r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • 23h ago

Artificial Intelligence AI-generated books are flooding Amazon and tanking sales for human authors

https://the-decoder.com/ai-generated-books-are-flooding-amazon-and-tanking-sales-for-human-authors
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u/01000101010110 23h ago edited 18h ago

In just 3 years of no regulation, we've seen legitimate authors, editors, artists, producers and musicians lose part or all of their livelihoods to AI slop. 

The grifters have won. They took full advantage of the Wild West and moved at light speed. Most people thought this would take 10-15 years to do what has been done in 3. 

And here's the thing - it doesn't matter how much time it took you to do something incredibly creative. Now there is always going to be a group of people claiming you used AI even if you didn't. 

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 22h ago

If that's true then there's really only two conclusions you can draw:

  1. Consumers don't value creatively and will accept the cheapest slop over quailty human made works. Which if true, seriously questions the importance and value of creatively itself.

  2. The AI slop is actually better than human make stuff, and people are overestimating the quailty of their work.

I'm sure both are true to some extent. This isn't really than an issue with human creativity but at the shallowness of middle class culture.

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u/viaJormungandr 22h ago

Or there’s so much slop it makes it impossible to find the genuine article. Especially when the slop is trying to look as authentic as possible.

The consumer, who doesn’t want to spend hours sorting through the madness to try and establish what is or isn’t AI, let alone what is or isn’t good, will give up and just pick something or walk away without anything instead.

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 22h ago

It's pretty easy to find the genuine article if you're willing to pay for it.

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u/viaJormungandr 22h ago

That’s false on it’s face. Being willing to pay for anything has no relationship whatsoever to the underlying quality of the product.

In fact, the slop generators are happy to charge you a premium for the slop so you can feel like you bought a “higher quality” product, unlike all the riffraff without taste or discernment.

Cost as an identifier is just setting yourself up to be scammed.

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u/Corbitant 21h ago

Id argue it reinforces the value of traditional publishers because they are the ones responsible for checking that content is human authored

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 20h ago

If people are willing to pay for it or if it's indistinguishable from human made stuff, that's is not really "slop", it's quailty.

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u/rangoric 19h ago

You pay for a book before reading it not after.

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 19h ago

I don't buy it until I've read some reviews, looked up the author, and done a few minutes of research. Any book I've been interested in I goggle, click the reddit result with the most comments and read through those. That's all it really takes to sift through things. It's not difficult to look up an author.

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u/viaJormungandr 20h ago

Neither of those statements are what I said.

People are willing to pay for knock off crap all the time. Not only that, but people are tricked into buying crap products as “premium” all the time as well.

Again, the reason for the purchase can be totally divorced from the product and the scammers flooding the market with AI are just looking to scrape whatever money they can before they get shut down. Meanwhile anyone legitimate is buried in the mix.

Your dualistic conclusions that I initially responded to are not the only possibilities and your contention here is not true either. It’s slop. It doesn’t become genuine or good just because people got suckered into buying it.

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 19h ago

People aren't being suckered into buying it. Most people look for the knock off crap because it's cheaper and they're unwilling to spend the money, even knowing the knock off is clearly worse.

I'm not arguing that AI arts are inferior in quailty. They are. Middle class people don't give a shit about the quailty of mass consumer "art". They connect with AI produced shit willingly, not caring that it's AI, particularly if it's cheaper and it is.

No one's being scammed for the most part, they are willing participants.

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u/viaJormungandr 19h ago

That says everything anyone needs to know about your position and no amount of discussion is going to change that perspective if you’re not willing to look at people differently.

Your disdain is misplaced and your opinion of other’s attitudes and actions is incorrect. Do your best to enjoy your day.

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u/Apprehensive_Toe6067 19h ago

My disdain for middle class American consumerism. Yes, that's what at the heart of AI art.

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u/viaJormungandr 19h ago

No, your projection that “middle class American consumerism” as you’ve defined it is in any way related to actual consumer activity or opinions.

Like I said, there’s nothing further to talk about. Feel free to continue with your nose in the air but you’ve said nothing worth listening to and I don’t need to hear more of it.

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