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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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 06/06/2011 - 11:35 Bestselling author of the Call the Midwife trilogy Jennifer Worth has died following a short illness, Weidenfeld & Nicolson has announced. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Thu, 02/06/2011 - 07:30 Two novelists have been chosen as the winners of the inaugural Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now Prize. David Logans Half Sick of Shadows and Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan (no relation) were chosen as joint winners by six judges... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 31/05/2011 - 14:18 Journalist and Pluto Books author Syed Saleem Shahzad has been found dead near Islamabad, after going missing on Sunday (29th May), according to reports just in from the Pakistan media. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 31/05/2011 - 14:18 Concerns are growing over the whereabouts of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, whose book Inside Al-Qaeda: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 has just been published in the UK by Pluto Press. Shahzad, who is Pakistan... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Tue, 31/05/2011 - 15:06 HarperCollins Children's Books has bought a debut by an author discovered on the Inkpop website for budding writers of teen fiction. Senior editor Lizzie Ryley bought UK and Commonwealth rights to the book from Jean McGinley at... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 25/05/2011 - 08:45 Edmund de Waal, Maggie OFarrell and Tony Parsons are among the authors lined up to take part in Independent Booksellers Week. The week of events, in association with the Booksellers Association, will take place between... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Tue, 24/05/2011 - 15:30 Tonight's edition of the BBC2 current affairs programme Newsnight will feature the "ongoing fight by local communities to save their libraries", focusing on the campaign for London's Kensal Green library. The piece will... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 23/05/2011 - 09:20 Angry Robot has bought two "supernatural urban fantasies" by author Chris Holm. Publishing director Marc Gascoigne bought world rights across all formats from Jennifer Jackson at the Donald Maass Agency in New York. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Tue, 17/05/2011 - 08:20 Authors should be paid for hosting events, the Society of Authors new general secretary has said. Nicola Solomon told delegates at the Book Industry Conference yesterday (16th May) that if authors give up a day of their free... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Tue, 17/05/2011 - 08:15 Corvus has acquired seven books from self-published author Nick Alexander, whose title The Missing Boyfriend was in the top 10 in the Kindle paid-for charts for six weeks. Senior editor Laura Palmer bought world English... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Fri, 13/05/2011 - 11:54 Titles on Russian history, the populace of Germany and a spiritual travelogue have been longlisted for the 2011 Authors' Club Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonski (Faber), Germania by Simon Winder (Picador) and All... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Thu, 12/05/2011 - 09:31 Publishers should not overspend in the fight against piracy, and should use their authors to present a "human face" in the battle for hearts and minds, a panel discussion at the World e-Reading Congress declared. The industry... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 12/05/2011 - 09:13 The Crime Writers Association (CWA) is asking each of its members to do at least three events a year for their local library as part of a campaign to support the public library service in the face of widespread cutbacks. "We... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Tue, 10/05/2011 - 08:59 Book sales for April were "well down" in a month where general UK retail sales rose by 5.2% on last year. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) today (10th May) reported like-for-like sales were up 5.2% in value from April... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The editor Robert Loomis, who is retiring from Random House after 54 years, is known for nurturing writers including Maya Angelou, William Styron, Shelby Foote and Calvin Trillin. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Fri, 06/05/2011 - 15:43 HarperCollins has teamed up with ITV1's "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" to find "The People's Novelist". The competition to track down a new commercial fiction talent was launched today (6th May) on the afternoon show and will run through to the autumn.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Warner Inc. has released their 2011 first quarter results, with the period ending on March 31, 2011. Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2011-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Thu, 28/04/2011 - 07:32 Lauren Beukes's Zoo City has been honoured with the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction novel of the year, being tipped to bring "a whole new readership" to the genre. Zoo City's publisher Angry Robot Books has also... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Thu, 21/04/2011 - 07:45 Egmont UK remains acquisitive but is predicting a "flat" year ahead. The specialist children's publisher reported sales down nearly 8% at £45.9m for the 12 months to 31st December 2010 (£49.7m in 2009) although pretax profits... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 21/04/2011 - 10:29 Random House imprint Hammer has acquired the latest title by Orange-prize winner Helen Dunmore, in a special project for the Penguin author. Century and Arrow publisher Kate Elton bought UK and Commonwealth rights to The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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