Not OK computer

Dispatches and writing advice from a midlist author misfiring in the gig economy

My book Goodbye to Boleyn has been scraped — which sounds like a particularly nasty medical procedure. The Atlantic recently claimed that Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Instagram and WhatsApp, had used millions of books on its LibGen database to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. Writers, already down to an average income of £7k a year, at present get nothing for this.

Through the ALCS website’s link to The Atlantic I searched for my author name on the LibGen database and discovered that Goodbye to Boleyn, my book about West Ham’s final season at the Boleyn Ground, had been used to train Meta’s AI. Though my other titles seem to have escaped so far. Let’s hope AI doesn’t confuse my book with Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, otherwise it might conclude that Sally Bowles spent a lot of her time in the Bobby Moore Stand telling Chelsea where to stick their blue flag. AI will have learnt quite a lot about the egg, chips and beans in Ken’s Café and the sticky carpets in the Boleyn pub, as well as West Ham’s tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Just how advanced is AI? Could a computer rage at the cosmos like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick? It might be able to do with a little more training. AI is already writing some books and students are in trouble for getting it to pen essays. In March Jeanette Winterson described an AI-generated short story about grief by OpenAI’s creative writing tool as “beautiful and moving”.

Some of my West Ham pals in Goodbye to Boleyn could certainly rival Captain Ahab for their invective against underperforming players, referees out of their depth and conspiracies against our side. AI will be able to mimic the fan experience but it won’t have wasted years of its life watching an often rubbish team. Could a computer rip up its season ticket, mount a pitch invasion, or indeed invent a rude song about what Jarrod Bowen is getting up to with Dani Dyer? Or dance in the streets of Prague after winning a first trophy in 43 years? Part of the attraction of human writing is authentic experience.

The great e-scrape

One hundred and fifty writers (what do you call a group of writers, a stack of writers? a shelf of writers?) recently joined a Society of Authors’ protest outside Meta’s offices in Kings Cross, accusing the company of “stealing” copyrighted content, and carrying banners reading ”I’d write a sign but you’d steal it” and “Get the Zuck out of our books.” The government and Lisa Nandy are still making up their mind what to do, but surely tech billionaires should be paying writers for using their copyrighted work. Ironically Meta, a company that normally likes to receive free words, had locked ts doors and could not accept a signed letter of complaint from the likes of Richard Osman, Tom Stoppard and Kate Mosse.

One result of AI might be a premium on human books. In the 1970s there was a buy British campaign, so how about a buy human campaign? A “written by humans” statement on books would help. Using AI in limited ways for research might be acceptable for writers, but not for AI to be used to write a complete book unless it says so on the cover.

Still, perhaps Doctor Who might have a solution. In The Green Death Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was confronted by Global Chemical’s BOSS computer, busy polluting Welsh mines and creating giant rampaging maggots. The BOSS computer had a severe case of megalomania but the Doctor ultimately defeated it by asking the question “Why?” Simple really. Things might be a bit more complicated enforcing our copyright today, but writers should also be asking Meta, “Why?” And in particular why can’t you pay us.

Pete May’s most recent book is Massive: The Miracle of Prague, published by Biteback. He is also the author of the memoir What Are Words Worth?