Friday Reads 7.24.26

So We’re Going To Use AI To Ferret Out AI Now? Sigh.

Hi, hello, happy Friday, and welcome back to another week of random thoughts on life and books. I hope your week was fabulous. A quick bit of business—these posts are always free but for subscribers, so if you aren’t already, please join us!

Well. It’s been quite a week over here at Substack. The powers that be made a unilateral decision to allow all writing on the platform, notes, posts, etc., to be put through an AI-detector called Pangram. A bunch of people cheered. The vast majority are aghast. I personally think the idea of people who suspect AI using AI to detect AI in order to deride said AI-derived work to be rather ironic, but hey, what can you do?

Benjamin Dreyer said it best—just don’t use AI to write your work, and when someone comes knocking accusing you of doing so, you can say nope, and that’s the end of the conversation. Kathleen Schmidt is going to have thoughts, too, so keep an eye on her feed.

But this is a bigger issue. Yes, the accusations can be extremely damaging. We’ve seen multiple situation over the past few month backfire spectacularly. And folks, let’s be honest, these companies STOLE OUR WORK to train their models, and are now starting to lose in court and have to pay us for the copyright infringement, so chances are, pretty much anything you run through one of these digital bloodhounds is going to give false positives anyway.

It is a slippery slope. A scary one, too. In a world when cancellation is the most valuable form of currency among a certain set of people, there’s going to be more blowback here. A lot more. Plus, I hate seeing my feed devolve into fights. Substack has managed to skate above the constant backstabbing of some other sites, and if it gets ruined over this I’m going to be very mad.

My biggest concern at the moment is the fact that this partnership between Substack and Pangram is certainly going to end up with Pangram having a much more robust model because of all the work being fed into it. Which means we’re going to need to start paying VERY close attention to our copyrights here, and believe me, if it’s not changed, the platform is going to start bleeding users when the full scope of this comes into focus.

Because of all of this, I am turning off the ability to run my work through this system until we can be assured the proper privacy concerns are being met. I’ve also included a “how this is made” statement, and made sure my copyright is included in all emails, and I recommend you do the same. Don’t rely on the base program to do it all for you.

So boo, hiss, on all levels. I’ve discussed my feelings about AI and creativity many times in the past, and they haven’t changed. It is a tool. A very souped-up Google combined with a virtual personal assistant. Research, marketing ideas, social media plans — fabulous. It frees up time and resources. It’s not going away, and it’s become so insidious that if you’re online, you’re using it whether you realize it or not. (It can also do kick-as Jungian dream analysis, and for medical issues and interpretation, it is bar none the most helpful tool out there.) Your teams are using it, too.

But as for the writing? I don’t get why you’d want to use it to create your words. The writing, the creation, that’s the FUN part of this job. Outsourcing your calendar is one thing. Outsourcing the sheer joy of creation is bonkers to me.

Anyway. My non-AI generated novel is clocking in at 105k right now. And there’s still much to be done. I am trying very hard to get a draft in the next week or so. I am jonesing to wear my good luck finishing T-shirt. I’m still not 100% that I’m on the right track but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — revising is the true art of writing. You can’t edit what doesn’t exist.

Reading has been a little odd this week. I’m almost done with IRON FLAME (again) and still listening to DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL (I am very slow on audio books) but my soul is filled by both.

And I had to reread one of my own books in prep for a meeting, so I didn’t have a lot of free time to dive into much else.

I did grab a few books that look fantastic:

HEATHER by Caitlin Mullen

JUST A HIGHLAND FLING by Naina Kumar (I’ve been looking forward to this!)

ONE OF US IS GUILTY by Steve Cavanagh

UNTIL MIDNIGHT by Luanne Rice

And finally, the lovely Lauren Nossett’s INDIE DARLING is coming out Tuesday, and I highly recommend it. Lots of Nashville and music and all the things.

And please welcome Laura Benedict to the party! Her Substack is going to be one to watch.

Just FYI, I won’t be here next week. It’s Mr. Ellison’s birthday and we have top secret plans. No one knows, and I can’t believe I’ve managed not to blow the surprise. 🎉

So how did your week go? Read anything great? How are you feeling about this Pangram issue? Will it make you more or less likely to use Substack, and will it make you read your favorite newsletters with a different eye?

JTx

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