AI is not the enemy. It’s a tool, just like social media and all the other publishing demons (Amazon, ebooks, streaming…) we now cannot live without.
Do donkeys know about spiders? In asking that bizarre question, Thad McIlroy takes us on a journey through the AI-in-publishing maze, without once claiming the sky is falling.
Yeah, hard to believe, I know. What kind of publishing consultant would miss a golden opportunity like this for a publishing panic headline? In publishing, the sky is always falling.
But as we see from Thad’s post and from comments thereto, the sky maybe hanging low in places. But common-sense can prop it up.
And common-sense is at the heart of McIlroy’s view on AI:
The problem with applying new tools to old problems is that the focus then becomes the old problem, not the capabilities of the new tool. It’s not just about applying these tools to old problems. It’s about finding a way to expose the inherent strengths of these tools, and then to see what magic can result when their strengths intersect with the traditions of our industry.
Read the full essay from Thad McIlroy over at The Future of Publishing.
Here just to reiterate the TNPS position:
AI is not the enemy. It’s a tool, just like social media and all the other publishing demons (Amazon, ebooks, streaming…) we so love to hate but cannot live without.
The sooner publishers understand that about AI, the sooner we can embrace the advantages of AI and put limits in place to reign in its negative elements.
That would be a NO. I will never merely accept the theft of others’ work to build something to profit from.