Ethical AI for Authors
EPISODE SEVENTY
You're probably seeing a lot of disturbing information about AI (ChatGPT, Bard, etc.) in the news and on social media. But is there a way for authors to put it to work for us in an ethical way that can help with weekly book marketing tasks?
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jenn Hanson: Hello, and welcome to the Book Marketing Simplified podcast. I'm Jenn Hanson-dePaula.
Marcus dePaula: I'm Marcus dePaula. Jenn, we've got a hot-button topic today. We're not chasing trends like in our previous episode we talked about, not just talking about this because it's trendy but because it's becoming a pretty significant fear, not just among authors but among the broader creator community. Musicians, filmmakers, [crosstalk]-
Jenn: Photographers, artists, yes.
Marcus: -yes, anybody who makes anything creative. That is the subject of AI, artificial intelligence.
Jenn: Last week, I was on TikTok and I saw a well-known marketer. I won't say their name, but they did a post on tools that people can use within social media and marketing. One of their suggestions was feeding ChatGPT, which is an AI tool. Blog posts and book chapters so that you can create social media posts or whatever to sound like that person.
Marcus: Mimic the voice in that writing that you wrote in.
Jenn: Yes. I called this marketer out and I said, "As someone who works with authors, this is incredibly unethical and just wrong and this is not a good suggestion." We went back and forth a little bit and then they said that it wasn't meaning what they had said, that they personally have a book and they feed chapters of the book to ChatGPT.
Marcus: Of their own book-
Jenn: Of their own book.
Marcus: -and not of other people's.
Jenn: Exactly. I said, "Well, not everyone has a book and the way that this is presented, it sounds like--
Marcus: You're encouraging people.
Jenn: Yes. That is not okay. Anyway, that's what spurred to want to start talking about this more because there is so much information coming out about AI, about ways that people can use it. I think that there are two phases that we need to talk about. We need to talk about the fears of what we have around AI, especially as creatives. Then also the other side of asking, "Is there an ethical way for us to actually use AI that helps our marketing?" Since this is a marketing podcast.
Marcus: Yes, and that's something I've actually been hearing a lot recently is if you're not using AI, then you're going to fall behind everybody else and you're not going to be competitive and blah, de blah, de blah. I don't agree with that. AI is just another tool on our computers in the cloud, whatever that we can use to make the things that help us connect with our readers. There's a lot of people that are trying to use it as a shortcut to make more money. Tools help make jobs easier, but if our focus is just to try to easily make a quick buck.
Jenn: I think where the big gray area comes in, or the fear comes in, which I totally understand and relate to, is that there's no legislation, there's no laws, there are no--
Marcus: Protections.
Jenn: Yes, for creatives. I see headlines every single day.
Marcus: On the actor strike, that was a big point. The studio being able to scan their likeness and then use it as much as they want to in the future without paying them.
Jenn: That is wrong. I feel like there are some very obvious wrongs in AI. This is not an episode to try to talk anyone into using AI by any stretch. I do feel that when topics are not discussed, especially something as hot and opinionated as AI, when we don't talk about that, fear is festered and misinformation rolls around in our head. We just wanted to start this conversation. We are by no means experts on AI-
Marcus: That's what I was going to say.
Jenn: -but it's here. It's not going anywhere. It's getting more and more powerful and more and more intelligent, so let's talk about it.
Marcus: Yes. I'd like to start off by just clarifying exactly what the fears are that authors particularly might have. What do you think about us asking ChatGPT?
Jenn: Ooh, okay. All right. Let's type in, what are authors afraid of when it comes to AI? It says, "Authors have expressed several fears regarding AI, particularly in the context of writing and publishing." The first one is job displacement and just goes into a little bit of detail. The second is quality and creativity, which is very true. Loss of originality. The fourth point is ethical and legal issues, obviously. The fifth one is impact on cultural and literary value, which is very good. Let me read this. "Authors worry that an over-reliance on AI-generated content might devalue literature as an art form." Yes-
Marcus: Yes, absolutely.
Jenn: -that's true. "There's a fear that the cultural significance and richness of human storytelling could be undermined." Absolutely. Then the sixth and final point was changing reader expectations.
Marcus: Ah, that is, I feel like the biggest underlying fear, especially as it affects our bottom line for how we make money as creators.
Jenn: Yes, because if you have seen some of those books, I use quotes around the books.
Marcus: They are garbage.
Jenn: It is crap.
Marcus: [laughs]
Jenn: This says the prevalence of AI-generated content might shift reader expectations and preferences. There is a concern that audiences might become more accustomed to and accepting of less nuanced, more generic writing, potentially diminishing appreciation for high-quality human-authored literature. Absolutely.
Marcus: The thing is that particular issue is actually not anything new. We've been struggling with this as the creative industries. We came from the music industry before this. Ever since Napster and the internet became a thing and those gatekeepers, because it used to be so costly to have a book published or to have an album made as a musician or a film made that it was a huge investment. They had to vet the creators to make sure they were getting something that they would get a return on their investment on. Not so cheap, thanks to technology and the internet and distribution is basically open to anybody that that has opened the floodgates for anybody and everybody.
Many people who probably shouldn't be making stuff, and that makes it hard for those of us who are serious about this to compete and get the attention of the people that we're trying to find because our readers and listeners are overwhelmed with content on their internet-connected devices. How do we get their attention first and then how do we make them want to buy our stuff?
Jenn: I think that there is a huge, huge, huge difference when someone who can't imagine their life without writing, who is just bursting with creativity and with a story or with music or with a vision for a piece of art. When you are that passionate about your craft, you are always going to be forward-thinking. You are always going to be stretching yourself. There is something so powerful about that. When someone just sits down and feeds a prompt into ChatGPT and pumps out a very watered-down book, it's obviously subpar.
Marcus: Yes. It's not valued the same way as something that was crafted by a human emotional brain.
Jenn: That does not diminish the fear that people have of this. Again, like we had said before, it's out there. It's not going away. For us just to say, "Oh, don't worry about it," that's a slap in the face. I would never say that because it is worrisome. Coming at it from a point of view, knowing that a computer won't be able to tap into your creativity and your forward-thinking, because that's something that AI is doing. It's all gleaning past thoughts.
Marcus: Everything that's publicly available on the internet, it might have access to some good stuff, but the vast majority of stuff that's publicly available on the internet is not great.
Jenn: We'll get into how you can tap into ChatGPT or to AI to help spark some marketing ideas, but I have to say going off of what you had said, I've tried ChatGPT and some of the other AI tools just to see what content it comes out with.
Marcus: If it's worth actually spending time.
Jenn: Exactly. If anyone has seen some of these prompts, it's especially on TikTok where they have a screen grab where they're typing into their phone a certain prompt for 30 days of social media content ideas. It comes out with all of these ideas, and then these people are making all these faces like, "Wow, look at that." Their minds are blown with all of these ideas. Okay, so I did that. I looked at these ideas and they were awful. I know that I am hypercritical of that because that's what I do.
Marcus: We have pretty high standards too.
Jenn: Yes, exactly. I looked at it and I was like, "Okay, for someone who is just getting started, I do see some assistance that AI can provide for authors, specifically when we're talking about book marketing and social media." Is just getting some ideas, it is not taking those ideas and just running with it. It is a spark. I remember when I worked at the record labels and when I worked in an office setting, one of my favorite things when I was stuck was I knew, "Okay, Michael is really great at coming up with creative ideas. Denise is really great at helping me organize my thoughts on certain things." You know of certain people to go and ask.
Marcus: Sounding boards.
Jenn: Yes, and I have you but some people don't. It's not a readily available thing. Having ChatGPT where you can say, "Is this headline grammatically correct?" or "Is this an eye-catching headline for a blog post or for a podcast episode?" You can put the title into ChatGPT and it'll look at it and go, "This is not as SEO-optimized as possible. Maybe try this." Or "No, you need to put this word before this." It can bounce some ideas off. That is an ethical way to use AI, to bounce ideas off of, to get a starting jump with things--
Marcus: [Unintelligible 00:11:31] juice is flowing.
Jenn: Exactly, but just putting, "Hey, write a blog post on X, Y, and Z," and then having ChatGPT write a blog post, and then you just automatically put it up there. In my mind, it's not that it's not ethical, it's just--
Marcus: It's gross.
Jenn: It is. It's just not authentic.
Marcus: That's the thing. If we put ourselves in our ideal reader shoes, because again, our goal of our marketing is to create a deeper connection with the people we know we want to buy and read our books. If we choose to use AI in a way to do the communication for us, even if it does mimic our own voice and, "Well, it's technically my words," but if I, as your reader found out that you were trying to cut corners and you didn't care about me enough to actually craft the things that you were trying to say to me, that is a ding to that trust and deepening that connection. It makes me pull back as a reader.
Jenn: If we're going to outline this in steps, the first step would be if you do want to use AI-- and this again, if you are anti AI, you don't need to do this, but if you are wanting to tap into AI or if you are curious, one way would be to get some feedback, get some ideas or bounce some things off of ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you're using to get some ideas started. The second thing is to know what prompt to use. That is the biggest thing. That's what really differentiates what will give you a better answer or better insight or better feedback in your overall experience with AI.
Marcus: To me, it's on par with knowing how to Google things.
Jenn: That's true.
Marcus: We can find out the exact same stuff on Google. It's just that ChatGPT can hopefully help us with plain language, get to the answers that we're seeking faster than Google's even adjusting their search engine to incorporate the AI thing. If you think of the skills that you developed doing Google searches, it's like taking it a step beyond that and knowing how to phrase things. It's a skill. You have to get good at it, and it takes time.
Jenn: It is, and so many people that are just putting in, "I need 30 days of social media posts. I write fantasy fiction." That's not enough.
Marcus: You're going to get way too much stuff that's not relevant to your ideal reader.
Jenn: Exactly. It's really learning how to craft a prompt and it's feeding ChatGPT the information that it needs to give you some good ideas. Something that I've found that is a goo-- If you're just getting started, let's say you want to create a 30-day social media calendar.
You say something like, "I need help creating a 30-day social media calendar for my author Instagram page. I write YA fantasy--," and you describe the book and then stating, "Before you get started, ask me questions to help give better answers." You prompt it by saying, "Ask me the right questions," because if you don't know, "Okay, what does it need?" Then it gives you questions to answer so that you can provide it with better information, so you can get a better result.
Marcus: Right. Again, this is a tool that's supposed to save us time. If you end up spinning your wheels with the prompts, then you could have just written it yourself at that point.
Jenn: Yes. This is something too where I had included a tutorial on AI for book marketing within the Author Circle membership. There are some people within the membership that they are very anti AI and they were not going to use that. I totally support that. Then there are some that were a little curious about it, so they tried it and they were blown away by how quickly it responded.
Marcus: It's impressive.
Jenn: It is, but when it really came down to it, they liked coming up with their own set because it was more authentic. Even though we still have that tutorial up in the Author Circle and so much more if you want to join, but again, if you are needing some help to get your getter going with ideas or with just the structure of how to start to think about your ideal reader, there's so many things that authors need help with. It's another tool that you can tap into.
Marcus: Obviously, we could talk forever on this topic, even though we're not experts in this.
Jenn: We have opinions.
[laughter]
Marcus: To wrap up this discussion about how authors can ethically use AI, first of all, keep in mind that we don't need to be afraid of it. Yes, there is some somewhat scary copyright stuff going on and legislation is still up in the air, but that's in constant development. We can't really do anything about it ourselves right now other than just keep an eye on it. Let's just keep talking about this as things continue to develop. Then the fear of missing out, thinking you might get behind if you don't use AI, I am not afraid of that because I feel like my human creativeness is my superpower and AI ain't got nothing on me.
That said, if you do need some help in coming up with ideas, if you're looking at ways to save some time in your menial tasks, day-to-day creating content for social media, AI is definitely a tool that can be used by any creator to help them get done what they need to do. As a tool, it does take time to learn how to use it in order to end up saving you time just like any other tool that we use.
Jenn: Yes. It's always going to be evolving. It's always going to be changing, but just keeping your awareness open about it, talking about it with your fellow authors and creating a community of trusted connections that you can lean into. On the Author Circle, we have a wonderful collection of people, we have a lot of trusted resources that I have created and curated, not by AI, mind you, but also it's just a way for you to start to voice your fears or concerns and get some really great feedback from trusted people.
That's just a really great way to not feel so alone within this new era that we're really entering into. We would love to hear what you think of AI. What is it that you want to know more about it? Do you use it? Do you find it helpful? If you have been using it, how has it been helpful to you? We would love to hear.
Marcus: Have you run into any weird experiences because oftentimes they're funny and entertaining?
Jenn: Some of the pictures with people with eight fingers on the covers and all of that. We'll have links to the Author Circle in the show notes, or you can go to jenndepaula.com for more information on the membership.
Marcus: Make sure to leave comments for us on whether or not AI is working for you and what you've experienced so that we can maybe talk about it on an upcoming episode. This is probably something we'll need to revisit again.
Jenn: Exactly.
Marcus: Once again, thanks for listening.
Jenn: Talk to you soon.