis and reviews into a single volume that doesn’t just chart the creation of the short lived series, but goes into how the socio-political landscape here in Canada at the time influenced the show in very profound ways.”
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Along comes these AI pricks, and they just scrape it and take it without permission or compensation or even the courtesy of notification. Wow, fuck you very much.
And that’s going to kill slowly but relentlessly, my chance of making a few dollars off of all that work and time and passion. Gee, thank you. It will kill, slowly but relentlessly, my book, and the reality that it is my book, my work, my name.. all that taken and mucked with.
Oh, and here’s the kicker: Plagiarism. Because my book is the only book out there on the subject, because my work is a significant portion of all the writing on the subject, because my work incorporates a wealth of information that is simply unique, odds are that any deep query will simply reproduce word for word, a fair chunk of my work as part of it — actual genuine plagiarism or copyright infringement. Not all of the AI article might be my work and my words, but it could be 20%, or 50%, or 80%, depends on the prompt.
Y’see AI is not creative. It just scrapes and gives out weighted averages. That’s fine, when you’re averaging a hundred sources. When you’re averaging one source… it tends to just reproduce that. If you’ve got a sufficiently comprehensive work in an otherwise unoccupied field, then your work will be largely reproduced, with varying sprinklings.
It doesn’t even take a comprehensive work in an empty field, the New York Times has demonstrated that as much as 30% to 80% their newspaper articles are reproduced word for word. They’ve got a lawsuit going.
So my work gets taken, without permission, consent or notice. And it is potentially reproduced in large part, potentially mangled, bowdlerized, potentially misapplied, on behalf of owners, who will use my and many other people’s stolen work to extract profits for themselves.
I don’t even get acknowledgment. Three years of hard work, dozens of interviews, thousands of dollars and thousands of hours down the drain with a hearty “fuck you, we’re taking and scraping, and you get nothing, not even recognition.”
So you’ll forgive me, if I have a deep emotional investment. I’ve written a lot of books — they represent an incredible amount of work and commitment.
Even a work of fiction, a novel, represents a deep commitment to research, to thought and reflection, to life experience, developing something to say, finding the path to saying it, the work and commitment to actually put it out into the world.
“This book is violent and brutal and haunting and beautiful. If I could give this a sixth star, I would.” — Michael R. Fletcher, Author of Beyond Redemption
“D.G. Valdron is an utterly fearless writer. Frankly, I think he=s one of the most original writers available today”. — Amazing Stories Online
“The Mermaid’s Tale is a fable of personhood wrapped in a murder mystery framed by a fantasy setting, peopled by familiar races that are presented in subtly original ways.” — Melanie Martila
“I absolutely loved this book; it’s already one I know I’ll remember for a long time. I would never have thought a book about an orc would be one of the best existential works I’ve ever read.” — — Julia Pike-kelly
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I have a novel, the Mermaid’s Tale, most people say it’s good. Some people say it’s amazing. The original concepts took ten years to develop, it took a year and a half to write. It took fifteen years to find a publisher. It’s a piece of my life, of my soul if you want to use that term. It’s a commitment, it was an urgent need to say something important to me.
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This is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Everyone should read it. Dark, brutal, and meaningful. ….written in such a way that it really hits home more than one would expect, and also the experience of making discoveries with the main character as they grow over the course of the story (and boy, do they grow!)
Set in a wonderfully rich and interesting world, a fantasy landscape not quite like any other I’ve ever read. Wholly original, but well thought out and even to a certain extent realistic in its ramifications. It explores cultures of a fantastic world as if they’re real.
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Now these book covers and reviewer quotes might seem like bragging. But that’s not the point.
The point is that these are real books. They’re good books. I don’t have tons of reviews, but the ones that I do have are honest and genuine. They’re proof that they’re good books.
The average gestation for these books is literally ten or fifteen years minimum, from original genesis to completion and publication. Of course I was doing other things, I didn’t spend thirty-five years nonstop. But they were there, somewhere, as I lived my life. They represented investments of time and energy, thought and research. The bare writing of each of them was probably six months to a year each, but that barely scratches the surface. The were part of me, they were part of my life.
Like it or not, they’re part of thirty-five years of my life, they’re a massive investment, a massive amount of work.
All of that so I can look forward to a jovial “Fuck you” from corporate assholes? So that anything I do can be casually stripped from me?
God help me if as a writer, I ever actually stumbled on a hit, because the very next day, I’ll have the pleasure of having thirty years of work and dedication washed away by a thousand instant clones.
Why would I want to write another novel, or do another book under those circumstances?
Why would I put in a weeks, or a months, or years or a lifetime of work into a project that will be stripped from me, my name and identity erased, my work consumed, distorted and spat out?
Why? Why would anyone? I don’t see any point. Instead, I’ll just spin memes around. No investment beyond twenty minutes here, or half an hour there. Let the LLM’s have garbage, so they can produce more garbage.
A lot of the people who seem to be proponents of AI just seem to regard it as a wonderful shiny toy and convenience. Well yeah, it is that. I’m sure it’s fun and feels good.
So does meth. Meth is great, it’s so easy, and you get such a reward. But after a while, it just rots your teeth and your brain, and in the end, all you’re left with is a garbage life.
My perspective, the perspective of the fucked, is a little different. I have to wonder what happens to creative people or creative work when the value of our work is systematically stripped from us. Why would anyone do that?
Are we supposed to work for free, so AI’s corporate owners should profit? So that kids can play around with our life’s work, without even recognition? What happens when what we do are devalued to zero? When who we are is reduced to zero.
I dunno. Maybe I’ll go get a job making sandiches at Subway, or hang out in the park and throw rocks at pigeons.
But even beyond that perspective there are serious issues around AI as to who is owning it, what they’re doing with it, whose data they are taking, and what is going to be done with it.
I mean, if they’re scraping zoom and social media and other sources, how much of your private information, your personal or professional conversations are going in there, waiting to be plucked. All anything will ever need is just someone giving the right prompts, to ruin your life, take your business, to ferret out your private life.
I’ve heard talk of using AI for therapy… so your innermost secrets and confidential disclosures go in… and then what? Who has that now? Corporate pricks, looking to monetize everything, every way they can. They’ll have your information, and the big question they’ll ask each other is how they can take your life and turn it into more money for them?
How can they sell you, buy you, rent you, manipulate you, turn you into a wind up moron so they can make sure you earn them a profit, so that you buy what they want, spend all your money the way they want, work for them, have whatever opinions they dictate. That’s what they want. They’re not your friends. They don’t care about you. All they want is to make as much money as possible out of you.
What are the odds that your information, your identity will be bought and sold — to marketers, to politicians, manipulators, that your personality will be deconstructed to refine targeting of you from everything from cults to political parties. Hell, the Corporate fucks that own AI can use it to bias and manipulate you to their own ends.
Can we actually maintain a democracy this way?
Can we even maintain a civilization or culture this way?
Can we survive as stable, sane, well adjusted individuals this way.
Or will we all drown in a tidal wave of AI slop, growing bereft and dysfunctional, children playing with toys, while becoming prey for everything with teeth?
I’ll tell you — I sit here and watch my life’s work, my heart and soul, years and decades of work and research, of thinking, of investment, of money and time and effort literally stolen from me without recognition, without consent or compensation, scraped and plagiarized, my life strip-mined, all so some soul-less corporate hacks can try and become the world’s first trillionaire.
I’m feeling pretty fucked.
But guess what, buckos. It won’t stop with me and mine. Sooner or later your turn will come up.
Think about it. And maybe we should all start having very serious conversations about what this thing is, what we want from it, and especially, who is going to own it and what they’re going to do with it.