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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Cheltenham Literature Festival had a “record-breaking” 2014, with almost 140,000 tickets sold, up 7% from the year before. People from all bar three UK postcodes attended the festival, and both Saturdays of the 10-day event saw more than 20,000 in attendance. Meanwhile Waterstones, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Connelly, author of 'The Burning Room' (Little, Brown and Company, 9780316225939) will appear on 'CBS This Morning' on Monday, November 3. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We need to reflect the reality of our communities, says The Fault in Our Stars writer John Green in video backing social media-led We Need Diverse Books campaignAll readers need to know that they too can be the heroes of a story, according to the bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-10-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tributes have been paid to author and former publisher Raleigh Trevelyan, who has died aged 91. Trevelyan, who passed away on October 23rd in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, worked at Jonathan Cape and Michael Joseph, and also wrote a number of books for Faber, including a wartime memoir and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Philippe de Montebello and Martin Gayford, authors of 'Rendez-vous with Art' (Thames & Hudson, 9780500239247), will appear on 'Charlie Rose' on Thursday, October 30. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Chris Baty, author of 'No Plot? No Problem: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days' (Chronicle Books, 9781452124773) will appear on KERA-FM's 'Think' radio show Wednesday, October 29. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers and retailers will aim to prevent ebook prices from soaring when a new European-wide VAT law on digital products is introduced on 1st January. Following a European Commission ruling dating back to 2008, ebooks and other digital services—including broadcasting and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tanya Holland, author of 'Brown Sugar Kitchen' (Chronicle Books, 9781452122342), will appear on NBC's 'Today' on Tuesday, October 28. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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David Walliams, Malorie Blackman and Debi Gliori are among the authors on this year's shortlist for the Red House Children's book prize. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2014-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Angry Robot has made its first acquisition since the company was sold off from the Osprey Group. World English rights were signed in two books by Alyc Helms in a deal from Lindsay Ribar and Stefanie Diaz at Greenburger Associates and Anna Carmichael at Abner Stein. The first title, The Dragons... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Patrick Rothfuss is the author of the mega-bestselling novels The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, and is currently hard at work on The Doors of Stone, the final volume in his epic fantasy trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle. In the latest episode of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy he discusses... Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2014-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A team at MIT has begun work on microscopic bacteria-like robot which can be injected into the human body.MIT researchers are researching robotic bacteria that walk through human bodies that could help deliver drugs to different organs and even detect tumors. In a journal article published in... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mark Mothersbaugh, author of 'Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia' (Princeton Architectural Press, 9781616892623), will appear on 'Studio 360' on Saturday, October 25. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nature Publishing Group and Palgrave Macmillan have made public data taken from an Author Insights survey questioning over 30,000 of their authors. The data – compiled last spring - has been made available publicly for the first time this week, to mark Open Access Week, and can be downloaded... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Dan Brown's talk at the Sharjah Book Fair, his first fair appearance outside the US, will be televised throughout the Arab world. The post Dan Brown, Arabic Authors to Star at Sharjah Book Fair appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A Twitter campaign to encourage more authors to sign up to Public Lending Right has been successful, according to Tracy Chevalier. Seventy authors registered for PLR in the first week of the campaign, led by Chevalier - an increase of 400% on the same period the year before. Chevalier, chair... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Women's Writing Festival in Matera, Italy was a showcase for the growing importance of women's fiction and self-publishing in Europe. The post Italian Writing Festival Takes Women, Self-Publishing Seriously appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-10-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors United has sent out a letter from the author Daniel Handler - a.k.a. Lemony Snicket - encouraging writers to take part in Upstream, a new programme to support independent bookstores. Upstream, “cooked up” by Handler and “assorted interested parties”, aims to connect writers with their... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Roy Keane and Roddy Doyle will be among the big names appearing at the second London Sports Writing Festival, taking place next week at Lord's Cricket Ground. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A little more than two months after the deal to sell the Perseus Books Group to the Hachette Book Group USA and Ingram fell apart, Perseus CEO David Steinberger has implemented a restructuring. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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