A children's book that seems completely innocuous, even a little cheesy, but sells at a high price from all online booksellers. However, there is no trace of a biography of its author. Was it written by a real woman? Or entirely by artificial intelligence (AI)? During the 25es Digital book conference, which was held on Thursday, November 28 at the National Library of France, Arnaud Robert, secretary general of Hachette Livre and president of the legal commission of the National Publishing Union (SNE), clearly leaned in favor of second hypothesis, by presenting the cover of this book on a screen measuring 4 by 3 meters. Even if nothing indicates this on the cover. Mr. Robert highlighted the avalanche of books written by AI, “to the point where “real” works risk disappearing in a magma of works that are not written by humans”.
Especially since the latter are systematically supported by hundreds of laudatory comments, also developed by AI. Even though Amazon imposed, in December 2023, that the same “person” cannot publish more than three books per day on its self-publishing platform Kindle Direct Publishing, the production flow continues to increase. Faced with this threat, the SNE has decided to take the matter to a legal level and has just appointed a lawyer who will analyze the legality of this type of book.
AI is already investing in many fields of publishing. According to Virginie Clayssen, director of heritage and digitization at Editis and president of the SNE digital commission, “all publishers have been working with AI for two years, most often in test phases”.
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The American company Veristage has created Insight, an AI platform aimed at them. Launched by two publishing bigwigs, Thomas Minkus and Thomas Cox, it allows, according to the latter, to analyze documents and “streamline the entire publishing lifecycle”. Insight includes tools for extracting data from a manuscript (summaries of characters, plot, locations, etc.), translating books into five languages, and producing audiobooks at high speed. The platform also suggests texts for the back covers, marketing campaigns for social networks, captions and images… And it can also analyze the sales of a book. Entire sections of publishing are therefore affected. “I hear a lot of people have concerns about jobs. I don't know a single editor who isn't overloaded with work.”says Mr. Cox, who wants to be reassuring, without convincing.
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