Ask HN: Why don't novelists want to achieve immortality via AI writing as them? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why don't novelists want to achieve immortality via AI writing as them?

3 pointsamichail15 comments

By this, I don’t just mean that AI would write novels in their style, but that it would also take into account all their novels, life experiences, interests, knowledge, and current events.

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Are you interested in the "immortality" of being replaced by a AI-version of yourself? There is no magical guarantee that the AI's novels will keep selling well enough to pay the AI's hosting bills & other overheard. And how warm & fuzzy would this "immortality" be, if the consensus emerged that the AI was a considerably better author than the original? Many online reviews are already nasty enough - just imagine being on the receiving end of comments such as [trigger warning] "I just trained an AI on his books, and it's already a better author than he is. The best thing he could do for his poor readers is hurry up and die."

AI afficionados don't seem to appreciate that the creative process has intrinsic value for creative people. That authors enjoy the process of writing, artists enjoy the process of art, that the journey means something to people, rather than just the destination. Not everyone is like programmers or entrepreneurs whose only goal is getting to MVP as quickly and with as few LOC as possible.

FWIW here is Steven King's opinion on the matter[0].

[0]https://mashable.com/article/stephen-king-ai-fiction

And, I argue, the creative process has intrinsic value for everyone, not just for the artist going through it.

> Not everyone is like programmers or entrepreneurs whose only goal is getting to MVP as quickly and with as few LOC as possible.

Not all programmers and entrepreneurs are like that, either. There's a higher concentration of that sort here on HN than in the general population of programmers and entrepreneurs.

That's not immortality in any meaningful sense of the word. The output of the LLM would not be from them, so it's not like they'd be "living on" through it. It would be a ghost writer.

So-called AI (LLMs) can’t incorporate life experiences, interests, knowledge, etc. They tokenize strings of words then produce more strings of words by prediction.

Having software, or a ghost writer, continue to churn out novels similar in style does not make the novelist immortal. If anything it makes them a hack. Their actual work will exist in a growing pool of imitation and repetition.

Why without a sane person care about this kind of fake immortality? After they die it can makes no difference to them, and can only serve to fleece their readers.

It’s not them. It’ll be diluted over time and abstracted from the original creator and also take away revenue form their estate.

Maybe money from these AI novels would go to their estate.

Why would they want that?

Wouldn't you want people to eagerly anticipate new novels from "you" every year, long after you've died?

I don’t want for anything after death save peace.

What about seeing more novels written in your name by an AI as you get older and don’t write as frequently?

If your only concern is making money, maybe. Some authors do that, but an AI isn't necessary. If anything, using a ghostwriter and not an AI is a better guarantee of quality.

However I would assume many if not most authors actually care that the words attached to their name are their own.

Not really. Besides, those new novels wouldn't be from me. Why would I care about them?

It will simply not be as good.

Have you seen stuff written by LLMs? Particularly _fiction_ written by LLMs? It’s, well, a bit shit. You’re not honouring anyone’s memory with that nonsense.

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