Tales from the Orc Den

AI and The Indie Romance Book World

• Monster Romance Reviews • Season 4 • Episode 6

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If you can't be bothered to actually write it, why should I be bothered to pay for it and read it?

EJ, Stacy, and Amy have more bookish thoughts on their noggins, and this is a HEFTY ONE. No, we’re not turning into a tech podcast, but there is no denying AI is here, and it is a part of our world. We’re talking about a lot of different topics that are developing and diving into the technological, economic, ethical, and legal sides of AI and how it pertains to the indie romance world.

Many currently available AI tools are not great, but you may be surprised to learn why we think so.

Links to some of the many random things we mention:


Check out our Podcast Scavenger Hunt Here:  https://talesfromtheorcden.com/2024/05/25/ai-and-the-indie-romance-book-world/

EJ:

Hello and welcome back, our fabulous listeners. We're continuing on our bookish discussion in Tales from the Orc Den today. May be broken up into several recordings. We'll see how deep we get into this. Um, I am one of your co hostesses EJ and with me is Stacy. Say hi.

Stacy:

Hi, Stacy.

EJ:

And Amy. Hello,

Amy:

everyone.

EJ:

I was always talking to people named Stacy

Stacy:

per EJ's request

EJ:

So today we're going, we're getting into a topic that I have been like chomping at the bit to get into for like months now. and that is AI. And specifically, we're going to be talking about AI. in the context of, the indie romance world. If we were to just talk about AI in general, then suddenly we would be a tech podcast only. And, that's not what y'all subscribe to.

Stacy:

Boring

EJ:

as

Stacy:

fuck.

EJ:

So, So yeah, it's, but AI still, it's been kind of a big topic and I think we're a nifty bunch to come together to talk about it. for me, I have been a total news hound about AI, in part because I pay my bills and with my day job of being in the tech world, I have had experience. Working with AI algorithms, the point is, I'm a bit of a tech nut in this realm. And, and Stacey and Amy are less so, which is huge because fuck what Silicon Valley is saying. How is it affecting the rest of us?

Stacy:

Plus, let's be honest, we're more interesting than Silicon Valley. And it's true. So true.

EJ:

It absolutely is. And I, it's here. It's growing. I have, you know, whether we like it or not. And so we're going to have to deal with the consequences. I figure. So let's. Let's, let's just talk about it

Stacy:

really fast. I would like to interject a complete non sequitur. I'm looking at the latest picture that Haley, Hey, Haley, what are you doing, uh, submitted on Finley Fenn's not safe for work channel in the forum. And I'm really impressed with how this angel guy that's fucking the pink haired girl, how they animated his ball sack swinging. I just. I really, like, A, I can't do swing in Nutsacks, that was a, I just pulled that literally out of my ass, but I'm just really impressed that his Nutsack is mid flap, like, well done to you, Iona,

EJ:

Now I feel obligated to ask for that link so I can put it in the show notes, Stacey.

Stacy:

I'll send you the link to their Twitter. Iona is awesome though. She is

Amy:

also excellent plus size girl rep. Yes,

Stacy:

yes, yes. And as a plus size girl, fuck yeah.

EJ:

So how I'm looking at starting this discussion is with the really basic question, what is. AI anyway. Um, let's just lay that on the line. I'm going to start with, um, my, uh, very academically correct techie definition, and then we're going to go into what everyone else thinks. Um, so AI or artificial intelligence is a branch of machine learning and computer science. It focuses on taking training data and building on that training data with computational variations with an algorithm to tackle complex operations typically required by humans. Um, so whenever I think of AI, it is primarily, it's, it's the software. It's, there is nothing magical in my head when I, at this point, uh, like a decade into in the, in the tech world, I did start as a humanity. Right.

Stacy:

Well, that's just it. You're tech. You're, you're someone who is interested and exposed to technology. So you're going to know more than the average layman, i. e. me, is going to know about AI.

EJ:

There is a certain bit of, I, I will admit there's a certain bit of magic box ness when it comes to very complex algorithms. Mm-Hmm. I do admit I am in the camp of, you know, those who argue for things like, singularity or transhumanism. Mm-Hmm. This idea of AI becoming sentient. Our brains merging with AI seamlessly matrix. Yeah, very matrixy. I admit, I am in the camp that is skeptical, but I'm specifically skeptical that it could happen in a binary computational environment. What the hell is a binary computational environment? It is all the computers that we use, all of our software, all of our hardware. We use binary, but the computers speak to each other, right? Yeah, yeah, and how we talk to

Stacy:

computers.

EJ:

Yeah, so computers, when they are thinking at the very lowest, lowest level, it's all zeros and ones.

Amy:

Right? Hence, binary. That's the kind of stuff my husband is interested

EJ:

in. One time I sent my, my husband a cross stitch and it was written in binary and he

Amy:

decoded

EJ:

it and it said send nudes.

Stacy:

That's fucking sicker. I love it. Did you guys ever watch Futurama?

Amy:

Yes. They were so good.

Stacy:

Or, Bender inherits the castle, but they have to stay the night. And there's a thing written in binary and blood, and he goes, All I saw were zeroes and ones, and I think I saw a two. And, that just popped into my head when you talked about binary. Yeah.

EJ:

So, pretty much every computer that we, we interact with is talking to you. itself and each other in zeros and ones. Right. There are other computers out there. They are called quantum computers. Those are really only available to certain governments and some high tech labs. they are a completely different, beast entirely.

Stacy:

They're not binary?

EJ:

Okay,

Stacy:

so here's a question that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Can these quantum computers talk to binary computers, or is this like a completely, like there, there, there will be no communication between their people?

EJ:

So, uh, I don't know about binary computers being able to interact with quantum computers, but I, I'm under the impression that quantum computers can talk to binary.

Stacy:

Okay, which would make sense. That's a I guess it would

EJ:

be sort of

Amy:

backwards compatible, unlike quantum computers, which could not

EJ:

be

Amy:

forward compatible.

EJ:

And really what it just comes down to is, these quantum computers, one of the reasons, there are many reasons, why they Are they're currently in a stage where binary computers used to be like, you know, in a galaxy far, far away, right? they, they take a crap ton of space. they. They essentially need to use atoms to communicate. That's an overly simplified way of describing it, but it means that they are very delicate. They need the right environments to work with, but they're able to come up with results that go beyond zeros and ones. Um, so it's more. It's more infinite possibilities. It's, uh, a lot more of how like our brains work. There's a lot. There's literally neurons hitting at

Stacy:

each other.

EJ:

So it's a wee bit spooky. Um, but cool. I could see that being a little. Spookity. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Um, whenever I've heard people describe quantum computers, it always, for some reason, like, they're completely different things. I want to be very clear. It's not the Hadron Collider or anything in CERN. Okay. But it does make me think of that because it's, it's a similar thing where it's like you're, you're smashing atoms at each other. And, uh, you know, it just takes a very, you can't really like shove that into a tiny laptop and then go to Starbucks with it. So, It would

Amy:

take over the Starbucks, wouldn't it?

Stacy:

Right, right. They're huge. Are these huge in the way that like people thought computers were in the 60s, where it was like a whole room?

EJ:

Yeah,

Stacy:

absolutely. Yeah. With real data and punch cards?

EJ:

Yeah. So I could see maybe them becoming commercialized if they, if we could like adapt them to a cloud environment. However, there's other huge implications involved. One of them is they are so computation, computationally, efficient and effective. if you want to freak out a security researcher, AKA a hacker, ask them what they think about quantum computers.

Stacy:

Oh,

EJ:

really? Yeah. Is this like

Stacy:

the boogeyman of the tech world then?

EJ:

It's, it's, I don't know if it's so much of a boogeyman, it, but it would have giant implications on our commercial environment from a security standpoint. just because, you know, we already have really good software programs out, on, like, the black market, And, various other places where you can purchase software to do things like hack into people's accounts. Those are already great as they are. if you get an even better, computational mind doing that, you're fucked.

Stacy:

Well, yeah. It would be like putting a tissue up to keep a burglar out is kind of what it sounds like. Right, right. Um, yeah.

EJ:

So it, in, and in those cases, you're using things, you, you would be using, uh, binary computers to protect against quantum computers, and it's just not going to happen. It is very much bringing a knife to a gunfight situation. Right.

Stacy:

It's, it's like, it's like if binary computers can only go back and forth and side to side, but quantum can come at diagonals as well. Right.

EJ:

Yeah. Yeah. It actually very much. Quantum does not give a fuck. Um, so, um, and, and also whenever you're trying to look for more information on quantum computers, because it's usually like the US government, who's been doing a lot of research on it. It tends to be really vague and cagey. I love going. Of

Stacy:

course.

EJ:

Yeah. Classified. Yeah. So like, you know, if, you want to learn more about this sort of stuff, join the NSA, uh, Uh, don't, don't come to your friendly smut sluts for this, like

Stacy:

Fuck yeah. Smut, sluts.

EJ:

Yeah.

Stacy:

Yeah,

EJ:

your, your friendly neighborhood smut, sluts are not going to, uh, know nearly as much as the goddamn NSA

Stacy:

Yeah. Especially not a mo Yeah.

EJ:

So I, I'm over here like I can appreciate where some people do kind of like go into that next realm of thinking of like, you know, transhumanism and stuff. I'm like, that is cool. And I totally appreciate where you're coming from. I'm just of the feeling of like, I, I mean, maybe, but I am just highly skeptical of it happening with a binary. Computational environment.

Stacy:

Okay. But, but quantum, potentially, potentially, potentially. Right.

EJ:

And I suppose that's, that's his like imaginary as I get. And of course, I fricking love cyber funk. Um, but you know, that's, say it again.

Stacy:

definition of what it has to be to actually be cyberpunk because I had no idea about this until you told us this. Oh, okay.

EJ:

We share that. That's fun. Um, so cyberpunk, we, we had this great discussion listeners on like, what does it mean to write cyberpunk? I, and I stated, well, you need to be in a late stage capitalist environment. And I fell down this rabbit hole because If you're on the internet, you see late stage capitalism everywhere. And after a certain point, I wanted to ask myself, what the fuck is it? And I came across, the definition, uh, well, several definitions. One of the hard things is, like, it's an economic theory, and one of the things you learn about economic theories is there's a lot of argument on the nuance of it. It is an older it's as old as Marx. Karl Marx did talk about late stage capitalism.

Stacy:

Well, yeah, that was part of the whole, like, if you I had the misfortune to have to read the fucking Communist Manifesto that's all laid out because supposedly then we become post history and time is no longer a thing and everything is just right now and it gets very, like, the whole Communist Manifesto is weird but it gets really fucking weird at the end.

EJ:

Right. Late stage. Capitalism is a state of capitalism where the capitalist environment can get so there are continually growing, never limited expectations of profit growth. And it gets to a point where things are unstable, unrealistic. Right. Yeah, it's the

Stacy:

same. It's the same. It's the ideology of cancer.

EJ:

Yeah,

Stacy:

late stage late stage capitalism is right before cancer takes over the whole body and kills the host.

EJ:

It is, it is very like cancer cell ask. And I thought it was very interesting that people pointed out that one of the symptoms of that, how do you, how do you even keep consumers anyway. I and kill I what's the word I'm looking for innovation, progress, progressivism. Um, well, so innovation progress, those that takes money. So how are you trying to cut money to increase your profit margin? Um, and still have customers. You do that in late stage capitalism with marketing and PR, essentially propaganda.

Amy:

And

EJ:

Naturally, innovation also takes its toll, especially because you want to cut down as much cost as possible in your labor, because that just becomes a raw material that you need to streamline and cut down as much as anything else, any other materials, so at that point, What these companies really are depending on is their marketing teams a lot more than their R& D more than anything else. All

Stacy:

funding is now going to marketing rather than innovation.

EJ:

And so that actually is kind of a big part of cyber punch. Yeah,

Stacy:

which again, as I said before off air that I would not have tracked this prior, but I believe that Tiffany Roberts is infinite city or infinite. The Infinite City series qualifies cyberpunk.

EJ:

Yeah, so you could have like kick ass AI, you could have like amazing medical innovations, but why are you having this story in the first place? It's because there's a deeper rot happening, and a lot of Yeah, and that And that is And that

Stacy:

is the rot.

EJ:

Late stage capitalism is the vibe, whether you mean to or not. Mm hmm. And I always thought that was when I came across that notion. I was like, holy crap. And I need to find it. I need to find more commentary on it because I'm like, Oh, man, I could write an essay on this now. Right. So, yeah, so you could have like really cool cyberpunk esque tech in your story. But if it's not an alleged age capital environment. It ain't cyberpunk. Gotcha. It's something else,

Stacy:

sci fi. Sci fi, right, or Star Trek, you know? Kind of, you know, classifier. Well, because dieselpunk is a thing. Oh, yeah. That's what Star Wars is, is considered, at least the first trilogy I know, is dieselpunk. And I want to say dieselpunk isn't the definition of dieselpunk, it's the future that the past imagined. Oh. That's the technical definition of dieselpunk, but don't quote me on that. Um, but yeah, like I'm sure that there are like, like cyberpunk is a tenant of sci-fi. I'm sure you could find a a thousand other very specific descriptors to describe like whatever, you know, your particular flavor is.

EJ:

Right. Getting back to what the hell is ai? Like Yeah. If you, if you love different cyberpunk stories Yeah. You've probably come across AI in some

Stacy:

way. Right. Well, and so my first, like, AI was like a vague term that I can remember that I probably gleaned from different books and stuff like that that I've read over the years. But my first experience with AI, where I registered it as a concrete idea, was of all things, did you guys ever watch Reboot, the cartoon? Yes. It was the first CGI cartoon. Andrea, in Andrea's name, the A in the I is capitalized, she was an AI game sprite, which meant she was capable of learning and she made it out of the game with, when she and, Enzo were lost in season three, the end of season three. And so for the longest time, whenever somebody said AI, I assumed it was like Andrea, where it was a computer program essentially that had gained sentience and had become a person, basically. That was always my interpretation of it until, and I know too that prior to the AI nightmare that we're currently living in, there were, or I'm sure still are very, very rich people that are attempting to teach computers how to be alive. Because there's the one I can think of specifically is there's a very rich person, they're transgender went from male to female. The whole story is fucking fascinating. Because. This person is, I can't remember their names, unfortunately. It's a husband and wife duo. The husband, I think, who became, who, who originally was a husband is now the wife's wife because the couple stayed together, even though the person who was the husband transitioned from male to female. And they had had kids, like, it sounds like their relationship was very established before they realized that they were transgender and had a couple of kids. And like, like on top of it, they're a mixed race couple. And I want to say they've been together since like the 60s or the 70s or something. And the spouse who is transgender is some kind of like epic computer nerd. And like Stephen Hawkins level of, you know, into like the language of all of this. And it has been for the last several years attempting to create an AI of their wife who is not the transgender portion of the relationship is a black woman. And so they've created a sort of automaton of the wife's head and over the years have been trying to teach this computer just by talking to it essentially. So it's, it's some kind of software that can learn at least in a rudimentary fashion. It's not sentient, but you can hold conversations with it where you would swear it was, basically. Because so much time and work have gone into this. I'm going to look that up and see if I can find that couple. Because I read a whole thing on it. It was just this fascinating article. Like, their life started, Unusual simply because they were a mixed race couple in a time when it might not even have been legal for them to be together in some states. And, and then it's just, I mean, one of their children got very thick and almost died. And there was all this stuff that they had to do because one of the, the transgender partner is such a computer maven that that's how they've made all of their money and why they can afford to do this, this AI You know, attempting to create like a cyborg, I guess. although I guess no, it wouldn't be a cyborg, an android, I guess but it was because of the partner, the transgender partner's extreme knowledge of computers and stuff that that's how they made their money. So they were able to save their kids life because they had some extremely rare Something, something, something syndrome that, like, two people in the recorded history have had, or something to that effect. And so it's just like, it's like each chapter of their life is just like, like, you know, you, you hear, like, when you read a book, right? Like a romance novel. And it encompasses a couple, and maybe it encompasses them over, like, And when you read the story, the way the story is set up, it's always like there's the big hill that they have to get over. And once they're over the hill, it tends to be pretty smooth sailing for the rest of the series, or the rest of the book, at least for the most part. This couple, I don't think they've hit the peak of their hill yet. Like, it just keeps getting, like, each chapter is just like, wait, what? So, really, really fascinating stuff.

EJ:

And, uh, this really sounds like the premise of some sort of like Pulitzer prize winning like sci fi novel,

Stacy:

right? Right. Especially the way I'm describing it because God knows I'm not making hash out of this, but it's, it's really fascinating. I'll, I'll see if I can find a and find it. So you guys, we can at least know their names and maybe that's something that you could put into the show notes if you feel so moved.

EJ:

Oh

Stacy:

yeah. But that was always my concept of AI until. You know, the current problem, extremely problematic definition of it. The definition is not problematic. The behaviors of people using it are problematic.

Amy:

So my examples of AI actually were definitely divergent. The first example was Skynet. Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn't think of that. Yeah. That's a good point. Because that's the terror, the terror part of it. But then you also had parts that are similar to like the Jetson stuff that you saw in old, not, not old cartoons, but you know, cartoons where basically AI would be, you know, assisting with the drudgery type of things.

Stacy:

Star Trek, basically.

Amy:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the sad thing is, is that we've got the complete opposite right now, which But, I mean, I wish I had more on that, but sci fi has always been my thing, and AI is definitely part of that elemental lot. Yeah. And what I can see, I can see the usefulness of AI because technically at the end of the day, it is supposed to be a tool.

Stacy:

Yeah.

Amy:

Problem is, is that this tool is being used for the completely wrong things. Exactly. Well,

Stacy:

it's like a knife. You know, I can use a knife to slice my food and make a delicious meal, or I can use a knife to stab somebody to death. Right. It's not the fault of the knife, it's the fault of the person who's holding it. No,

EJ:

not at all. Yeah, and that actually brings me very smoothly into, another part of the discussion I wanted to bring in. So, like, with, with our concepts of AI established for our listeners, Why is it, why is it, in our view, AI is so damn controversial, and again we're going to like focus specifically on the indie romance book world. And my first point is money. Yeah, it's always the money. And I actually have a very specific question for you both. What about AI do you see as cutting into how the indie book world makes money? And also, why is that bad?

Stacy:

Well, for starters, people are talking about, we can get AI to write our books, and the way, and I mean, I can see the appeal of it from just like a purely hypothetical situation, right? Like, say I want to read a book where there's a seven foot tall teal vampire. And he falls in love with a woman who can turn into a cow, right? Like, odds are high I'm probably not going to find that on Amazon no matter how hard I look, but theoretically in AI I could type in what I'm looking for. AI could generate the story specifically for me. The problem with that, of course, is that this didn't come out of nowhere. Like, it's not, it's not made up out of whole cloth, basically. Anything that comes out of AI as we currently know it, is stolen from other people. And as somebody on the internet put it, if you can't be bothered to write it, why the fuck would I be bothered to read it?

Amy:

Mm hmm. Maybe I

Stacy:

kind

EJ:

of did it for you, though. I concur on, on that exact, like, phrase. Like, if you didn't bother to write it, why should I bother to read it? Right. I also, throw in, too, it. You're getting back to late stage capitalism, uh, it is looking at labor as something to cut for the sake of profit. Well, right, and

Stacy:

the thing that it's being used to do, it's not doing anything that makes anybody's life better. Right. In fact, it's stealing the quality of life from a select group of people. Uh, of humanity, basically. nobody has to go into the fanart mines against their will, and take a pickaxe until we can find that streak of hentai, so that we can sell it to all the perverts out there. Like, no. People create art because they want to create art, not because somebody has a fucking gun to their head. So AI is, AI, art, and I'm using that term extraordinarily loosely and sardonically, isn't, it's not filling a need anywhere. It's taking away from people, and in this case, it's taking away from people who make a living doing things like that. And that's bullshit. And then not only is it taking away from them, but it's stealing, uh, Their own output to teach the algorithm how to do it in the first fucking place. So it's like a one two slap,

EJ:

right? You know, we'll go further into the whole like data stealing part I I I will also throw in because I know there's going to be some folks who are like well All these other big companies are using AI to cut their labor costs. And I agree that there is right now a huge surge in especially the tech world of where can we use AI instead of a person. to do this. And it's funny because earlier during brunch, I was talking about this exact same thing with my husband. we're quite the little duo because I am a data person and he has a software person together. We make, we make a whole data science startup. Uh, that's kind of our joke. Which is only funny if you're in the tech world where you can be like, Oh, that's so cute. Everyone else is like, whatever. Those are words.

Stacy:

Nerd on nerd impregnation. Right. That has to be a book genre out there, and if it's not, I'm trademarking it right here, right now.

EJ:

So like we were talking about this exact same thing and it actually reminded us a whole lot of a different cost cutting wave that happened not that long ago, I would say roughly a decade ago when there was a huge surge of offshoring tech. Yeah, yeah. And that still happens, but not in the same way that it used to. in fact, actually, my software developer husband likes to point out, he got his start as a junior software developer fixing the fucking problems left over from the offshore wave.

Amy:

And

EJ:

part of it comes down to it's not merely when you are cutting labor costs if you're trying to, if you see yourself as a writer who's like, I can't afford an actual artist right now I need to, you know, work on a budget. One, I actually do empathize with you, but I also cannot emphasize enough. You're not the first one who has found yourself with these sort of stresses. Um, and there are more issues ahead of you than you may realize for a lot of these big tech companies, issues that they will inevitably run into are things like, Oh gosh, I need to find that article. But there was a, uh, airline that has been using AI, uh, for more of their customer service. Well, that AI has been straight up lying in some cases on, uh, company policy or with refunds that the leadership is not cool with whatsoever. There will be repercussions down the line, especially I

Stacy:

agree with the lady. What a fucking bummer, right?

EJ:

And it's not like you can fire the A. I. And even then, like you can. Yeah, you can make the argument of I can just shut down the A. I. But also this is a hell of a way to fix all of the issues that the A. I. gave you, right? There's there's still a comeuppance that needs to happen. And for some companies, they've already put a lot of time and money into A. I. for, you know, For the creatives out there very specifically, I can appreciate where, again, you're over here. Like, I don't see any of this happening. Well, I could, I, you know, take it out of the abstract. you do have quite frankly, some shit AI out there. Oh God, yeah. There, there is. I swear some people are going to come up with an AI art aesthetic because even used that, no,

Stacy:

it's already there and it's, yeah. It's horrible because there are three authors who are, tend to be releasing books together, like they're writing in the same series kind of thing, and I'm not going to name names, but if you want to find out, DM me, I'll fucking tell you. But, All three of them, and I really liked one of the writers and I've quit reading her because they're using AI covers, but every fucking main female character who's on the cover is, it's interchangeable with any other. It's always a waifey blonde, but usually so blonde that it's like white hair, and who looks like a stiff breeze will legitimately snap their, their spine, and they're always making the weird almost duck face. Have you noticed that? Or like a quasi pout, and it's the same, it's the same fucking character over and over and over again. Like, I could literally pluck the main character off of one author's book and put it on another author's, another author's book in this same little, little trio, and I don't think any of them would notice the difference. They're the same fucking character over and over and over again, and they're ostensibly different stories with different characters. And the thing that really sucks, too, is at least one of those authors I know has been pirated. And was really angry about it in a super against AI book writing, but apparently it's okay to fuck over an off or an artist. Critical. So nice. Night. Yeah. Nice hypocrisy there, asshole.

EJ:

And it's a really nice segue into my other point. Besides it's a money thing. It's an IP copyright thing. So I, I want to make it very clear for those. In the indie world, very tempted by using generative ai. I want you to stop and think for a really hard second why the big publishing houses are not strangely doing anything with generative ai Right now, I want you to, eh, with,

Amy:

I'll point out, at least I'll point out at least one, no two technically, the UK editions of a certain series. We're AI generated. It is a popular series. Popular because the author is extremely popular. And I don't want an army of people coming after me. That's Harry Potter, isn't it? No, it's not. That's Harry Potter. It's not. I have nothing

Stacy:

to back this up. I'm just saying Harry Potter because I think it's funny.

Amy:

Anyways, no. It's a very popular romanticy author.

Stacy:

Oh, is it, uh, Yes. Who we were discussing the other day? That's

Amy:

Sh Sh Sh

Stacy:

I don't want her army coming after us. No, I get it. I don't, I mean, they can, they can click and start it. I'll finish it. But no, I, we don't need to bring IR down on our head.

Amy:

Yeah, that's a prime example. The other example, I don't recall which the publisher, but that was, that was Bloomsbury. There's your other hit, people. Bloomsbury using that on the UK paperback editions. Anyways, the other one I'm gonna message you. If Paolo Baccalut I'm gonna call him out. Cuz he know he should know better. Paolo Beccabellucci, whatever the hell. Dude who wrote the Paragon series. One of his more recent titles had an AI generated cover, and I'm just like, why? You clearly have the funds for this author. Why are you doing this?

EJ:

I wonder what publishing house he used. So here's, here's where I'm coming from. It's specifically, it's a U. S. thing. So I won't speak for the UK on this. but the U. S. IP law setup does not recognize AI generated content. as ownable by the person who generated it. And that is a huge reason why you're not seeing, in the U. S. a whole lot of companies dipping their toe into the water. I see,

Stacy:

because theoretically they don't own it. They rip it off and they

EJ:

don't have They do not own it. Why would Penguin put out things that they cannot own? Yes. Right.

Amy:

And I,

EJ:

and I should very specifically, like, you know, acknowledge, like, yeah, you know, they've got classics and stuff, but at the same time, if they're trying to create, quote unquote, new stuff, new art, new text, um, but then like any of their rivals could go in and take it. It reduces the overall value of it, which is totally purpose. There are many things about the U. S. justice system that I find to be very behind the times on when it comes, yes, when it comes to technology. This is a weird, archaic. Issue that is weirdly helpful, um, only on accident. It wasn't deliberate. We promise totally an accident, right? So, but I think it's really important because I don't I worry about not seeing this enough in the indie world, especially publicly because I think we are really stuck on the moral. Issues

Stacy:

of

EJ:

A. I. And that also makes sense. By the way, it's another symptom of being in a late stage capitalist environment when you're right when your media consumption because again, this comes down to the real innovation. is in the content, the marketing that's put out there. One of the few ways as a consumer you do have power in a late stage capitalist environment is your media consumption. So your media consumption becomes the tribe that you associate with, the totem that you build up for yourself. So if you are very clear of like, my tribe is not AI. Naturally, people can get very, uh, defensive about it, in part because that's one of the few places where they have power as consumers to do anything. Anyway, fun, fun fact, even when you're like, I'm not in late stage capitalism, you are participating in it, my friend, we are all participating in

Stacy:

it.

EJ:

Go on. Anyway, like, so, but this We, we focus a lot on the, this is, this is not what I associate with. This is not part of my morality. This is not part of my ethics. When there is a very serious legal implication out there, when you are an indie author and you're using AI generated cover, you could put yourself in a lot of danger. Again, like Stacey had mentioned, you could get pirated, but legally, at least in the U S. No one cares. You didn't own it to begin with.

Stacy:

Which, I mean, you stole it from somebody else, so I'm not terribly, concerned about your feelings.

EJ:

And to be clear, part of it comes down to, it's more of, they don't recognize all that training data being regenerated. into something quote unquote new. The US IP setup just has no slot for that whatsoever, and if they don't have a slot, I guarantee a US lawyer is going to be like, I don't know, maybe if you take it to court, man, and then you create a precedent.

Stacy:

It's that whole thing that, you know, I was discussing with a co worker yesterday where this is, this is, So what we were discussing has nothing to do with AI, but I think the concept here of what I'm going to get around to will make sense in a minute, where he was asking, because we had a kid who has a cut on his hand, and he was asking, because we can put a band aid on it, but are we allowed to put Neosporin on it? And I said, I don't think so, because technically that would be operating outside of our scope of practice, because none of us are medical doctors. And, and I, and he said, well, what if we got like verbal confirmation from the parents to do so? I said, the problem with a verbal confirmation is that you have no way to prove that you have that verbal confirmation. Now, if you had it written down, you might have a leg to stand on, but if it's not written down, like basically in anything that comes with CYA, which for those not in the know means cover your ass, is if it's not written down, it didn't happen, even if it happened. And so. I feel like that's kind of the same thing that's applying here where we don't have a law for it, which means it didn't exist in the, like, the law didn't exist in the first place to be broken because we don't have a law for it and we don't have a slot to create a law for it, at least not yet.

EJ:

Right. No, I think it's actually, that is a great way to describe how the U. S. legal system generally works, and the reason I'm really focusing on the U. S. is one, all three of us are Americans, and we reside in America, it's what we know. I would also throw in the argument, it's still relevant to the global, uh, romance indie world, because A good chunk of readers are stationed in America, right? Yeah, here, here we are. And I'm not saying that's awesome. I'm just observing facts.

Stacy:

Well, right. And I mean, I would love to be able to say like, you know, this compared to UK law or this compared to the law in Nairobi. But I mean, I don't know shit about international law. I don't know shit about domestic law.

EJ:

I mean, and if our listeners have some, uh, some commentary to throw in. On that, like, my DMs on Instagram are open. My email is open. Feel free to contact us. And if you're on the

Stacy:

Discord channels with us, feel free to contact us.

EJ:

Right. Yep. I shout out to pretty much all of Finley Fenn's Discord server. Y'all know who we

Stacy:

are. Hell yeah. And we love y'all. We spun from there, so. Finley Fenn, for when you want your orc dick big and juicy.

Amy:

Not to mention a lovely rollercoaster of emotions. Oh god, if you want to cry

Stacy:

every

Amy:

time.

Stacy:

You

Amy:

will

Stacy:

cry,

Amy:

but then you will be happy. Big dicks, copious semen, you're gonna cry. Now, I will say, with regards to the AI cover, AR, we're just going to say AI cover. I cannot say AI art without wanting to. Well, no. It's not art. No, it's not. Anyways. With regards to that It's like people who trace shit and act like they came up

Stacy:

with it.

Amy:

Yeah, but my issue is, and this is me personally, I don't know if anyone else feels that way, I'm sure you guys might understand how I feel. Basically, if you're making shortcuts for your cover, what would make you not take a shortcut with your own writing?

EJ:

That's a good point. That is a top. That is a good point. And there are

Stacy:

a couple of people, like a couple of authors out there. It's not anybody I am particularly familiar with, but I know there's been at least one author, fuck, I can't remember their name now, who somebody. ran it through one of the AI detectors and like, big chunks of what they had written came back as AI. But now I can't remember it. It was somebody in the indie book world, but I can't remember who the hell it was now.

Amy:

There's apparently been a slew of AI published works on the Overlord site, Amazon. Of course, because Amazon doesn't give a flying fuck. And of course, well, I mean, they're getting backlash for it now, but that's because you've got consumers that are extremely upset by the It's like, you're paying, you're asking 2. 99 for this 80 page trash pile.

Stacy:

Dribble, right?

Amy:

And it's like, no, I'm sorry, it's not worth it. I mean, what, you're like, no, God, no, are you kidding? If you can't be bothered to actually write it, why should I be bothered to pay for it and read it?

Stacy:

Exactly. It's not a real story, why should I pay real money?

EJ:

I will throw in, I, I'm on Reddit a crap ton I'm a lurker more than anything. Don't bother trying to find my comments or anything. I ain't involved like that. but a subreddit that I think is actually great for readers and writers alike is, the subreddit for erotica writers. Oh, really? Yes. Those people, they get really into the nitty and gritty about the business of writing erotica. Well, they have to

Stacy:

because erotica, if you have anything identified as erotica on Amazon, you're sent to what's called the erotica dungeon. Right. And if your shit doesn't get advertised, like, people can only find your shit if they're specifically looking for your name. Like, you can't even link jump to get to it. And it's fucking puritanical,

EJ:

which is not a real English word, but y'all know what I mean.

Stacy:

Yes, it is. Puritanical is absolutely a word. Oh, it is? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah, puritanical is a word.

EJ:

Oh, it's a good word. Puritans

Stacy:

fucking ruin everything. Yes, they did.

EJ:

But like, uh, in, Erotica is like, a huge moneymaker. And Amazon would know this. But of course, they have to. But Amazon treats it like it's, ew, it's dirty.

Stacy:

It's dirty. You're

Amy:

a family oriented website. Yeah,

Stacy:

sure. Which is not why you, you, you fuck over. The employees that you claim are members of your family, right? Right. Um, because you're so family oriented,

EJ:

right? Before before I go into a rant on Amazon warehouses, I, I will point out back with this subreddit. It's very interesting because they do get very straightforward and down to brass tacks about what it really takes to put in the time, the effort, the research. into writing and making a job out of it. Well, and

Stacy:

the thing too is, you know, cause, cause we've all had that one dipshit friend who's like, I could write a romance novel. I bet it's really easy. And then like, okay, so where's your romance novel? It's been five months. I thought you said that this was really easy. And, and I think people feel even like, like doubly so in regards to erotica, but the simple truth of the matter is, is it's like, yeah, anybody could write something that is arguably dirty. But that doesn't make it titillating. It has to be titillating

EJ:

to

Stacy:

qualify as erotica, otherwise it's just Chuck Tingle. I have nothing but mad respect for Chuck Tingle. Like, that man spun literally nothing into a career. Totally. but I've read several of his quote unquote books, and they're, they are neither books nor are they erotica, and yet they're listed as erotica. And that versus something that you can read that genuinely turns you on, that genuinely titillates you, are two wildly different beasts. Oh, for

EJ:

sure. For sure. So I appreciate some, like, there is that acknowledgement, I feel like, in that subreddit community. I appreciate that they're very real about the story crafting part of writing a story. Because There is, like, there is feels. It is art, but there is also a lot of just crafting discipline when it comes to any sort of good writing. Period.

Amy:

Yes.

EJ:

and so it, it makes it a very interesting world to talk about AI. people have been very upfront of like, Hey, I've been using AI. I want to talk to you guys about my experiences with it. And they generally find themselves with not a enthusiastic audience, but more of a neutral audience. Like, okay, give it to us. How'd that go using generative AI specifically, right? And usually the, the successful stories are, I can do it for small shorts that I throw on what, on like what pad and they will get some. So it's not like I'm not getting nothing, but at the same time, they point out it's also super formulaic and, there lacks a lot of novelty. So, they will admit, I could probably make more money if I wrote more of this myself.

Stacy:

Right, if you actually took the time to put, like, initiative and imagination to it. Like Amy said, like, you're still creating something, even if what you're creating is something to titillate, which there's nothing wrong with creating something to titillate, by the way, I'm

Amy:

in no

Stacy:

way, shape or form, kink or slut shaming anybody, like, you do you, boo. Mm

EJ:

hmm. So, but at the same time, because it is. a algorithm using training, the same training data for you as anyone else, it will, it's less likely to create something that is going to be marketably novel compared to everyone else.

Stacy:

Right. Well, yeah, because if you're, if you're scraping from something, What you get from it is going to be the common denominator right now. Like it's not going to be the outlier

EJ:

and I certainly I mentioned the IP issues of this generative AI stuff and I've I have harped on about how I'm a data person. I in this training data. We should

Stacy:

probably specify too that by IP we mean intellectual property, not internet protocol. Right.

EJ:

Yes. So intellectual property, the stuff that allows you to go out to the internet and say, hey, you're stealing from me. Right, exactly. Get off that pirating site. That sort of thing. Right. Bringing it into the indie community.

Amy:

Actually, can I bring up something that happened recently? Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, yeah. So, I don't know where this came from, but a prominent writer on Tumblr, who posts not just on Tumblr, but on other, um, sites such as Wattpad, AO3, apparently someone took it upon themselves to say that the collection of stories they had logged, either on Wattpad or AO3, was a book, and it was put onto Goodreads.

Stacy:

Oh my god, so they just ganked somebody's book and then put it up as their own work? Well I don't know

Amy:

if they did that because they created an author page that had said person's actual name and then also it said this person was based in the United Kingdom. I'm like, oh hell no. So yeah, so that sounds like piracy. Yeah, and something's happening there, right. There was no actual book for sale. It was just listed on Goodreads. And I'm just like, that's what's going on here. So I, I had to make an entire post for it on in the librarians group on Goodreads. And I'm just like, and they're, they're like, Oh, but do they have anything listed on their profile not to post it on Goodreads? Why specifically Goodreads? Because it's, it's online stories. Goodreads is about books. Right. You're not supposed to put fanfiction or whatnot on here.

Stacy:

So, so, so, okay, hang on. I might be looking at this the wrong way. Is this something? That they're trying to claim their stories are a book in order to maybe drive up their readership through Goodreads?

Amy:

I do not know because the person who actually wrote the stories was completely confused. Okay,

Stacy:

it's just straight up piracy. It must be somebody pirated their stories and are trying to claim it's a book to maybe generate ad revenue or something on their own site.

Amy:

I, but that's the thing though, Stacey. I don't know if they were actually pirating the stories. They just created a listing for it on Goodreads. Right, but they're saying But there's no actual way to get to, there's no way to purchase anything from that, from the page. You can't like, it

Stacy:

doesn't like, like link to a website or anything like that? No. Oh, that's fucking weird. Yes.

EJ:

Yeah,

Stacy:

that is super fucking weird.

EJ:

I, I can also throw in, I, at least under, the US IP and patent system, fan fiction is also not, recognized either. Correct. Well, it can't be, like,

Stacy:

you're using somebody else's intellectual property. Right.

Amy:

Exactly. Even if it's, even if it's technically an original character that was not depicted, well,

Stacy:

Mm hmm. But if you said it in that world. Yes, but they're

Amy:

interacting. They're interacting with characters from that world. That is still considered fanfiction, whether you use an original character in that world or not.

Stacy:

So, well yeah, because that's why, that's like the whole thing with like Fifty Shades of Grey and whatever the hell Cassandra Clare wrote. Like, I know those started off as fanfictions and then were turned into their own. Say that again, I'm sorry. It was Dark Hunters for Cassandra Clare, wasn't it? Maybe, I think it was originally like a Harry Potter fan I don't know that that's Maybe I may have that completely wrong. I have no clue.

EJ:

But, yeah, similar thing, just, just throwing it out there, mostly for our listeners. But, yeah, so with the data training, There, there's a couple of issues I've got with that, against getting back to the U. S. legal system. Oh my goodness. Our friend, the U. S. legal system. A big issue to consider right now for most large AI companies right now, notably, I think OpenAI, they're the ones who, have created ChatGPT. So whenever you think of ChatGPT, think OpenAI. When you think of OpenAI, think of, right now there's a crap ton of US litigation that's happening right now. Right.

Amy:

Yep.

EJ:

I will absolutely bring that up in the show notes, the nature of those, because these AI companies know that there is IP issues with, with the data that they are feeding their algorithms. They know it, so at the moment, there is nothing in U. S. books, in the U. S. law books, there's no regulation for these companies to create a, system of transparency or, governance or quality checking or anything related to that, that can assure folks, hey, we have only been scraping things that, you know, are Our IP free the closest we have that I have personally come across, at least as far as U. S. Companies go, which is pretty much all the big players like Google's got nothing. Microsoft's got none of that, face meta slash Facebook. They have not touched that definitely open a I who has gotten money from all of these places, including and especially Microsoft. there is concern already about Microsoft's involvement with open AI because they have been collaborating so damn closely. all these guys are under some form of litigation right now in the U. S. because There are people who are very certain that they have scraped their data, text, images, which is a yes. They currently have litigation right now that is coming on them saying, hey, you've stolen from us. This is how we know. I hope they get hammered. The only exception I have found, and they have come into issues with this, is Adobe. Adobe has tried to help their own customers get around being worried about using AI. Because again, we've talked about the whole IP thing. One of the, uh, big selling points for using Adobe AI in the past has been, hey, if you use our AI work for generative, Art, that's okay, because our training data only uses our images that we have a legal right to, to do that. So you are fine when it comes to USIP law. Now, you know, there's something else that I'm going to add to that. Of course. I and for someone who's worked in data quality and governance, I was like, Oh, crap. Oh, um, so they never, they did not lie. The good news is they have not lied that we know of on what their training data source was, but it is no, it has been found out that they did not vet that training data. Of course. Enough. Oh, of course.

Amy:

Human

EJ:

element. Recently, because mind you, all of these image files that Adobe has been using to train their AI algorithm, that's been user generated. And this has been kind of a point of contention for Adobe users, because they know that like some of the images that they put into certain Adobe libraries, they have to agree, yeah, this is going to be used for training purposes, you got to be cool with that. So they did not. Keep in mind that some of this user generated data that they've been training on, it might be AI generated itself, which totally screws up their whole marketing premise. and specifically, they have found mid journeyers generated. Products and I do find mid journey to be especially kind of hilarious because they have been like in a spat straight up spat with a UK based company because I want to say it is stable has mid journey has accused stable of stealing, uh, data from mid journey. to train. Oh, no. Somebody stole from algorithm. That's a riot. I have the links for that. I will put that in the show notes so people can see it for themselves. It is hilarious, especially because, again, any sort of Argument on these AI companies behalf of like, oh, we're just we're just doing innovation. This is how the Internet works now. No, it's not. And, you know, right. Otherwise you wouldn't get into a fucking hissy fit. It's a way to fuck people are calling out at me. Right. So, you know, it's again, it's it's kind of fun. Following the tech news for someone like me, because a lot of these tech bros, they. They're, they're so damn fragile, and such obvious hypocrites sometimes.

Amy:

I

EJ:

could go on. But yeah, so there's, there's multiple things happening there. So there's the litigation aspect. And I also threw in, like, there is that governing aspect as well. Do you actually trust, can you trust MidJourney to look at their, their training data? Like, first, you're, you're screwed on IP, for your American market, to, like, You could be, for all you know, you could be using training data that is UCP. Explain what UCP is, please. No, CP. Child pornography.

Stacy:

Oh, God, sorry, right, right, right. I was thinking of a computer term. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I didn't even think of that. I did not even. Oh, my God. So, yeah. What a horrible thing to realize.

EJ:

Yeah. Seriously. Yeah, um, because there is literally nothing on U. S. books or anyone's books right now to regulate what training data you use, where you source it from, who is monitoring that, what are, what is even the policy and protocol? I mean, for a lot of U. S. laws, they don't even ask for inspection. That's an E. U. thing. If anyone's going to check shit, it's going to be someone like China or the E.

Amy:

U.

EJ:

who actually put in the time, resources and give a shit about inspecting this stuff. U. S. laws. We got no

Amy:

time for that. We're trying to make some. Right.

EJ:

Exactly. U. S. law has a hilariously low bar, usually, when it comes to that sort of thing. At most, they're like, you should have a process for this. Otherwise, the best thing you can do for keeping people in check for, you know, keeping regulated processes going in the U. S. is usually some sort of reporting system. And occasionally understaffed inspectors.

Stacy:

Yeah, really understaffed inspectors, I'm sure.

Amy:

Okay, so my thought is Before they even rolled out all this shit, all this crappy AI, whatever, software, blah de blah de blah, whatever, rather than, you know, just scraping whatever the fuck they could get their grimy little hands on, why not approach, say, something like DeviantArt? They have chosen violence, by the way. Yes. Who? I'm sorry? DeviantArt.

EJ:

Yeah, I feel really bad for DeviantArt, uh, artists right now.

Amy:

If they could have approached, if they could have approached basically those that are, oh, whatever, the overseers of a website like DeviantArt and asked, Hey, could you maybe get us some art or artists that are willing to loan us, Something that we could use for training data, you know, and maybe

Stacy:

we'll, you know,

Amy:

we will compensate said individuals because one, there's a lack of transparency to, there's also the lack of compensation. Three, there's the theft, just outright theft. And honestly, that's just, that is really what gets the artists so up in arms about it. Because one, their livelihoods are being threatened. They're not receiving any compensation. And it's, they're seeing their, their work being transformed into something else. Utterly shit tastic.

Stacy:

Yeah, 100%.

Amy:

And it's baffling. It's the same also with regards to the writing, whatever, I guess with ChatGPT or whatever, I don't know. I mean, they tried to do this on AO3 of all places. And of course, the writers of AO3 were not having that shit.

Stacy:

No, of course not. That sounds like a really great way to make sure that your website's bold. Pretty much.

Amy:

Pretty much. And it's just, why? Why must you go out and, and not do your due process? It just, it, it baffles me, the laziness. Well, and it's also like, why is it,

Stacy:

why, why are you okay with fucking people over if the opportunity presents itself?

Amy:

Mm hmm.

Stacy:

Like, what is wrong with you that you think that, like, the whole world can't be fuck you, got mine?

Amy:

No.

Stacy:

Like, none of us are going to get anything if that's the tact we take, basically. I almost guarantee, once again, it comes down to money.

EJ:

Of course.

Stacy:

It always does come down to money. Right, but it's not just that it comes down to money. It doesn't, but so many people, I really think fucking somebody over is like, it's a feature, not a bug. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. It's not a, it's not the sort of callous. Whoops, you know, who gives a shit? Let's move on. But almost more like, can we fuck these people over? Because I would enjoy that.

EJ:

Right. It gets further exacerbated when you're in, I would say the mainstream corporate environment does treat people like just another raw material. 100%. So, this is, this is not me trying to be dramatic and grim or anything, I, this is just. Well, right, I mean, you're

Stacy:

cogs, you're cogs in a fucked up machine, and I say that as somebody who, I was working in the mental health sector, but I got caught up in a big machine, and, excuse me, that, that had found a way to profit off of mental health. and you are an insignificant cog in that machine too. And they do not, your ass will be replaced the minute you are not there to serve the machine.

EJ:

Yeah.

Amy:

I really

Stacy:

loved helping people, but the machine was set up less so that I could help people and in many ways blocked me from helping people because it interfered with their ability to make profit. And I don't want to be a part of that, that fucking system again.

EJ:

It's all, it comes down to those KPIs. I say that as someone who has actually set KPIs. Key performance indicators.

Stacy:

There we go. Which is not something that should be applied towards. Mental health or you can. Yeah, I get it. Oh, yeah, you're right. So very frequently is,

EJ:

the whole point of KPIs is to create objective metrics to show, progress or the accomplishment of a goal. Right, which

Stacy:

is not how anything that's helping somebody should be structured, and yet it always is.

EJ:

And, and, when you're, when you're trying to apply it to human well being, you, you go, you get into a real shit show. Oh yeah. And, you know, you run into that, actually, whenever you're talking, when you do talk about ethics. I rarely come across a business leader who really takes that caution seriously. Right. No, I and you're in

Stacy:

charge of a major corporation, you're scum, right? I just accepted it. That's the truth of it. There's no such thing as a good CEO.

EJ:

Well, yeah, and I think like, one of the hard things is by the time you're a CEO, and you're part of a global corporation, I'm talking like, you're, you're part of an IPO, you are, your company has its own cute three letters on that stock market. Ticker tape. Um, your ultimate master is not the market. It's your stakeholders. Those are the only people you care about. It's not your employees. It's not even your customers. I can never take a CEO seriously who's like, I care about my customers. My dude, if you sincerely feel that you're not doing your job. Which sucks for you if you really believe that, but everyone else in your company, I guarantee you is very aware that your real customers are your stockholders. Yeah. Everything else can go fucking out the door. Yeah. I don't believe you can be a CEO and possess empathy. No, not in this current environment. We would have to have a

Stacy:

successful CEO. The first thing that you do is kill your empathy and that's not a sign of a good person to be in with.

Amy:

Cut empathy out. CEO.

EJ:

Yep, you're right. I mean, in order to survive, in the current System that the global economy works with. Once again, I will call up late stage capitalism requires unfettered profit profit growth. And that is exactly how our capitalist system across the globe. Even if you are part of China or something. Congratulations for part of the global economy. You're part of unfettered Profit growth. and there's some great nonfiction books that, you know, talk about, the environmental implications of that. and I would also say Or the delightful

Stacy:

human rights violations.

EJ:

It really makes our little area, our little niche of, of, like, romance book world fucking quaint, man. Mm hmm. But it's our world, dammit.

Stacy:

Well, that's just it. Like, I think a big part of the appeal of reading indie romance is we don't fucking want. CEOs and publishing houses and shit like that in involved because they're gonna fucking ruin it.

EJ:

It's uh, a real rebellious way of going about creativity. Especially in a economic world where we have so much mainstream media that is quite formulaic. I, I think of like Disney and like, dear Lord, they're not going through a good creative time right now. A lot of everything is very recycled. Well, it

Stacy:

depends on where you're looking though. Yeah, not necessarily. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. It depends on where you're looking. I think in terms of some of their storytelling, they're finally moving away from Prince and princess and living happily ever after like in Canto and Moana and you know, and we're finally seeing representation of people of color.

EJ:

Yeah, that's more. So

Stacy:

in regards to that, I would agree. But in regards to like, like a lot of the Star Wars stuff that they're putting, putting out, it really does seem very like, wash, rinse, repeat.

EJ:

Yeah, Star Wars ain't doing great. Marvel ain't doing great. Marvel is mixed. I like some bits of Marvel. The overall universe, I feel, has not been well. I'm over

Stacy:

it. It's, it's been too long. I am

Amy:

completely marveled

EJ:

out. Yeah, we, we have

Stacy:

sustained an unnatural lifespan and it's to the point now where I don't have the attention span for it anymore. I

Amy:

don't, I think phase four could have been their final phase and yet we're in phase five. Yeah, but they won't

Stacy:

though because they're going to drive it into the ground because the minute that there's You know, uh, a penny to be made. They have to squeeze that property until it pulps in their hand, regardless of the damage that they actually do to the creative process of that property.

EJ:

All right. And they, they are, I, I pick on Disney because they are in this very weird space where they are a creative company. Everything about what they do actually revolves around creativity and art. But, They are a publicly traded corporation who must make profit at all cost.

Stacy:

I see them more as what you were talking about as a representation of late stage capitalism. They're not a company that's focused on creative output. I think creative output happens accidentally now.

Amy:

The

Stacy:

main focus of Disney is profit. And Disney's been problematically money grubbing for, I mean, since I was a child. They're just more monopolistic about it now.

EJ:

And this is not to say that Indie authors are, they are above making a profit. that would be like saying they're above paying their bills.

Amy:

Is very rare to see them able to quit a day job and just completely write and write. Well, I think it's doable, but I think it's,

Stacy:

you have to put in the work. Cause like Tiffany Roberts, they do that.

EJ:

Yes. they

Stacy:

clearly do

EJ:

a crap ton of work,

Stacy:

and Ruby also has, a publishing name, like a name that she publishes, like she has what she refers to as her New York name. She won't tell anybody who it is.

Amy:

But

Stacy:

she was a writer before she became an indie writer. The indie thing happened just because she wrote Ice Planet Barbarians and wanted to write a story for herself, basically, because she couldn't find what she wanted to read. And then it turned out everybody was like, what a novel idea. And then You know with as much as I hate to give Amazon any credit ever The fact is is they did break big publishing houses death grips on, you know, people being able to independently publish. Because prior to that, if you were an indie public, if you like self published something, it was called, it was considered a vanity press. And no one in the traditional publishing world would have touched you with a 10 foot pole. And that's as recently as like 20,years ago.

EJ:

So, but comparing even a big name in our world, like Ruby Dixon to Disney, that's a disingenuous comparison. Oh

Stacy:

yeah. They ain't the

EJ:

same. Oh God no. Ruby Dixon, I, I'm, she can be as ambitious as she wants, but she is not going to have a I, I would, I would bet damn good money that she does not have the resources nor the ambition to have the unfettered profit grabbing need. Ruby Dixon is doing

Stacy:

exactly what Ruby Dixon wants to be doing. She's not out to take over the publishing.

Amy:

She just wants to release books that she finds fun. She wants to write her stories.

Stacy:

And she wants to enjoy the books. That's all she wants. And God bless her. Godspeed.

Amy:

Yes, indeed. So I love Ruby Dixon. With regard to Disney though, I mean, for some, for some bizarre reason, they will sometimes produce something that is just really good. And granted, I don't want to jinx anything, because supposedly there are two movies in this franchise that are being made. And it's because of Predator. Really? Yes, there's going to be a sequel to Predator. I had no idea. There's going to be a sequel. That makes sense. Supposedly. And the pray was super, was super

Stacy:

successful.

Amy:

I tell you, it also has to do with having a great. woman of color in a leading, in a semi leading role. All of the Predator movies that have had that have had a prominent woman of color in their movies. But anyways, moving on. Also, I'm sorry, but the first Alien versus Predator is fun, but it's

Stacy:

not a good movie.

Amy:

I'll give you that. I still enjoyed it a lot because I love Lex. No,

Stacy:

it's fun. It's super fun. Yeah. And she was great. I just thought that the actual The AVP

Amy:

portion of it was pretty weak. Yeah, that didn't really need to happen, but anyways. But the other movie is supposedly called Badlands, and it takes place in the future. Oh, cool. So

Stacy:

Well, Predator 2 kind of took place Predator 2 was like the near future. Now it's the past, because I think it was 1997, I think, was the year that think you're right.

Amy:

It came out in 1990, but it was 1980. Yes.

Stacy:

Although, you know, Predator 2, I think, would be another movie that we could describe as cyberpunk ish. Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot of hell going on there. Well, and it's definitely late stage capitalism, like you see that. Mm

Amy:

hmm. Because of the gang wars and all that fun stuff.

Stacy:

Well, right, and like, the cops are, you know, like, what they're able to do is extremely limited. People are being murdered and nobody cares until cops start getting murdered. What does that sound like?

Amy:

Anyways, so yeah, sometimes it has to do with the, the, what, what are the sub houses or whatever the heck, whatever the film houses that are not, they're under the massive Disney umbrella, but it's not right. Right, how it's like subcontracted out kind of thing. Yeah, something like that.

EJ:

Yeah, I wanna, it could also wanna call it subsidiary, but I don't know if that's actually, there you go. No, I

Stacy:

think, I think it's, I think you're right, ej. I think that's right. It's Subi. Yeah, I think it's a subsidiary. Yeah. Where it's held by Disney, but it's not an officially Disney, it's not under the umbrella term of Disney kind. It's

Amy:

Fox. It's Fox. When Disney acquired Fox, I guess Fox owned both of those friends. How Buena Vista was in the, the eighties where,

Stacy:

you know, stuff could get released that like. PG 13 or even R, you're bullying a Vista. And at the time, even though everybody knew Disney owned it, it wasn't affiliated with Disney.

Amy:

Yeah.

EJ:

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. No, I think it's cool. We went down a predator tangent and, you know, it's gonna happen, man. You know,

Stacy:

Amy, actually, there's a really good book. That I think you would like, and it's called Broken Earth by S. J. Sanders. Oh my

Amy:

goodness, what could this possibly be? Could it be? Let me see. A trilogy called Broken Earth by S. J.

Stacy:

Sanders. By S. J. Sanders, and I think you'd really enjoy it. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before. Not at all. This is a completely new series. Each year this is all new. S. J. Sanders, you say? I've never heard of that name. You know, I was hoping I'd get the opportunity to teach you about that. And you, you brought it to me. So thank you.

Amy:

Thank

Stacy:

you for being complicit in your own harassment.

Amy:

I know it's, the harassment comes out of love, and because you really like to read the books.

Stacy:

Same with EJ. Well, I do want you to read the books, but I also really like to tease you, so.

EJ:

So at the risk of this conversation being just all like, boo, AI, because we did acknowledge like AI, it's a, it's a tool. AI is

Stacy:

problematic. It's extremely problematic. It's extremely problematic. In the

EJ:

context that it's being used in. Yes. At present. When I, let's talk about some positive things. Potentially positive things about AI. When is it actually useful? When does it actually appeal? I will straight up say that I see there's a lot of unharnessed potential in how it could make the internet more accessible for a future. So

Stacy:

it has the potential to be a great, like, learning tool. Yes. You know, like, because we were talking about Grammarly uses AI, but I feel like that's a more, but at the same time, you also have to be careful with that too, because like, A lot of people are even getting fucked over in that regard. Like Duolingo Mm-Hmm. fired all of their translators in favor of ai. What? So yeah. It used to be like they had like six people for each language, and now they have one. And it's just to, to read the AI to make sure that it's accurate.

Amy:

Oh, it's

Stacy:

weird. So that's actually why I quit using Duolingo. Mm-Hmm. Oh,

Amy:

I, I can't go back to using them. I was using them, but now Yeah, I was too. I fell off, I fell off wagon. Now I'm nuts. Get it back on.

Stacy:

Yeah, I'm going to go. So there's another one. I can't remember what it's called. I've heard podcasts advertised, and I'm going to look into that as soon as I remember what the hell it's called.

Amy:

Obviously, if you're wanting to do learning language and you want to do it for free, check with your local library and see if they have access to either Mango Languages or Transparency Languages.

Stacy:

I know Rosetta Stone is supposed to be really good too, but I don't know. I know that's super expensive. That's expensive, and I don't

Amy:

know of any libraries that offer that. But those other two resources, either Transparency Languages or Mango Languages. Yeah, you can also find podcasts.

Stacy:

You can also find podcasts where native speakers will teach you. And you can also find stuff on, YouTube. Mm hmm. With native speakers, native speakers teaching people, and that's also great because you can get the pronunciation right there.

Amy:

Sometimes you can find funny ones, like, you know, hearing languages, different words in different languages. I had mentioned, basically in our conversation before we recorded, that, You could, you could probably build, with permissions, and also complete and utter transparency, an AI that could serve as an editing service, which I will call actually a pre editing service. Basically, it's like the Yeah, it's like what we were talking about, Grammarly. It's, it's kind of like Grammarly, but in the extreme there, and hopefully no one's taking advantage of anything. But, again, what should be the pre edit, you send it to the human editor to catch any of the issues that the pre editor had missed or even generated themself. Itself. Cough, cough, I'm looking at you autocorrect, cough, cough. See, I swear, in one of my papers, I, I had typed. As duck approached when I meant as duck, as dus

Stacy:

approached. Oh, as dusk approached.

Amy:

Yes. And of course I didn't catch it. Autocorrect didn't catch it.'cause duck is a complete, is it's a word,

EJ:

right? Right. and no. And that, that is where like, another, another check is really useful. And to be very clear, I use Grammarly for editing, because it does, it does a really good job. pointing out, oh, hey, here is some weird punctuation crap that you should probably change because I'm really bad at that.

Amy:

Um,

EJ:

similar thing with, you know, it does some really good spell check. It also, I like personally how it tries to simplify my sentences, specifically because my first drafts are flowery as fuck, and ain't nobody got time to read that. and I know that for a fact, you know, I, I say you, I use grammarly having had the privilege of time and money to have been in undergrad and had several years mentorship. one on one with an, with an actual writing mentor who is now, past, you know, may he rest in peace. He was amazing for me. I still fondly remember getting up, for our 8 a. m. appointments. Every single goddamn week when school was in session, regardless of the weather, and I would trudge to the English department, and he would make me read whatever the hell I wrote that week to him aloud.

Amy:

And

EJ:

it was so fucking intense. I would spend hours in that man's office, and he was, he was not cruel to be clear, but he was not flowery at all. That man had an editor's mind, and had no problem telling a 19 year old me, the fuck you mean by that? Which I really needed and so he helped me figure out where I am actually quite weak in my writing regardless of genre or whatever. And one of my things is I am flowery as fuck. and Brammerly's great on handling that. Now, I want to be very, very clear. Grammarly does have this thing called Grammarly Go, and that is generative text. They use ChatGPT as the backbone for it.

Stacy:

Oh, I don't like that in the slightest. Uh,

EJ:

Grammarly, like, OG, that was made in house. They, once they got into the, that, their generative AI products, which are separate, but they, they, they use ChatGPT in part because ChatGPT is. Free to use. It's free as in beer, as we say in the world. so, heads up, especially for those who use Grammarly out there. I don't know about things like Autocrit. Or ProWritingAid. I don't know what engines they use for that because both of those are meant to be, smart editors as well. I would need to look further into those. I have found them, they appeal to me as potential, like, proto editing tools. But to be clear, like, there is nothing like an editor. Period, like a human editor as I say this, not as someone who's trying to be curmudgeonly. Hopefully our listeners can appreciate that. I have a lot more reservations about AI than simply it's coming for our jobs, right? It's like, no, it's it's coming to wreck us. In its current form. I think it's trying to

Stacy:

replace humanity without any humanity.

EJ:

Yeah. I because Amy, I think you bring up a really good point with that idea. And like, you're such a damn librarian for it. I love it. I think. Because I also have a master's in library information science, like, that's probably why I found myself doing data quality and governance, because Regardless of anything I was doing in data science, it always came down to, well, was your initial data trash to begin with? Well, that's probably why you have a trash product to end with. Trash in, trash out.

Stacy:

Yeah, exactly.

EJ:

no amount of fancy algorithm is going to make trash not trash. Exactly.

Stacy:

You know, it's funny, I used this euphemism just last night with a friend of mine on a phone call. if you have one pound of shit and ten pounds of ice cream and you mix them together, you have eleven pounds of shit. Oh,

EJ:

pretty much. And, and, in a very simplified way, that is exactly how it still works. In, In the computer world. I know there are some people who are like, but my algorithm is so good and I'm over here. Like, no, it's not. And it never will be. Yeah.

Stacy:

Pretty much. Exactly. Because it's all,

EJ:

especially when your, your algorithm depends upon the data itself to learn from, like all AI algorithms are, congratulations. Your algorithm is only good as the data. You run through it, right? Yep. So, and until you come up with a algorithm just that can come up with anything without any data whatsoever, until then, you still need to worry about your data quality. I'm getting off my soapbox. I'm like imagining some sort of like, obstinate Silicon Valley bro in front of me right now.

Stacy:

No, I mean, well, tech bros are the fucking worst.

Amy:

Don't worry, we'd be right there with you, EJ. Yep. Stacey and I are pretty damn tall. Yep. And the tech bros are probably just, you know, you sneeze and they blow away.

Stacy:

Yes, they all have raging short man syndrome. Even if they're not short, they have short man syndrome.

EJ:

And like, and I do find it really too bad. I think it, there is a lot of potential out there to, to. Shoo away tediousness, even in the creative arts, like, you know, again, it's like really basic proofreading and, and such like this tedium, I emphasize the tedium of, of the story crafting process, I could see potential there could see potential there..

Amy:

That makes sense. But my husband did bring up a good point with regards, it's actually involves the gaming industry, um, with, with, with art as well. And the way he put it was basically. Now I wish I had paid further attention because it was yesterday, but basically, the idea is, um, to What? You want to come in? Okay, come on. Okay, he's coming. Oh my. Okay. Husband is coming to assist with regards to the barrel business. I promise not to try and bite him.

Stacy:

I appreciate that. Okay.

Amy:

This time, you know, we're talking AI. This is my husband, JC EJ husband.

Amy's Husband:

Nice to meet you.

Amy:

Hello, husband. All right. So go ahead. Basically how AI can actually help in the game. Gaming art industry having to do with that barrel thing you were telling me about yesterday. Okay,

Amy's Husband:

yeah, so that's one of the examples, um, where, so right now, for example, in a video game, you shoot a barrel. So you have, on the one hand, you have the regular barrel, and then a designer, a 3D artist made that one. And then the same 3D artist is gonna sit there and make an exploded version of the barrel with all the little pieces. So anytime you shoot a barrel, it gets replaced with the pieces and then it just gets thrown around to make it look cool and all. But let's say you want that to look even more realistic and make that exactly where you shot it and how that explodes. You want that to be precise. Well then, of course, you're gonna have to make a physics engine. You have to spend a whole lot of effort and time on making that happen. And that's wasteful in terms of gaming. That's, you know, wasting a lot of processing power on just that one part. But let's go even further. Let's say you're making a game and, uh, you're getting to an area of the game where the developer didn't think you'd go. And you're trying to destroy a thing that the developer didn't think you want, want to destroy. Like you should add the phone on the desk. Okay. That's one of the most common things in video games. Phones tend to be like invincible, but now you're trying to destroy it. And no developer thought of it like, Oh, I wanted you to show me how that, how the phone explodes. So that's one of the things where the, the, they could have AI tools, but basically it thinks ahead. And it would then actually have, you know, uh, an idea of what that would look like to, to explode that thing for you. And save, you know, 10 developers, uh, sleepless nights where they had to stop their game from releasing because, Hey guys, we didn't make the phone breaks. And it's, it's this give and take thing where you want to make something really, really cool for players, but then, you know, that takes time and effort and then players are going to do the exact opposite thing of what you thought. And they want to shoot a phone.

Stacy:

Now I want to shoot a phone.

Amy's Husband:

Yeah.

EJ:

It's super hilariously common, mostly because I'm one of those jerks in the video games. Let's fuck around and find out, shall we? Absolutely. If you can't do that in a video game, where can you do that? That

Amy:

is a good question. What's the point otherwise? Thank you for my, my, my guest speaker. Of course. No, I appreciate

Stacy:

that. That actually kind of makes sense in a, basically what he's saying is that something that can be used as a shortcut for an already existing item that was created by people to make, in this case, the game play. It enriches the gameplay rather than deciding that AI can create the entire game.

Amy:

Mm hmm.

Stacy:

Right. And so it's like what I was saying before, it's a spice. It's not the whole meal.

Amy:

Correct. You don't want to eat a spoonful of curry powder.

Stacy:

Exactly.

EJ:

I'm thinking of actually the cinnamon challenge, you know. Oh my god. Everyone loves cinnamon, good old cinnamon roll, but then you actually put just straight up cinnamon in your mouth. Yeah, try that. It's not a good time. Yeah. I think about all of my favorite AI potential applications and AI products that I am, I want to like, Mm-Hmm. they're all assistive Mm-Hmm. Yes. Right. You are, you are. Right.

Stacy:

I feel like that's what they should be. It should be assistive.

Amy:

Well, I mean, like, in the medical field, there are some medical professionals that are turning to, this also is within the, the mental health, area, Stacey, they're, they're using a form of, AI transcription to help in recording their sessions with their patients. You still have the therapist or the doctor reading through the transcription and making sure that everything makes sense. But the thing about those is that those are protected under the HIPAA law. At least in the U. S. In the U. S., yes, excuse me. They're protected under law, so they cannot be accessed by anyone.

Stacy:

Right, without a release of information filled out. Correct. Yeah. See, but that's, that's the whole point, is that's what it should be, is there should be something that assists in areas like that. I just don't see where AI is. at least in its current incarnation, truly applicable in the art, in the arts, essentially.

Amy:

No,

Stacy:

for whatever reason, that's the first place that everybody decided it should be.

Amy:

Yes. I don't know why, which is so weird. It's absolute ass backwards. It truly is. When I thought of AI, I wanted it to be doing the tedious drudge work, housework, so I can be able to create things. I didn't want the, the opposite to happen. You got it. Exactly.

Stacy:

We have humans doing the drudgery and AI doing all of the creative.

Amy:

I don't want to do the drudgery. I want it to do the drudgery. So I don't have to do the laundry. Right.

EJ:

I want to do higher order thinking more, please and thank you.

Amy:

Thank you. Great.

Stacy:

I want to lay in bed and think of new and increasingly unusual alien penises. I

Amy:

knew you were going to

Stacy:

say that. Hell yeah. I like wieners. It would

Amy:

not be a podcast episode without Stacey daydreaming about alien penises.

Stacy:

Yep. And I'm including fantasy in that, you know, like, I'm an equal opportunity wiener looker. Of course.

EJ:

So yeah, it's, I, I think that is really like a kind of is a pretty good summary all together. Like, of course, we could go deeper into other areas that we have no business going into. No, I mean,

Stacy:

no, let's not. No, because, I mean, EJ, you've got a pretty comprehensive grasp on this, but. Amy and I are probably at best dilettantes. I don't even, you know what? I'm not even gonna qualify as a dilettante. I'm, I'm probably just barely a dilettante. I would have to, like, I'm, I, I, I'm surface level. I'm not even, like, shallow enough to be a dilettante. Like, I would have to apply myself to be that shallow.

EJ:

I, I think it is where I'm currently at. I know enough that I know that I can talk in an inaccessible way for folks. So it's been invaluable, I think, having the two of you to be like, hold on, can we translate this? Let's, let's dive a little deeper here or something.

Stacy:

Once more in the common tongue, please.

EJ:

All right. And that is, I think that is one of the biggest issues that tech actually has. It's not a progress thing. We're fine on that. It's really a, I put it in the most abstract way. It's a communication thing. I think we use technology, but do we know what the fuck we're even using? And I think for the average tech user, they don't, and I don't think that's their fault, quite frankly.

Stacy:

It's not designed to be. accessible to the average lay person. And some of that is simply because it's a complex process, but I really do believe like with proprietary stuff, that's again, it's a feature, not a bug. They don't want you to understand how it works. Right. If you understand how it works, you can do shit like fix it when it breaks rather than buying a new one or paying 100 an hour to a tech who's outsourced through them, you know, essentially you'll cut off a revenue stream.

Amy:

All part of the hustle culture. Basically, you cannot have a hobby anymore. You cannot have a hobby anymore because, oh, are you making money on your stories? Yep. And why are you posting them? For fun?

Stacy:

Because I like writing.

EJ:

You're not exploiting your labor correctly. Apparently not. Even when your only labor is you. Right. I

Stacy:

am actually going to write that like dystopian like set now that what was I saying is going to be groping at the guillotine. I'm going to write that that story is going to happen. And it's going to start just as everybody rises up and eats the billionaires.

EJ:

Nice. That being said, I feel like we can, we can wrap it up because I, I, I feel like, um, y'all

Amy:

should let go of FOMO. And, and, yes, embrace, embrace the JOMO or let, what is it? Embrace, embrace the DNF.

Stacy:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Embrace the DNF and life is too short for bad writing. Damn straight.