Authors call on publishers to limit their use of AI

An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators.

The letter argues that authors’ work has been “stolen” by AI companies: “Rather than paying writers a small percentage of the money our work makes for them, someone else will be paid for a technology built on our unpaid labor.”

Among other commitments, the authors call for publishers to “make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machine” and “not replace their human staff with AI tools or degrade their positions into AI monitors.”

While the initial letter was signed by an already impressive list of writers, NPR reports that another 1,100 signatures were added in the 24 hours after it was initially published.

Authors are also suing tech companies over using their books to train AI models, but federal judges dealt significant blows to those lawsuits earlier this week.