Coming off of this year’s IBPA Publishing University, I can tell you artificial intelligence (AI) in publishing is now. The concerns, the legalities, the ethical implication, etc., are also now and continue to evolve.

AI might be new to you, but it is not new at all. Even for publishing, AI has already been utilized in our industry, and its role is expanding. Just so we are all on the same page, novice or not, here’s what AI looks like:

Do you watch Netflix? When you finish watching the movie on that platform, it offers you other similar movies to watch. It even suggests movies tailored to your preferences. The system has been programmed to analyze your behavior and remember it. The data it collects identifies preferences to suggest titles that match your preferences, thereby increasing the chance that you will watch them. Spotify, the music app, does the same. Website and social media chatbots also do. This is AI at work. Now, as a publisher or author, imagine using the same method for your ideal readers, whether it’s with your marketing ads or engagement, responsiveness, or buy preferences.

Of course, in our work, we always have to do our due diligence to ensure that we are operating in an ethical, legal, and unbiased manner, along with other considerations. However, business calls for us to operate in an efficient, cost-effective, creative, innovative, and profitable manner, and AI is definitely a tool that can help in that regard.

I advise you to think of AI as a personal assistant. Of course, you want to employ talent that helps you meet your company’s objectives, gives you a competitive advantage, and aligns with your mission. But you also cannot abuse that assistant, nor require them to work in an unethical manner and put your company at risk legally. Or, as I love to say, “Just because you can do something does not mean you should.”

As my panelists and I shared our AI wisdom and expertise at PubU, I felt the frustrations, concerns, and helplessness of many of the attendees. Nevertheless, AI is now, and those in the publishing industry must brace themselves. Below is a recap of what you really need to know as a publisher with this ever-evolving technology.

What are the concerns about AI in terms of copyright infringement or plagiarism for writing and illustrations for publishers?

Selfless plug, I wrote a blog post about that on March 23 at FruitionPublishing.com/Blogs titled “Copyright Rejection Ahead! The Truth About Using AI For Books.” What I highlighted there was the US Copyright Office’s first decision of its kind that images in a graphic novel created using the artificial intelligence system Midjourney should not have been granted copyright protection. The office said that the author was entitled to a copyright for the parts of the book she wrote but not for the images produced by Midjourney.

The author was initially granted copyright protection for her 18-page graphic novel but did not inform the office of the use of AI-generated images in the initial copyright application, and the Office requested that they update the application or risk losing the copyright. After months of review, the US Copyright Office ruled that the book would keep its copyright protection, but the AI-generated images would not because they were “not the product of human authorship.”

So, publishers and related service providers have to do their due diligence to ensure the authenticity of our acquisitions and the professionals we work with. Think of Amazon and if your books are available on that platform for purchase. Well, Amazon’s policies prohibit plagiarism, which is using someone else’s work without proper attribution. If copyright infringement or plagiarism is found, not only will that book be removed from its platform, but your account is at risk of being suspended. That means that you will not have access, including royalties, for all the books for that account, not just the offending one. So, cutting corners or not putting in extra protections for things such as this can be very costly.

Are there resources that publishers can use to determine if a manuscript contains copyright infringement or plagiarism?

Yes, and some are free. There are several, but I’ll share a few:

1. GPTZero, which has over 1 million users.
2. ZeroGPT, which is an advanced Chat GPT and GPT-4 detector tool.
3. Originality AI is an AI-detection and plagiarism checker tool targeted toward serious content publishers.
4. Writer is an AI writer tool that helps you write content, but to stay competitive, it has an AI content detection tool for users.

The only problem with these is that AI technology is evolving so fast that many of these detection tools are based on older versions of AI software, which brings into question the accuracy of its detection. But something is better than nothing at all.

Another major concern is that people think of machines or AI as being infallible, but they can, in fact, make mistakes, so what are some of these common mistakes that publishers should look out for?

• Misinformation: AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on, so it’s susceptible to bias and misinformation.
• Repetitiveness: AI can crank out wonderful content of various lengths, but one of the telltale signs is how it repeats itself.
• Lack of emotions or personal experiences, which just depends on what type of content is produced. Analytical or educational content often lacks emotions or personal experiences, but that would be odd in something like fiction. And the better the technology, the better the output, so some of these telltale signs may not apply or soon will not.

What are your thoughts about AI taking jobs away from people, and what are the most likely jobs that will be replaced by AI?

I’m still mixed on this. Anytime technology evolves, there’s a discussion about it taking jobs away from people. At the same time, technological advancements also create jobs. I think we should be more concerned about the existing inequalities that AI will make worse, especially in publishing (gender, racial, and pay gaps).

What are your thoughts about AI audiobook narrators?

I think it is a great option and use of technology. Of course, lower cost and quicker production sound like a win-win, especially if you can do it at a high-quality level. However, you have to remember what the policy standards are industrywide and platformwide for where your books are distributed. Again, Amazon’s policies prohibit plagiarism, which is using someone else’s work without proper attribution. This could be one of those cases where copyright infringement or plagiarism is found.

Remember, it was just a few years ago, in 2019, where some of the top publishing companies* teamed up to sue Audible, the audiobook subsidiary of Amazon, arguing that its then new feature to transcribe audiobooks to text was the equivalent of copyright infringement.

*Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Chronicle Books, and Scholastic

Should publishers be concerned that they’re giving up their intellectual property when they input information into an AI program?

Yes and no. Case in point: On social media, for a certain period of time, everyone seemed to be using apps like Lensa to produce high quality AI versions of their image. There are other apps now that will give you professional headshot quality photos. Again, sounds like a win-win.

However, before uploading their photos, most didn’t read Lensa’s privacy statement that said: “Your privacy, the usage data, the internet protocol, the IP address, and cookies that you’re using may be collected, and Lensa is then using the data they’re collecting from people to refine their AI art” (Jones, 2022).

Lensa employs Stable Diffusion, an open-source AI model that allows users to create images based on a training dataset comprised of billions of images collected from the internet. Artists are raising concerns, some claiming that their art is included in the Stable Diffusion training dataset without their permission. Although creators of generative AI models point out that the images that Lensa generates cannot be “described as exact replicas of any particular artwork,” artists have claimed that their styles are being nearly replicated by AI models. Some works generated by Lensa contain discernable remains of artists’ signatures, raising additional concerns of art forgery.

So, should you be concerned? Yes. The reason I also say no is because, in reverse, the opposite is true. You publish a book, share an excerpt in its promotion, go on a podcast and talk about it, etc.—any of that information can be duplicated and reused. It often is, as we have seen with Amazon scam artists, but AI can use that information, too, and probably has. We do things every day that puts our intellectual property at risk.

Recently, Italy temporarily banned ChatGPT due to privacy concerns. They have since lifted that ban. What are your thoughts about the government’s concerns over artificial intelligence? Is it overreach? Are they not going far enough?

It’s hard to live in the US and talk about government overreach. We have no real privacy, and evasion has always been the norm. Not to mention that our government is normally the one that are the creators and first adopters of such technology.

What are some of the positive and helpful uses for AI in publishing?

One of the first ways I fell in love with AI and used it, and still do, is to inspire ideas, content, perform research, develop outlines, and cure writer’s block. Even after years of experience as a copywriter and ghostwriter, the time it saves me in writing captivating blog topics, headlines, hooks, intro paragraphs, LinkedIn bios, sales pages, letters of recommendation … you name it, I honestly will tell you that AI tools for me are like having a second me. I can sit here and knock out hours and, sometimes days’ worth, of work in less than an hour.

I particularly like WordHero (which is through AppSumo), ChatGPT, and Copy.ai.

• ChatGPT by Open AI: Generates human-like text, making it a powerful tool for writers. It uses machine learning algorithms to understand natural language input and generate human-like responses. With its advanced capabilities, ChatGPT can be used for tasks such as conversation generation, language translation, summarization, and more. There are free versions available, which I recommend you try first and then decide whether to invest in the paid version.
• QuillBot: AI-powered paraphrasing tool for faster writing. So, if you want to use AI like ChatGPT to write it for you, definitely rephrase it to avoid plagiarism, and you can use QuillBot to help you do that and save time doing so.
• Jasper.ai: This was actually popular before ChatGPT. Jasper.ai helps you write efficiently with sentence suggestions and plagiarism checking. Jasper has templates for many copywriting tasks, including Facebook Ads, book writing, and blog posts. Jasper also includes a plagiarism checker add-on to help you avoid accidentally copying someone else’s work.
• Wordtune: An AI writing assistant for websites and apps, suggesting better alternatives. Wordtune works on your favorite websites and apps, including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Gmail, and LinkedIn. The simple approach is to use the context of the words you already wrote and suggest better alternatives.
• Writer: Writer, available on subscription, is an AI writing platform designed for enterprises. It enables teams to create original content that is consistent with their brand guidelines by being trained on the best-performing content. Writer can be used to automate content creation and editing, reducing the time and effort required to produce content. Writer is a B2B-trained model that supports multiple teams and is SOC 2 and HIPAA compliant.

For editing, we already know the legends of:

• Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Hemingway Editor: These are AI tools that check grammar, spelling, style editor, etc.]
• SEO.ai: If rankings are important to you, then SEO.ai is a must-have tool. This brand-new tool uses world-leading AI technologies to help you analyze semantic keywords, write search intent-focused articles, and optimize your content for much faster and better search engine results. The big advantage is how SEO.ai integrates its simple Google Doc style editor with an advanced AI Writing assistant powered by semantic keywords analysis done by natural language processing. The platform supports more than 100 languages and benchmarks every text you write against the competition.

How can AI be used as a book marketing tool?

There was an article in the March/April 2023 issue of IBPA Independent, “Unlocking the Future of Book Marketing with Artificial Intelligence.” In that article, I discussed how publishers should use AI to obtain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences and target specific segments with personalized ads and campaigns. We always hear the word algorithms, and each platform is continuously changing. AI allows for more effective book marketing, as it identifies certain patterns to accurately predict how consumers will respond to different ad strategies or promotional offers. This data-driven process allows you to save time by focusing resources on strategies that have already proven successful in reaching a desired audience. It also enables you to automate certain processes, such as email marketing and ads optimization, which reduces the time needed for these tasks and improves overall productivity.

Furthermore, artificial intelligence can be used to develop more effective content strategies by analyzing user reviews on multiple platforms, such as Amazon or Goodreads, thereby optimizing book promotion efforts based on customer feedback. Additionally, it can help with predictive analysis by forecasting likely trends in sales or evaluating what types of books will become popular in the future.

What are some AI tools/programs that you’ve heard about coming out on the horizon?

At a panel discussion at the Midwest Independent Publishing Association, I was shocked to learn that a couple of college kids recently built their own version of ChatGPT that is rumored to be better than its most recent version, and it was said they were putting it on the open market for free. So, I wonder what that will be called, what it will look like, and when it will be released along with other copycats and variations.

What can IBPA do to help publishers with AI?

This is where I want to shift to more of the ethical and legal considerations, which are endless. Who legally owns the output—or the intellectual property—created using artificial intelligence tools? Who should? Should authors and publishers ethically refuse to use AI tools to avoid eliminating jobs for writers, artists, or narrators? Are these tools/technology increasing scammers’ ability to illegally reproduce published works?

This is just a short list of considerations, and they are ever-growing. I am so glad that IBPA has and continues to address this topic because it is important.

One is what you are doing right now: addressing this issue, providing educational opportunities, and continuing to work with related organizations in the industry, such as the Copyright Alliance, to take action on behalf of our industry and its professionals and service providers.

Also, because we are an organization with a diversity, equity, and inclusion focus, a number of AI researchers have long expressed concerns about racial, gender, and other forms of bias in AI systems and how these can amplify discrimination that exists in society. So, that is another concern for why AI in publishing should be our concern and something we help our membership and industry at large with.

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