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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Stephen King and Donna Tartt among those petitioning Amazon to 'stop harming the livelihood of the authors'Readers of the New York Times will have to steel themselves this weekend, as the unseemly brawl between Hachette and Amazon erupts on to the tranquil pages of the Grey Lady. Perhaps the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Below is a sampling of some of the many authors who will be at this season’s eight regionals. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sierra Entertainment is one of those legendary companies from the '90s that died somewhere in the past decade of industry consolidation. See also: LucasArts, Mythic, Midway, Neversoft, et al. Known primarily for the "Quest" series of adventure games—King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest—and... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Here is a sampling of some of the many authors who will be at this season’s eight regionals. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bestselling authors George R.R. Martin and Chuck Palahniuk and director Quentin Tarantino, along with their respective comics publishers Avatar Press, Dark Horse, and Dynamite Entertainment, generated a lot of attention at the recent Comic-Con International about their forthcoming comics projects. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author Julian Gough is using Kickstarter to part-fund a writing research trip to Las Vegas. The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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S&S reported a 12% rise in revenue in the second quarter of 2014, credited the growth to such print bestsellers as Hillary Clinton's 'Hard Choices' and Stephen King's 'Mr. Mercedes.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors including Sebastian Faulks, P D James, Howard Jacobson, India Knight and Richard Dawkins... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Judy Melinek, author of 'Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner' (Scribner, 9781476727257), will appear on NPR's 'Science Friday' on Friday, August 8. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The book, 'The Ice Dragon,' appears to be set in the 'Game of Thrones' fictional universe. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The book, 'The Ice Dragon,' appears to be set in the 'Thrones' fictional universe. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors United, the loosely knit group of authors who joined forces to formally ask Amazon to end its sales terms dispute with Hachette Books, is preparing to run a full-page ad in Sunday's "New York Times." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite its dispute with Amazon, in the first six months of 2014 Hachette Book Group revenue rose 5.6% over sales in the first half of 2013. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Luke Nichter, author of "The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 9780544274150) will appear on WNYC's "The Leonard Lopate Show" on Thursday, July 31. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Books “should not be treated as if they’re boxes of cereal occupying grocery store... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette Book Group is “sharing too small a portion” of the revenue from ebooks with... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A 19-year-old student from Kent has landed a publishing deal for a book that she wrote while studying for her A Levels. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2014-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stanfords is to hold a Travel Writers Festival at the Destinations Show in London next year.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Andrea Q. Robinson, author of "Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+" (Seal Press, 9781580054904), will appear on "The Dr. Oz Show" on Tuesday, July 29. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sorry guys, I can't tweet this picture of a cat wearing a party hat right now, because I'm #amwriting. I'm in a coffee shop, you see, with my laptop and notebook proudly displayed so that anyone who walks past will know that I'm #amwriting a novel.... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2014-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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