There are those who will read this and think it is a rant. It is not a rant, I am not ranting, but I could.

The use and proliferation of AI is decimating creative communities. There are some obvious examples of this, artists and graphic artists being one of them. AI art is everywhere and not as easy to spot as we occasionally fool ourselves into believing. Yes the seven fingers woman is an obvious example, but for every obviously fake ‘photo realistic’ piece of art, there are hundreds of bits of clip art, back ground and other stuff that is manufactured on mass with AI and flooding the market. As I have used both royalty free clip art to put together book covers and paid one off fees for bits of clipart work as well, as soon as I go to the sites I have used in the past I can see the sheer amount of AI clip art that has been generated. It is hard to find clip art that is not tagged as AI generated on reputable sites now due to the sheer volume of AI swamping the market.

Graphic art is however the tip of the iceberg.

Let us look at another example. A whole industry of audio book narration grew up in the last 10 years. Home studio narrators have sprung up, many invested hundreds or thousands in bespoke home studios, with expensive recording equipment and sound dampening tiles and god only knows what else. It has however paid off, many making a good living in the new cottage industry of audio narration.

At least that was the case, up until the turn of the year, when AI voice narration reached a point where it is good enough to fool most people. Or at least be acceptable despite its failings. Instead of paying anything up to £180.00 per 10000 words to have your book recorded and produced by good quality audio artist. AI narration has becomes and option. And the big bad river company has made its AI narration offering free to use for authors who publish with them. As the big bad river company is also the biggest market for audio books in the world and owns the main platform they also control the keys to the kingdom. They set the production/quality values for audio books. As such their AI audio narration is defacto to the required standards.

Is AI narration as good as human narration, no. But it is getting to the point it is hard to tell, it is no longer flat and emotionless, it has inflection , it has fake breathing, to make it sound real… Which is very odd as producing out loud breaths etc. is something professional narration produces do, yet AI is putting it in to sound more human.

Many self published writers look at AI narration and see a door that was previously closed to them, or required them to figure out how to DIY their own and learn sound production in order to make audio versions of their work, and are excited at the idea. I can’t even blame them as I know how often I get asked if there are audio versions of my books, and how cost prohibitive getting them professionally recorded would be. But I am not about to go down that road. Generally the kind of ‘writers’ who ‘write’ using AI, were the first ones jumping on the AI narration train. But some real writers are starting to use Amazon’s AI narration tools because its free. And other AI narration packages because its a cheap option, in a cost prohibitive market.

But the real cost is a human one. A new creative industry has died that was full of interesting voices doing great narration and audio production. Artists who did not just record a writers work but added to it with with a voice and infection. Home based narrators have lost 50 -80% of there work overnight and the industry is not dying, it has been murdered. Audio artist making a reasonable living doing good work have gone form turning work away or passing it on to there collogues to fighting over scraps. A cottage industry side hustle that became a full time home based job that worked with their life style has been ripped apart and turned into a side hustle at best or they have just found themselves going back to the ‘real jobs flipping burgers and stocking shelves.

Added to this, one of the ways audio books got made was split royalty deals where the narrator and the writer took an equal share of the royalties. Many indie writers have gone down this route in the past, because it is more viable for them and narrators like them because royalties are a small but steady income flow if a book does reasonably well on audio. The problem here is however audio platforms are now been flooded by AI audio , which means rather than been one book in a shop, your one book in a warehouse… Sales for audio books continue to trend upwards, but in a flooded market place individual books get lost and are just never seen so audio sales for individual books are down… Share royalty deals are no longer covering cost and narrators and writers are making less for their work than they were a year ago…

I have Never made audio versions of my own novels, because of the cost, but I will never use AI to do so. I would have used an artist to record my work if I could. Just as I don’t; use AI art no matter how convenient it may be. Just as I would never use Ai to write anything , literally anything… let alone a book .

I don’t ghost write, but I know of writers who do, and writers who have made a living ghost writing. But guess what, that is another industry been decimated by AI. Why pay for a ghost writer to do a first draft of a book for you, when AI can write one for you…

The anthology series I am on the editorial staff of gets swamped by AI written short stories, all of which are crap, but we have to sieve through them to find real stories written by people. As far as I am aware we have never failed to spot a fully AI story , or an story someone used AI to draft. We very clearly state in out T&C that AI is not accepted but it doesn’t stop people trying. I had a long conversation ( that involved some harsh words from me) with a ‘writer’ who enthusiastically told me they used AI to write short stories. I had to explain how using prompts and keywords is not writing, any more than using them to make art does not make you an artist. the conversation did not go well, they blocked me, I am sad about this…

The book industry, audio paper and e, is also been destroyed by volume, two years ago there were around 1.5 million books available on the big bad river. Two years ago, there were perhaps 20,000 audio books on the big bad rivers audio platform. There are 20 million books on the river and 2,00000 on the audio platform because of the flood of AI crated drivel
Writers find it harder and harder to reach an audience, because the audience can not even see them amid the flood waters.

AI is killing art and artist on so many levels and in so many ways.

So no I will not be making an action figure of myself using AI, or anything else with AI, I will not pay for AI art for book covers, I will not use AI narrators for audio books rather than pay real narrators, I will not use AI editing tools I will use an editor, I will not use AI to design a coffee mug , or a poster or anything else. And I sure as hell will never use AI to write a skill that has taken me all my fifty five years to learn and one day I hope to master.

What I will do is pay humans to do these things when ever possible, use art made by humans and buy books written by humans. because the cost of AI is not just our souls but also actual people. Do we want a future where computers do the art that lines the pockets of the mega rich while we flip burgers? because what has happened to audio narrators will happen to every other industry. I am not a luddite, I am a tech geek, but AI is a bad road and we need a turn off, before there is no art left, just soulless AI generated garbage, that costing independent artists of all stripes there livelihoods and their license to be artists in the first place.

What is perhaps even worse, those independent artists who survive will not be able to reach an audience due to the floor waters of AI junk

There are those who will read this and think it is a rant. It is not a rant, I am not ranting, but I could.