Fri, 31 Jan 2025

How an AI written book shows why the tech 'terrifies' creatives

The BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman is given an AI-made book that claims it was written by her.

* A friend gave me a personalized book, "Tech-Splaining for Dummies", which was written entirely by AI with just a few prompts about me.
* The book is a mix of self-help and anecdotes, mimicking my writing style but also repetitive and verbose.
* The company behind the book, BookByAnyone, uses its own AI tools to generate personalized books based on an open-source large language model.
* The CEO of BookByAnyone, Adir Mashiach, says they have sold around 150,000 personalized books since June 2024, mainly in the US.
* The company is planning to expand into different genres and offer autobiography services.
* Musicians, authors, artists, and actors are raising concerns about their work being used to train generative AI tools without consent.
* UK organizations, including the BBC, have chosen to block AI developers from trawling their online content for training purposes.
* The UK government is considering an overhaul of the law that would allow AI developers to use creators' content on the internet to help develop their models.
* A national data library containing public data will be made available to AI researchers in the UK.
* In the US, President Trump has repealed an executive order aimed at boosting the safety of AI and is said to want the AI sector to face less regulation.
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