Literary Hub: “Lately there has been a lot of hand-wringing, and rightly so, about if and how the publishing industry will deal with AI in the wake of the cancelation of the first major book deal due to suspected AI usage. There is no easy solution to AI detection for many reasons, partly because large language models are imperfect replications of prose written by actual authors in the first place, and partly because large language models are improving (if “improving” is the word to use for a product built off the backs of a wide variety of human writers) all the time. The word salads that we might identify as AI today may not be the kind of machine-made writing that we will see tomorrow. Not to mention that some authors happen to naturally write word salads as a matter of course. This is just the latest example of how the technology that was sold to us as the thing that would make our lives easier is making it multitudes more difficult. AI detection tools are notoriously flawed at best, ruinous to new authors at worst. They also seem like a particularly inelegant solution to the problem: why would we use AI to catch AI usage? It’s a tough time to be a reader. Now when I encounter new writing from a name I don’t know, I have to remind myself to be cautious, just in case someone is trying to trick me. The book industry should do absolutely everything necessary to prevent readers from feeling the need to come to any new book from a place of skepticism. Horror critic Emily C. Hughes put it so aptly when she broke down the cancelation of Mia Ballard novel over suspected AI use: “I hate feeling like my choices are to either let myself be hurt repeatedly or to progressively wall myself off into smaller and smaller protective bubbles until I’m utterly alone.” Protect readers at all costs! If anything, AI detection should fall to book editors, who absolutely didn’t sign up for this new responsibility either. Our current conundrum is a great reminder of how disastrous it is when corporations rely on technology instead of investing in human expertise. Because at its heart, AI and the havoc it’s causing is a labor issue…”