How will AI impact the publishing industry including authors? 5 possible ways
Most people are still not very familiar with the concept of AI or Artificial Intelligence, but they all know that this is the future humanity is heading towards. Just like any other field or industry, the impact of AI in the publishing industry is visible and undeniable. At the same time, this technological development raises some concerns about safeguarding original thoughts and ideas. But there is also hope that this powerful development can be used to develop the craft and original thoughts. In the end, it is all about how one uses it. So, here are 5 of the probable impacts of AI on the publishing industry, especially for the authors.
1. Challenges in the Copyright Law
This is already happening as the news of George R. R. Martin and other authors have sued Open-AI, the makers of ChatGPT. If you look deep into this AI development you would find two reasons, one is a big collection of data and the other one is rapid and deep learning. So, everything that AI knows about the publishing industry, especially books, they have gathered the knowledge from already existing books and works of authors. Now if AI or language models start to write chapters for existing books, individualism will be shattered so there might be a huge change in the copyright law to protect writers and publishers.
2. Assistance in research
Now that you know there might be a downfall of using AI, there is always a brighter side and that is the assistance writers are going to get. Generative AI tools and language models like ChatGPT will be a great help in researching different things that will make the plotlines clearer, develop the characters, and help authors craft a well-researched story or series way faster. With the help of the synthesized content and accumulated research, the authors will become more productive in the future.
3. AI for translations
If you are working in the publishing industry as a translator, there might be bad news for you. With the recent developments, it is pretty clear that AI and language models will soon be able to flawlessly translate into any language. At present, deep learning AI tools have already birthed several AI translators like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft translators. We can only say that these translations will only be performed by AI in the future as the tools will only get stronger and more polished. However, when translating stories, it might lack warmth and human emotions.
4. Non-fiction and AI
There is a huge demand and increased usage of text-based AI so there might be a good chance that in the future all the non-fiction stories will be written by AI. Authors cannot write as fast as AI, or develop plotlines faster than it. AI also does not get tired, burnt out, or need inspiration as often as human authors. At the same time, it can consume millions of books and information at a faster rate than a human brain can even comprehend. So the publishers will soon start their own in-house creative AI that will write non-fiction stories to publish. To these publications, human authors are nothing more than content creators, developing content for them to sell. So, in the future, AI will take over some of these non-fiction writers' jobs.
5. Distribution and marketing Tsunami
Most of the book distribution, print or digital are already using some form of AI as they are already completely automated or semi-automated. Even though it is still evolving and developing, automated page production has been around for quite some time so in the future AI will fill in some gaps making the entire printing and distribution process aided by AI. There might be a possibility that the printing and publishing industry will move towards a greener and more sustainable future as the demand for micro-prints, assisted by AI, is increasing.
At the same time, marketing will have a Tsunami with still developing marketing tools that will make it easier for authors and publishers to promote and advertise the books and content. As researchers are predicting, the mass market for promotions and advertising will be dead and so will the best sellers. The only thing that will be seen with rapid growth is the micro-niche which with the help of AI will create a better granular discoverability.
As there might be so many changes in the future, the best way would be to embrace the AI tools to perfect the works rather than fighting them because this is inevitable.
