Artificial intelligence can now write fiction and journalism. But does it measure up to George Orwell – and can it report on Brexit?Will androids write novels about electric sheep? The dream, or nightmare, of totally machine-generated prose seemed to have come one step closer with the recent announcement of an artificial intelligence that could produce, all by itself, plausible news stories or fiction. It was the brainchild of OpenAI – a nonprofit lab backed by Elon Musk and other tech entrepreneurs – which slyly alarmed the literati by announcing that the AI (called GPT2) was too dangerous for them to release into the wild, because it could be employed to create “deepfakes for text”. “Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology,” they said, “we are not releasing the trained model.” Are machine-learning entities going to be the new weapons of information terrorism, or will they just put humble midlist novelists out of business?Let’s first take a step back. AI has been the next big thing for so long that it’s easy to assume “artificial intelligence” now exists. It doesn’t, if by “intelligence” we mean what we sometimes encounter in our fellow humans. GPT2 is just using methods of statistical analysis, trained on huge amounts of human-written text – 40GB of web pages, in this case, that received recommendations from Reddit readers – to predict what ought to come next. This probabilistic approach is how Google Translate works, and also the method... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Artificial intelligence can now write fiction and journalism. But does it measure up to George Orwell – and can it report on Brexit?Will androids write novels about electric sheep? The dream, or nightmare, of totally machine-generated prose seemed to have come one step closer with the recent... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Malorie Blackman advises budding authors to pick up on news stories, but Julia Donaldson warns of pitfalls – and Alan Moore says you should read terrible books as well as good onesThe key to being a good writer? It’s being a good reader, authors including Carol Ann Duffy and Alan Moore have said... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-03-02 15:43:52 UTC ]
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Earning a living as a writer is as likely as winning the lottery. Instead of writing books and persuading others to buy them, find out what people want to write, then do it for themPhilip Pullman: professional writers set to become ‘an endangered species’ due to low wagesI left school with a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Keira Knightley is latest star to publish a children’s book, but some say trend pushes aside genuine writers and makes it harder to find great children’s fiction“A modern classic by Keira Knightley” reads the provisional cover of the actor’s debut children’s book, I Love You Just the Same. Set... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-20 13:00:48 UTC ]
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An international writing organisation appeared to greenlight the use of AI, prompting anger, the resignation of four board members and an entire creative community to ask: ‘What?!’Please spare a thought for artificial intelligence (AI). It may not have feelings yet but, if it did, it would feel... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-09-11 10:00:07 UTC ]
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Novelist Zoë Eisenberg and journalist-turned-author Rhaina Cohen have something in common: they both published books about extraordinarily intimate friendships. Their debut books published in February of this year with strikingly similar titles—Significant Others (Eisenberg) and The Other... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-12 08:55:38 UTC ]
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Kimmerer's 'The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World' will be published by Scribner on November 19. Her breakout hit 'Braiding Sweetgrass,' which has sold over 2 million copies, was published in 2013 by Milkweed. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s not pretty but conference calls at dawn keep us showing up. We’ve got novels to write, which is the only work we really want to doGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastWhen you work solo, peer accountability is sacred.Three mornings a week I set my alarm... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-30 00:56:10 UTC ]
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The Prisoner’s Throne author Holly Black reflects on the rise of “romantasy” novels, explicit sex scenes, and BookTok. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2024-03-18 21:31:31 UTC ]
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From the shock and awe of labour to domestic isolation, a wave of recent novels captures the transformative nature of being a motherThey say nothing prepares you. Before having my baby, I approached the literature of motherhood as though I were about to sit an exam. If my studies tempered the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 11:00:01 UTC ]
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The award-winning author on how Trump, Covid and anti-Asian rhetoric inspired her latest novel, digging her way out of ‘post-book fatigue’, and learning to touch type using UlyssesCeleste Ng, 42, is the award-winning author of three novels, including Little Fires Everywhere, which was made into... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-22 17:00:15 UTC ]
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Stephen Carver, Guinevere Glasfurd, Brian Needham and Jo McMillan respond to Joanne Harris’s article about horribly low pay in the publishing worldRegarding Joanne Harris’s article (Horribly low pay is pushing out my fellow authors – and yes, that really does matter, 7 December), I guess I’m a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-12-11 17:07:25 UTC ]
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Going from nonfiction to fiction can be both liberating and paralyzing, Hafner explains. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-08-12 10:00:26 UTC ]
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“I grew up working class and money was a factor in everything we did,” says the poet and novelist, whose new book is the memoir “Crying in the Bathroom.” “That’s why I always write about the financial realities of my characters.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-07-07 09:00:11 UTC ]
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His books about the Great Chicago Fire and America’s first epidemic were Newbery Honor winners. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-19 22:43:48 UTC ]
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Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, at 50, is not the average age of a debut author. But the public school teacher describes herself as a “literary debutante” with the October publication of “My Monticello.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-28 13:06:03 UTC ]
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Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Review of Books published a fairly wild essay by Miguel Esteban who, at the tender age of 14, commissioned a now-famous essay on race in science fiction from Octavia Butler. The whole piece is worth a read (the gall of teenage boys! the grace of Octavia!) but... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-07-26 13:40:52 UTC ]
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The “rise of the hybrid author” was discussed at London Book Fair, with the prediction that writers will increasingly buy back rights to their own books from publishers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-06-24 22:00:58 UTC ]
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The shift to virtual author events during the pandemic has prompted booksellers and publishers to put together events for overseas authors who would not traditionally tour the U.S. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-05-07 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Deesha Philyaw talks about the long gestation of her collection 'The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,' a Times Book Prize finalist for first fiction. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-04-06 16:30:19 UTC ]
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