Artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning are revolutionizing the publishing
industry. That is the polite term for what is happening. There are other, less
polite views from those who object to any sort of software doing all the work
in a fraction of the time it would take an actual cover artist to do it. There
are fears it will put a lot of software artists out of work.
In 2025, these
technologies will play an even more significant role in content creation,
editing, and distribution in various ways as the algorithms grow more and more
sophisticated and generate content indistinguishable from human-written text. Used
in journalism it can and probably begin to produce more news articles, reports,
and summaries.
These algorithms study
our behaviour online. This allows them to “provide personalized content
recommendations” or, as some see it, plague us with ads of what to buy next. It
is claimed publishers will be able to provide more of what we actually like. Tools
like Grammarly
already assists writers with editing. I've used it myself and wished it were swifter. By 2025, such tools will offer more
suggestions and reduce the time required for manual editing.
It will be
tempting. I can see that. But I also have fear that if authors turn to using AI
to “write” six books a year for them, what hope is left for the struggling author who can manage to hold a job and write at night and perhaps publish a title every two years?
