Beware the anti-A.I. stampede (This week in books)

This week! Books!

Let’s start with some “A.I. getting chopped down to size” news.

OpenAI Is Shutting Down Sora, Its A.I. Video Generator – Cade Metz, New York Times / Disney Exits OpenAI Deal After AI Giant Shutters Sora – Alex Werpin, The Hollywood Reporters – OpenAI’s foray into an A.I.-generated, copyright-nightmarish social media network has flamed out spectacularly, costing OpenAI a $1 billion partnership with Disney.

Wikipedia bans AI-generated content in its online encyclopedia – Oliver Milman, The Guardian – Wikipedia is banning A.I. content, apart from translations and spellcheck.

As AI Discourse Rages, Publishing Has More Questions Than Answers – Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly – The publishing industry is still reckoning with the fallout from Hachette’s cancellation of Mia Ballard’s Shy Girl, with agents worrying about a collapse of trust, and others worrying that Hachette (a company that publicly admits to using A.I. in its operations) threw the author under the bus.

While I’m fully aboard holding A.I. companies to account, I have to admit I’m a bit nervous about some of the vigilantism around accusing authors of A.I.-generated content. Not because I’m using A.I. to churn anything out myself (this is all me), but because I worry innocent authors could be falsely accused with scant proof.

To wit:

The People Falsely Accused of Using AI – Emma Alpern, The Intelligencer / AI detection and authors’ fear of witch hunts – Jane Friedman – Humans are already being accused of being robots, particularly neurodivergent writers, and tools to reliably prove A.I.-usage are scant and faulty.

Careful what you wish for here, and I suspect it’s going to be a mess for a while. My hunch is that over time, people will stop caring whether something was generated with A.I. and instead focus on the simple fact of whether it’s good or not.

Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste – Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker – Meanwhile, in a world where tech bros think A.I. can or will be able to do anything, taste is all the rage as something tech bros think they’ll still bring to the table. People always want what they can’t have.

Rising Wartime Costs Rattle Publishing’s Global Supply Chain – Ed Nawotka, Publishers Weekly – Thanks to the idiotic war in Iran, we’re talking about supply chains again like it’s 2020.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson
4. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
5. Love Song by Elle Kennedy

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Stripped Down by Bunnie XO
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli

Young adult hardcover:

1. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
2. The Sun and Starmaker by Rachel Griffin
3. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
4. If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
5. The Ruins Beneath Us by Sasha E. Sloan

Middle grade hardcover:

1. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
4. The Court of the Dead by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• N/A

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Bluesky and Threads
• Check out the Bransforums – on hiatus!

And finally:

What Happens When a Whale Is Born? – Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker – Scientists got a rare look at a sperm whale birth, and found incredible signs of community.

Have a great weekend!

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