The New York Times this week filed suit against Open AI and Microsoft over the unauthorized use of its intellectual property in the training of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Read more
"Seventy-seven percent of Americans, a new high, believe the nation is divided on the most important values," according to a Gallup poll in November of 2016. It is certainly no secret that our country is suffering from a plague of constant bashing and a fervent desire to "tribe-up." Is it social media's fault or is there something bigger (or smaller) at play? Read more
A recent Politico article, 'What if the newspaper industry made a colossal mistake?' provides some interesting parallels, although the mistakes are enlightening. Read more
How can we accept the decline of newspapers and magazines, and the quality journalism therein, or accept the exploitation of writers? How can we retain valuable reporting, which requires payment? Read more
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers
'I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.'