AI Does Not An Author Make

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Today I woke up sprawled out on my couch because I once again passed out while watching Youtube. This is a new trend for me as I inch closer and closer to 40. But, I got up, slapped some food into a bowl for my cat, and then turned on the milquetoast social media, and immediately saw more aggravating takes from people who don’t deserve attention, or any money whatsoever. I’m talking about plagiarists who are desperate to be called authors; AI loving losers who think you should definitely expel energy to read things they didn’t even have the energy to write themselves.

This comes on the heel of more irritating news, as Mozilla ignores thousands and thousands of their users criticizing their implementation of AI into Firefox (for no verifiable reason whatsoever), because obviously they’re more interested in the destruction of Mozilla, than continuing to be a privacy focused company. I have since moved to Vivaldi, a browser by a company that has pledged not to implement AI into their browser.

But, back to the point at-hand, I want to highlight this article specifically, because I can only take so much inauthentic douchebaggery before I have to really express my thoughts. And that’s saying a lot, because most of corporate social media feeds off of being inauthentic and fake.

Post by @theinformation

View on Threads

Opinion: Johnny Silverhand should materialize into the real world and explode AI content farms.

Let’s not even talk about the Threads account of a publication that has such a basic name that it’s gotta be AI generated (we’re … THE INFORMATION), but into the article itself where the featured image, some glossy ai-generated sludge, is attributed to the same guy who’s writing about how great it is to plagiarize actual writers in order to write a book. To add insult to injury, you can’t even read his word-vomit without paying him and/or the website for a subscription. Like the desperation of a teenager right before prom, these complete hacks who think they can technology their way into being a part of the creative world, they’re dead-set determined to make money off of you, somehow, some way.

So, because the article is paywalled and I’m too groggy to sift through their code in order to delete it, we’re just going to talk about the snippet you’re allowed to see before it cuts off and demands … ah, a minimum 300 dollars per year. Yeah, no. Put me in a Saw trap in a dirty bathroom, chained to a wall with a rusty bone saw and I’d sooner remove my own foot than pay you.

Ripped directly from the RSS feed:

Tim Boucher is an artist and technologist who explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and human creativity.

I set up a Google Alert on my name so long ago that I’d almost forgotten about it. It occasionally sends me stories about people in faraway places who share my first and last names. But the alert I received in mid-August was different.

When I opened the email, I realized that this was really about me: My work had been referenced in a class action lawsuit against Anthropic, a leader in generative artificial intelligence. I am not party to the lawsuit, but it claims that my work is not real “writing” (scare quotes and all) and that I am not a real author, because I use generative AI, among other tools, to produce my books. No one involved in the lawsuit reached out to me for more information; I would have been happy to share.

“Tim Boucher is an artist.” I wouldn’t go that far, insulting artists by giving Tim credibility. But, right from the get-go, this guy is expressing his extreme need to feel important, or like he’s done something, by immediately detailing that he’s setup Google Alerts to let him know when people have mentioned his name online. Tim Boucher, come read what I’ve written about you, you fake piece of crap.

He starts out talking about how he was essentially being sued for using AI to pump out sludge-books. And, to whomever said his writing was not real, I applaud you. You should do it again.

Since that’s around where it cuts off, I’m assuming the article is less about Tim trying to feel validated in being a plagiarist hack, and more him writing a defense he’ll use in the court of law, where he’ll be forever shamed. I’m just going to use this as a jumping off point to share the rest of my feelings on this matter. A matter I wish wasn’t a matter, but we’re living in the worst and also most boring cyberpunk dystopia imaginable.

They’re right, Tim. You are not a real writer, you are not a real author, and you haven’t done anything of note.

Anyone who uses theft-tech to generate words that they can publish for a quick buck is not a damn author. You are no better than Microsoft Tech Support scammers ripping off elderly people of their retirement money. You have done nothing. You did not write anything. You used a machine that has scraped the entire internet of every word an actual human has written, in order to generate a discombobulation of words that you hope someone will think is interesting.

But I’m here to say, fuck you.

It’s because of people like you that the world of self published writing will be even worse off, and will be continued to be considered lesser than big house publishing. Because of uncreative, losers, flooding the market, flooding apps with shit. Before, we were only competing with people who refuse to proofread. Now we’re competing with people who refuse to proofread, and also people who refuse to read and write.

I wish I was making this up.

I wish I hadn’t started writing my next book literal months before this started to become a problem. I wish I would’ve written it years ago, so that I could’ve gotten it out, and finished in an era where I could still share snippets and previews online, without needing to worry about machines taking every word and rearranging it for people who should go broke and live in the gutter.

That’s how I feel.

No-holds-barred, if you use AI to generate art and fiction, you deserve the worst. And no less than that.

Fortunately, like NFTs, AI is a bubble, and when it finally pops, the results will be amazing, hilarious, and great. And then the general internet will forget any of this happened three days later.