I couldn't agree more about the recent output of books. A large portion do feel...contrived, I guess is the word. Or made up even. Very disappointing, to a great extent, despite the bestseller label. Or maybe because of it?
The rule for recognising good AH writing is that the latter makes one resist the urge to scroll through the text, an almost automatic habit formed by everyday online reading.
You know it's the genuine article when you enjoy hearing each and every word in your head as though you were reading it out loud.
Depriving oneself of the profound joy of creating something and the pride and satisfaction that comes with laboring at it and being in a state of flow is the most serious potential loss to me. More mental health woes are sure to follow.
the Artifical Intelligence LLM machines (or whatever the correct term is) simply scrape the writing of every novelist and writer and rearrange them into sentences. It is parasitic.
I'm not an academic so I cant describe what 'voice' is exactly, but I think its basically the soul of a human in literary form. Someone who has fused their imagination with formal structures, been playful with words, been strict with them at times, and infused their narratives with things informed by experiences of life and imagination and subconscious.
This applies to great genre popular commercial writers as well as to the most literary writers.
In the lore of the Dune novels by Frank Herbert, the universe has space travel between planets but no computing. There is an archaic quality to their technology. So its futuristic and ancient at the same time.
In the mythology of the novels there was a thing called the 'Butlerian Jihad'. That was a grand war waged against Artificial Intelligence because it was taking over- from the Dune Wiki:
'As mankind spread throughout the known universe, technology advanced and eventually machines were made that would make decisions for people. This propelled the creators of these machines into a new technocratic class, effectively controlling the worlds of the common people.
Mankind eventually rebelled against these machines and their creators in a nigh-religious war that sought to retake the thinking soul of mankind from the gods of machine logic. After two generations of violence, humanity took pause. Following this, their gods and rituals were looked upon in a different, perhaps even jaded, light. Both were largely seen to be guilty of using fear as a means of control. Hesitantly, the leaders of religions began meeting to exchange views, and a new, central religious precept was defined, that man may never be replaced by a machine.
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I have to admit, I've been wondering about how attractive a kind of Butlerian Jihad against some forms of AI are now - especially in the realm of AI writing.
Ultimately everything that has voice in art (because AI is producing music and pictures and 'paintings' now) - everything in literature with a voice, is a little moment of human resistance against what denies us our humanity.
There will come a point where technology will challenge what it means to be human, and at its best, literature and the 'voice' of a writer is a hand reaching out from one human imagination to another.
Great piece, I'm all for All Human! I won't use AI in my writing and don't want it seeping into my reading either. I'm gutted to hear that Anthony Horowitz - whose Hawthorne books I have enjoyed and admired up until now - is using it. And yes, it does change how I feel about the books even if when I read them I didn't know. That's why I think publishers should include a notice in the books to let readers know if AI has been used. In the meantime, from now on I will include a notice in mine to say it hasn't!
Thanks so much Lucienne. AH ie Anthony Horowitz (!) did put a lot of caveats on his use of it, which is obviously good (like you I admire him hugely) and the ghastly thing is well nigh impossible to avoid, but I am with you all the way!
There may be many others like you like me who refuse to engage with AI. The numbers will grow when the crowds realise they've fallen for another confidence trick. These billionaires have no conception of the chaos they have unleashed. This is because they have the illusion of power and protection but in time these two false hopes will prove useless.
Your taste of your ideas of a pub and its regulars is very engaging. It's easy to picture the scene as you carry us along with the day and the foibles of each individual. AI cannot replicate the warmth and individuality you allow us to experience in your writing. Good luck with your endeavours.
Like you, Laura, I feel no desire to read books written by AI. The same could be said, though, of 99% of books written by humans. (Thinks aloud) I wonder sometimes if we overrate human creativity...
Anyway, my current "solution" is to stick mostly with books written before our times - ideally a few centuries ago. It doesn't make the problem go away, but it makes me feel grounded in the language. Of course, Charles Lamb and Thomas De Quincey and all the rest have doubtless been scraped into an LLM. But I doubt if their writing leaves much trace compared to all the billions of words written on social media etc that are in there too.
And of course there are contemporary writers, like yourself, who remind me that the language is alive and well in the hands of the truly gifted.
God I love your comments Jeffrey - and not just for that incredibly kind last sentence, which is exactly how I feel about YOUR writing… I know what you mean about human creativity and can finish very few books written nowadays - naturally one now wonders whether AI is in there and that’s why they’re bad (‘readable’ in the goodreads sense, but fundamentally not worth reading), but you’re right of course. They might be AH and STILL be bad!!!
I love this extract. I felt I was right there in the pub with those three sad characters and somehow could feel what they felt. Those desperate lonely lives. It could be any of us really. Beautifully written. It was like I was in a theatre watching this all play out. Thanks, Laura.
Oh I loved this excerpt from your book. The pub and it's characters are perfectly observed and takes me back there - as if I was there! And in a way I was, to my dad's local Ansells pub with it's regulars and their reserved places around the bar. And it's attached offy where I'd be sent on weekends to buy a Mars for dad, a Bounty or Kit Kat for mom and a Marathon each for me and my brother.
That’s so lovely of you Tina - the attached off-licence, yes! My grandmother’s was a country pub and none of the pubs where I grew up had that, but it’s amazing to hear about
I read your excerpt about the landlady and as a Londoner new these old pubs and it has prompted me to buy the book. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
I loved The Last Landlady when I read it last year Laura, I thought it wonderfully evocative. Its ‘voice’ (perhaps your grandmother’s?) stayed with me as all good books do, which leads me to my total agreement with your comments about AI. I’m an A level English teacher and inevitably it’s creeping in to students’ work, against exam board policy. Coursework on Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea written by AI which hallucinates quotations is so dispiriting. I like to think Jean Rhys would have treated AI with the contempt it so often deserves. Students need to think and write in their own developing ‘voice’, it’s one of the great pleasures. Anyway, I really enjoy all your writing Laura, thank you.
Thanks so much Jill - that’s really lovely to hear. Although not about the combination of AI and Jean Rhys… if ever there was an authentic voice, it is hers…
I couldn’t agree with you more Laura. I find it awful the way AI has crept insidiously into our lives and I refuse to engage with it. I hope I’m discerning enough to recognise it when I’m reading. And as an artist I hate all the AI imagery presented as ‘art’
Loved the excerpt from the book. I grew up in the East End and remember pubs just like that
To be fair, most AI generated art is very obvious and certainly to my eye really awful… at least for now. I don’t use it to write either. We are in danger of producing an entire generation without any creative thinking skills
With your grandmother’s unique persona and your evocative description of her, as well as the pub and its customers, The Last Landlady could never ever have been created by AI. Thank God. I have faith that real writing by real people will survive. Yes there will be AI dross but only those who neither read nor care about good writing will buy it. They probably read human-generated dross anyway.
One of the big problems with AI and writing is that a huge number of people (the majority?) haven't read enough to recognise it.
That is SO TRUE. Oh it’s huge and I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I can’t bear the giving-in mentality….
No, awful. Especially when people read AI writing and feel it speaks to them - all those 'I'm sobbing' etc comments under endless AI platitudes.
Terrible 😱 although that did really make me laugh 💕
I couldn't agree more about the recent output of books. A large portion do feel...contrived, I guess is the word. Or made up even. Very disappointing, to a great extent, despite the bestseller label. Or maybe because of it?
The rule for recognising good AH writing is that the latter makes one resist the urge to scroll through the text, an almost automatic habit formed by everyday online reading.
You know it's the genuine article when you enjoy hearing each and every word in your head as though you were reading it out loud.
That's exactly right.
Depriving oneself of the profound joy of creating something and the pride and satisfaction that comes with laboring at it and being in a state of flow is the most serious potential loss to me. More mental health woes are sure to follow.
That’s such a good point…
the Artifical Intelligence LLM machines (or whatever the correct term is) simply scrape the writing of every novelist and writer and rearrange them into sentences. It is parasitic.
I'm not an academic so I cant describe what 'voice' is exactly, but I think its basically the soul of a human in literary form. Someone who has fused their imagination with formal structures, been playful with words, been strict with them at times, and infused their narratives with things informed by experiences of life and imagination and subconscious.
This applies to great genre popular commercial writers as well as to the most literary writers.
In the lore of the Dune novels by Frank Herbert, the universe has space travel between planets but no computing. There is an archaic quality to their technology. So its futuristic and ancient at the same time.
In the mythology of the novels there was a thing called the 'Butlerian Jihad'. That was a grand war waged against Artificial Intelligence because it was taking over- from the Dune Wiki:
'As mankind spread throughout the known universe, technology advanced and eventually machines were made that would make decisions for people. This propelled the creators of these machines into a new technocratic class, effectively controlling the worlds of the common people.
Mankind eventually rebelled against these machines and their creators in a nigh-religious war that sought to retake the thinking soul of mankind from the gods of machine logic. After two generations of violence, humanity took pause. Following this, their gods and rituals were looked upon in a different, perhaps even jaded, light. Both were largely seen to be guilty of using fear as a means of control. Hesitantly, the leaders of religions began meeting to exchange views, and a new, central religious precept was defined, that man may never be replaced by a machine.
+++
I have to admit, I've been wondering about how attractive a kind of Butlerian Jihad against some forms of AI are now - especially in the realm of AI writing.
Ultimately everything that has voice in art (because AI is producing music and pictures and 'paintings' now) - everything in literature with a voice, is a little moment of human resistance against what denies us our humanity.
There will come a point where technology will challenge what it means to be human, and at its best, literature and the 'voice' of a writer is a hand reaching out from one human imagination to another.
Resist the machine.
Exactly! And thank you for this amazing comment. Your description of 'voice' is wonderful...
Great piece, I'm all for All Human! I won't use AI in my writing and don't want it seeping into my reading either. I'm gutted to hear that Anthony Horowitz - whose Hawthorne books I have enjoyed and admired up until now - is using it. And yes, it does change how I feel about the books even if when I read them I didn't know. That's why I think publishers should include a notice in the books to let readers know if AI has been used. In the meantime, from now on I will include a notice in mine to say it hasn't!
Thanks so much Lucienne. AH ie Anthony Horowitz (!) did put a lot of caveats on his use of it, which is obviously good (like you I admire him hugely) and the ghastly thing is well nigh impossible to avoid, but I am with you all the way!
There may be many others like you like me who refuse to engage with AI. The numbers will grow when the crowds realise they've fallen for another confidence trick. These billionaires have no conception of the chaos they have unleashed. This is because they have the illusion of power and protection but in time these two false hopes will prove useless.
Your taste of your ideas of a pub and its regulars is very engaging. It's easy to picture the scene as you carry us along with the day and the foibles of each individual. AI cannot replicate the warmth and individuality you allow us to experience in your writing. Good luck with your endeavours.
Thank you so much for this wonderful response - very very heartening. I do believe in the fundamentally unquenchable AH spirit, in whatever form…
Like you, Laura, I feel no desire to read books written by AI. The same could be said, though, of 99% of books written by humans. (Thinks aloud) I wonder sometimes if we overrate human creativity...
Anyway, my current "solution" is to stick mostly with books written before our times - ideally a few centuries ago. It doesn't make the problem go away, but it makes me feel grounded in the language. Of course, Charles Lamb and Thomas De Quincey and all the rest have doubtless been scraped into an LLM. But I doubt if their writing leaves much trace compared to all the billions of words written on social media etc that are in there too.
And of course there are contemporary writers, like yourself, who remind me that the language is alive and well in the hands of the truly gifted.
God I love your comments Jeffrey - and not just for that incredibly kind last sentence, which is exactly how I feel about YOUR writing… I know what you mean about human creativity and can finish very few books written nowadays - naturally one now wonders whether AI is in there and that’s why they’re bad (‘readable’ in the goodreads sense, but fundamentally not worth reading), but you’re right of course. They might be AH and STILL be bad!!!
I love this extract. I felt I was right there in the pub with those three sad characters and somehow could feel what they felt. Those desperate lonely lives. It could be any of us really. Beautifully written. It was like I was in a theatre watching this all play out. Thanks, Laura.
That’s very lovely - thank you so much Lulu. Really honoured.
Oh I loved this excerpt from your book. The pub and it's characters are perfectly observed and takes me back there - as if I was there! And in a way I was, to my dad's local Ansells pub with it's regulars and their reserved places around the bar. And it's attached offy where I'd be sent on weekends to buy a Mars for dad, a Bounty or Kit Kat for mom and a Marathon each for me and my brother.
That’s so lovely of you Tina - the attached off-licence, yes! My grandmother’s was a country pub and none of the pubs where I grew up had that, but it’s amazing to hear about
Lovely writing, Laura, and please write about thoroughbreds again soon.
Thank you Lucy!!! I was planning to do something pre-Derby… you have inspired me to go ahead.
I read your excerpt about the landlady and as a Londoner new these old pubs and it has prompted me to buy the book. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
That’s so kind Gillian - thank you. It was a real labour of love.
I loved The Last Landlady when I read it last year Laura, I thought it wonderfully evocative. Its ‘voice’ (perhaps your grandmother’s?) stayed with me as all good books do, which leads me to my total agreement with your comments about AI. I’m an A level English teacher and inevitably it’s creeping in to students’ work, against exam board policy. Coursework on Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea written by AI which hallucinates quotations is so dispiriting. I like to think Jean Rhys would have treated AI with the contempt it so often deserves. Students need to think and write in their own developing ‘voice’, it’s one of the great pleasures. Anyway, I really enjoy all your writing Laura, thank you.
Thanks so much Jill - that’s really lovely to hear. Although not about the combination of AI and Jean Rhys… if ever there was an authentic voice, it is hers…
I couldn’t agree with you more Laura. I find it awful the way AI has crept insidiously into our lives and I refuse to engage with it. I hope I’m discerning enough to recognise it when I’m reading. And as an artist I hate all the AI imagery presented as ‘art’
Loved the excerpt from the book. I grew up in the East End and remember pubs just like that
Thanks so much Gina! Must be peculiarly horrible for an artist….
To be fair, most AI generated art is very obvious and certainly to my eye really awful… at least for now. I don’t use it to write either. We are in danger of producing an entire generation without any creative thinking skills
‘makes the whole thing feel slippery inside my head - it will not root itself there’ is absolutely perfect about how it feels
Thank you Mark ❤️ I claim my prize for Most Naive Substack Post of the Month but I'm glad that my favourite AH writers are with me!
With your grandmother’s unique persona and your evocative description of her, as well as the pub and its customers, The Last Landlady could never ever have been created by AI. Thank God. I have faith that real writing by real people will survive. Yes there will be AI dross but only those who neither read nor care about good writing will buy it. They probably read human-generated dross anyway.
Oh thanks so much Ruth. Brilliant to hear and I do tend to share your view. Yes my grandmother was definitely AH...