Waterstones would stock books created using artificial intelligence, the company's boss has said, as long as they were clearly labelled, and if customers wanted them.
And if customers won't buy them, there's no point in stocking them.
However, James Daunt, a veteran of the bookselling industry, said he personally did not expect that to happen. "There's a huge proliferation of AI-generated content and most of it are not books that we should be selling," he said, but added it would be "up to the reader".
It's ALWAYS up to the reader, in the end.
Daunt, who is heading into his 36th Christmas season in the book trade, said Waterstones' success had been built on handing more control to individual store managers to serve their own communities. "Head office is there to make life easier," he said. "Make sure the books that they order turn up on time, but do not tell [managers] where to put them."
And that can be a two-edged sword, with managers going rogue because they can, and damaging Waterstones' reputation.
A report published last month by the University of Cambridge , found that more than half of published authors feared being replaced by AI. Two-thirds also said their work had been used without permission or payment to train the large language models which lie behind generative AI tools. But some writers use AI themselves, especially for research, and AI tools are being used to edit novels, and even produce full-length works.
I look forward to one of my favourite author's takes on this...
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