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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Author A G Smith has launched Paperchains, a project that aims to publish a book of writing by prisoners, homeless people and members of the armed forces about the coronavirus lockdown. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-29 23:21:12 UTC ]
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Sanjana Varghese had been working as a freelance journalist in London for around a year when the coronavirus pandemic hit. As countries around the world went into lockdown, many organisations froze their commissioning budgets, while others halted business entirely. Several of the pieces... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-21 20:08:07 UTC ]
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Liverpool festival Writing on the Wall is going virtual this year, with a line-up including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-05-20 14:43:16 UTC ]
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In her creative and critical work, Toni Morrison sought to remap the contours of American literature and culture. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2019-08-07 06:00:28 UTC ]
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Helen Hoang has published two hits, “The Kiss Quotient” and “The Bride Test,” with more on the way. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-07-19 14:08:03 UTC ]
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Will Self has declared literature to be "morphing into a giant quilting exercise", suggesting that no current creative writing graduates will make a living from literary fiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Don Winslow, bestselling author of 13 crime and mystery novels, brought some energy to the Los Angeles Times newsroom during the Festival of Books. In a video interview with The Times, he spoke about politics and the situation at the U.S. border, labeling President Trump’s proposed wall “a... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors are being told to write under pseudonyms to present themselves as debut writers and feed the publishing industry’s “obsession” with new, marketable voices, Joanne Harris has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An interest in ‘how women reframe stories in a feminist framework’ and more was part of the discussion in a Market Focus Indonesia panel at the London Book Fair earlier this month. Editor’s Note: As we look today at comments from women authors, particularly in the Indonesian market, we’d like to... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-03-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Thriller author Don Winslow wants to debate Donald Trump about the president's proposed border wall, and Stephen King is willing to pay $10,000 to make it happen. Winslow, whose new novel, "The Border," is slated for release by Harper Collins imprint William Morrow next week, challenged Trump to... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In a growing controversy over the Internet Archive's handling of copyrighted material, the Association of American Publishers joins complaints from authors' organizations. The post US Publishers Slam ‘CDL’ as ‘Systematic Infringement’ as UK Authors Write to Foundations appeared first on... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Wildfire has acquired the second book of Humans author Tom Phillips, looking at "the ingenious ways, throughout history, we've managed to avoid telling the truth" Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author Kate Jegede has set up a new writing prize that aims to increase the visibility of women writers in the UK writing non-fiction works with a philosophical or critical thinking theme. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had a lasting impression on author Piers Torday—so much so, that his latest book is loosely based on the classic. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk has said he may be forced to sell his house in order to stay afloat after an accountant at his literary agency was arrested for embezzling $3.4m (£2.5m) from the company. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Authors Guild and literary journal Epiphany magazine have partnered to launch the Breakout 8 Writers Prize, established to "recognize outstanding emerging literary voices" among college students. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist, radio show host and publisher of the extremist right-wing website InfoWars, is co-writing a book with "The Game" author Neil Strauss, CNN reports. The network obtained a proposal sent to major publishers for a book to be titled “The Secret History of the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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David Lagercrantz will not be continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series beyond 2019, the Swedish author and journalist has told The Bookseller. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Brexit legal challenger to write book about struggles in her work and personal life, as well as ‘offering guidance and confidence to women in particular’Inspired by Maya Angelou’s “tone of defiance in the face of increasing hostility, hate and defamation” in the classic poem Still I Rise,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-08-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In an interview that raised many hackles, Gregory dismissed erotica as ‘pornography’ and crime novel villains as ‘blindingly obvious’ – despite her own novels occupying a distinct genre themselvesIn a bizarre miscalculation, the historical novelist Philippa Gregory took a sideswipe at the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-08-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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