Luddites of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your brain cells. Oh, and the chance of thriving as the industry evolves.

“Farewell, rational thought. I knew thee well.” That was my initial reaction to a piece by Seth Godin over at Forbes this past week that had me double checking this was indeed an article by the guru himself, and not someone misquoting him.

In fact, the post was written by one Tor Constantino, not Godin, with Constantino variously summarising and quoting Godin, but the directly-attributed quotes, assuming accurate, were extensive enough to be worrying. Has the guru Seth Godin finally lost the plot?

Delayed Response

I delayed this response for two reasons. One, that I’m in the middle of end-of-term exams and assessment at school, the relevance of which will become clear shortly.

The other, that I wanted to give Godin ample opportunity to ask Forbes to correct any misquotes in the Constantino article. No such corrections have appeared, so reasonable to assume the words attributed to Godin are indeed his.

National Treasure

What’s all this got to do with Britain’s publishing industry national treasure Samantha Missingham in the title? I’m glad you asked.

A few weeks ago, Sam (I’ve never met her, but once you’re an industry national treasure it has to be first names only) wrote on LinkedIn,

“Telling people they are either luddites or cool forward-thinkers will NOT convince people of benefits of AI. What are benefits of AI to authors btw? Because most authors don’t see any – so the industry isn’t communicating the benefits to them properly, is it?

“I would also suggest that many people in publishing are also resistant and fear for their jobs long-term. Can you reassure them? Or are they going to be offered prompt-writing and editing jobs instead? Also, there is a huge environmental impact to ramped up AI usage that everyone seems happy to ignore. Are these all the concerns of luddites?“

Environmental Impact

Let’s leave aside that someone from book publishing, an industry that fells trees to make paper and sends the paper half way round the world to China to be printed on, and then ships the resultant books to the other side of the world to be delivered by road to warehouses and then bookstores, where a not insignificant percentage will be then be returned unsold and pulped, and an industry that routinely flies its representatives across continents to book fairs and festivals, is raising the environmental impact of AI.

That is a societal problem, not an AI tech problem, although AI will likely help solve the problem by identifying better ways society can utilise renewable energy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Benefits? I See No Benefits

Sam says, “What are benefits of AI to authors btw? Because most authors don’t see any.”

Well, clearly lots of authors do not, but absent a national poll, lets not jump to conclusions about “most”. Being UK-based, Sam cannot plead ignorance of the likes of Joanna (J.F.) Penn, who  routinely extols the benefits of AI for writers, nor can Sam claim to be ignorant of the many positive debates about AI’s impact on our industry that occupy so many column inches of the trade journals.

Sam’s cautious approach to AI certainly doesn’t put her in the Luddite Fringe that I often write about here, and as I’ve acknowledged many times, authors and other industry professionals have every reason to be anxious that the industry is in the process of change, whether we like not or not, and yes, some jobs are at risk.

Adapt Or Die

I’ve also said many times that industries, and jobs, must adapt or die. The history of the publishing industry is the history of resistance to any and every inkling of change, that dates back to Gutenberg and even before the first printing press, and certainly before the term ‘Luddite’ was coined to cash in on Ned Ludd’s notoriety.

Every major innovation in publishing – let’s consider paperbacks, ebooks, self-publishing and subscription as token examples – has been met with cries that the sky is falling, the end of civilisation is around the corner, and authors will lose their jobs as the publishing industry itself crumbles around them.

The Sky Is Falling!

Screaming that the sky is falling is human nature, it seems. It makes us feel important now, and justifies potential failure down the road. My book isn’t selling? Blame the latest industry bogeyman, but don’t for one second consider that maybe the book is not good enough, or consumer interest has moved on, or simply that no-one knows your book exists.

So many authors seem to think that being a writer is a job for life, and that the simple act of writing a book and making it available entitles an author to untold rewards that folk working in more traditional jobs can only dream of.

One Tall Skinny Latte Coming Up

Imagine being a coffee-house barista and pouring that first latte and then demanding a job for life and a recurring payment while you think about pouring another cup. Imagine being a taxi-driver and dropping off your passenger and then expecting to get paid again the next day without picking up another fare.

Imagine going for a job interview and asking for the first year’s salary upfront as an advance, and by the way, don’t even think about asking me to retrain or upskill. There’s nothing left for me to learn, thank you very much.

Adapt And Change To Thrive

Of course, writing is a different job from pretty much any other. Rules that govern other jobs often simply do not apply to writers, and especially to book authors. Book authors are not salaried and don’t earn wages. We don’t commute to work, and we don’t have a boss looking over our shoulder. We work when it suits us, take days off when it suits us, and the lucky few will still be earning months, years, even decades after the job was completed.

But there is one universal law of work: We have to adapt and change if we are to thrive. Just ask any chimney sweep, blacksmith or typewriter-factory worker. We are constantly required to upskill to stay relevant.

Any book author who was active in the last century knows this is true. Yes, there will always be some big-name author that hammers out a manuscript on a typewriter and has never head of MS Word, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Things change, dinosaurs die and the world moves on, with casualties long the way. And the Luddites will scream the sky is falling.

The Modern-Day Luddite Defined

So what constitutes a modern-day Luddite?

I add ‘modern-day‘ because some puritanical pedant or other will even now be warming up their typewriter in the attic and dragging a dusty encyclopaedia from under the bed to give the historical definition of Ned Ludd’s legacy as if it were set in stone and can only be applied to a handful of years in the early nineteenth century, thereby demonstrating a decidedly tenuous grasp of, and a, dare I say, Luddite reaction to, evolving language.

And that, at the end of the day, is what this is all about. Evolution. The notion that change will, indeed must, happen, and that we need to adapt to thrive, or face our own version of extinction.

Luddites, of course, do not understand evolution. Previous change that got them to their current position is accepted, but hereon no further change is permissible. No change will be tolerated. Our jobs are sacrosanct. A motor vehicle can never replace a horse-drawn carriage. Word-processors can never replace typewriters. Airplanes can never replace sailing ships. Central heating can never replace a coal fire, and anyway, what about all those kids we send up chimneys? They’ll be out of work!

Oh, and AI can never beat human creativity.

Okay, so what’s the problem then? Why are you all running about like headless chickens in the face of this non-existent threat?

The History Of Resistance

Luddism is the history of resistance to change, and modern-day Luddites abound, but that does not mean everyone who is worried by, or who opposes change is a Luddite.

But many are.

Let’s take two concrete examples: The UK’s Society of Authors and its former CEO Nicola Solomon, and in the light of the aforementioned Forbes article, Seth Godin.

Knee-Jerk Soundbites

Solomon and the SoA have a long history of knee-jerk soundbites as she/they pander to legitimate concerns within the industry with righteous indignation fuelled by a callous disregard for fact and evidence.

Last year, Spotify announced its entry into the audiobook market with its Premium subscription-based catalogue, and barely had the Spotify press release cyber-ink dried than there was Solomon, breathing fire and brimstone as she told paying SoA members the deal would have a “devastating affect” on the industry, not least because Spotify was allegedly giving away audiobooks for free. Never mind the fact that Spotify was doing no such thing. Who cares about mere facts when there’s a juicy soundbite of self-righteous indignation to throw into the arena?

And let’s not forget the SoA demanding AI companies tell them which books were being used to allegedly train LLMs, because the SoA knows it is happening, but just hasn’t got any actual evidence.

This, by the way, Sam Missingham, is why so many authors do not see any benefits from AI: Because their so-called advocates are poisoning the debate with toxic misinformation.

Such knee-jerk responses have defined Solomon’s time at the SoA, with subscription, AI and anything else that might have the merest hint of new about it, automatically rejected as a harbinger of doom.

Audiobook Industry On The Brink Of Collapse. World Ends At 2PM

As we all know, the Spotify audiobook deal has since dragged the audiobook industry into the very depths of despair and the entire publishing industry is now about to collapse, proving the Society of Authors knows best.

And therein lies the modern-day definition of Luddism. Not urging caution and looking at the facts before taking a reasoned position, but jumping in at the deep end because a self-righteous soundbite is worth a Guardian headline, no matter the facts.

Dinosaurs, Fossil Thinking and Luddites

Note the slight difference between the objection to subscription of a living dinosaur like Count Markus Dohle, based on pure self-interest to protect his PRH “bet on print”, and the Luddite objection to subscription of Solomon and the SoA, derived from soundbites to create new soundbites, that had no rational basis whatsoever.

Ironically, the Count has lately thrown his weight behind some forms of AI, even though he knows it will ultimately team up with his nemesis, subscription. Meanwhile the Mistress of Fossil-Think, Nicola Solomon, has moved on from the SOA to new Never-AI pastures, but the SoA continues to fly the Never-AI flag.

Just this week, in an article that had absolutely nothing to do with AI, the Society of Luddites simply could not help ranting, with no context whatsoever, about “an era when humans risk being drowned out by the generic and derivative outputs of artificial intelligence bots.”

Luddites of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your brain cells. Oh, and the chance of thriving as the industry evolves.

Extinction Events

Which rather brings us to Seth Godin, for so long a guru in his field, but lately showing clear signs of being left behind by an evolving industry that is partial to occasional extinction events. Just ask the typewriter industry.

For the Forbes article, Constantino had a Zoom session with guru Godin, despite knowing full well such things were a necessary evil back in the days of the Covid-19 interregnum, but have no place in the industry in normal times.

Zoom interviews! What were they thinking???!!! How many people lost their jobs because of that selfish act of digital convenience? I think we should be told!

Excuse Me. There’s An Email At The Door

Explaining that Americans are reading fewer books (Really? So why is the industry touting its 2020s sales are better than pre-Covid 2019? And what happens when we factor in the uncounted self-published and Amazon titles?), Constantino says Godin blames the internet.

Godin: “What we see is people regularly put down a book to answer their email, see what’s on online, to interact with video. No one does the opposite. And as a result, the culture is shifting away from thoughtful, user initiated reading.”

As opposed to someone putting down a book to answer the phone, see who’s at the door or see what’s on TV, which are all perfectly acceptable reasons to interrupt reading. Seriously, Seth, is that the best you can come up with?

It’s All Amazon’s Fault

Per Constantino, “Even more troubling to Godin is the decline of the economic underpinnings of the entire book publishing industry itself. Those pillars were initially shaken with Amazon’s seemingly infinite book selection — at discounted prices — which could be purchased from any desktop and delivered to your home in two days.”

Eureka! So that explains why Godin’s books are not available on Amazon. Except of course that they are, and while Godin isn’t sharing how much Amazon brings in for him, it clearly is more important than the “the economic underpinnings of the entire book publishing industry itself.”

Godin rants on, “The number of books published digitally every year has gone from 40,000 to a million, and the number of books that are distributed the first week a book comes out have gone — for a big book launch — from 20,000 copies to 120 copies. So the economics of a scarcity-based bookstore, scarcity-based book publishing, are over.“

These improbable numbers are not backed by any evidence, of course, and anyway Godin is by now moving onto the real meat of his rant: AI.

Everything We’ll Ever Need Is In A Book

Per Constantino. “Godin further noted that before the internet, books were the primary resource of reference content. That all changed with Google and has only quickened with the rapid rollout of AI.“

And this is a bad thing because what, exactly? If books cannot compete with other media, then they do not deserve to succeed. The fact that the publishing industry is stronger than ever shows they can compete. So what’s the problem?

Godin explains (direct quote): “The AI revolution of giving us the information we need — right this minute — doesn’t yet know how to give us the information we don’t know we need. Books have been great at that forever. Books open doors for you that you didn’t even know were closed. AI, right now, doesn’t do that. AI responds, but it doesn’t lead you.”

Outdated Books Open Few Doors

I mentioned in my opening that I’m in the middle of school assessment and end of term exams. Assessing children that have one book between the class, and that a set text book written in 2006 and mostly out of date is all the information we have, and believe me it doesn’t open many doors.

I spent most of my teaching career relying on books. School books are an easy crutch in a rich western country where the government foots the bill.

Now I teach in a country where books are an unimaginable luxury, and for the best part of 15 years I’ve struggled to get in front of the kids even the most basic information I know we need, let alone “the information we don’t know we need.”

Instead of books, I’ve learned to rely on Youtube videos and a TV screen in the classroom. Just one for the school, sadly, but it does the job. We can even read books on the screen.

But finding suitable videos that are free on Youtube that meet needs is a daily challenge.

Unparalleled Knowledge. Unparalleled Discovery

Then AI came along, and now I’m able to combine AI-sourced background data with images and video that used to require endless hours with Google. Suddenly AI is my students’ window not just to unparalleled knowledge, but to unparalleled discovery.

Gidin said, “The AI revolution of giving us the information we need — right this minute — doesn’t yet know how to give us the information we don’t know we need. AI, right now, doesn’t do that. AI responds, but it doesn’t lead you

Does this guy even know how to use a prompt properly? Has he actually bothered to learn how to use AI constructively?

A few weeks ago I wanted to introduce my students to the Second Generation Romantic Poets. Oops. No books. Now Godin would of course simply wander round to his local bookstore, buy a book on Romantic Poets, and say look, books are the bees knees. Who needs technology?

But I wanted to introduce my students to the Romantic Poets and also to volcanoes, the history of electricity and the electric motor, how sodium and potassium were discovered, Pompeii, climate change, Frankenstein, the Louisiana Purchase, Napoleon, Tchaichovsky, Beethoven, Pride and Prejudice and Luigi Galvani, to mention but a handful of the myriad topics that make my lessons different from regular schooling.

How Many Books?

So in Godin’s world I need a book about Luigi Galvani and the 1791 frog’s leg experiment, which incidentally was the year Michael Faraday was born, and that led to Alessandro Volta’s first battery in January 1800,and the invention of electrolysis months later (May, since you ask) by Anthony Carlisle and William Nicholson thanks to a paper shown them by Sir Joseph Banks. How many books is that, Seth?

Oh, and I need another dozen books to explain how all that in turn led to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley writing the world’s first science fiction novel, Frankenstein, while on holiday with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron who were all stuck indoors because of the eruption of Mt Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which caused the year without summer in 1816. 1815 was of course also the year Sir Humphry Davy, to whom Michael Faraday was by now an apprentice, invented the Davy Lamp, having previously discovered sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc, in 1807-08 even as Beethoven was wrapping up his Fifth Symphony. Frankenstein of course was published in 1818 but written in 1816, the same year Shaka’s Zulu Kingdom took form in southern Africa, the velocipede was invented and Argentina became independent.

1812 – An Overture To AI

Of course Mt Tambora means taking the kids back in time to Pompeii 79 AD and forward to Krakatoa 1883, which is fine because the kids have been learning about Antony & Cleopatra back in the early BCs, and the 1880s are part of our studies of Van Gogh and Tchaichovsky, who they learned about via the 1812 Overture, first performed in 1882 the year before Krakatoa erupted, from when we looked at the early 1800s timeline, and that brings us full circle for this essay (but not yet for the kids), giving me an excuse to exit teacher mode while noting 1812 was the worst year of the Luddite riots in England.

That’s a lot of books, Seth Godin, yet I appear to not have any – just a 60 page school text book that mention absolutely nothing about anything covered above. All I’ve got is a fast-fading memory, that old devil Google and that infernal new menace to civilisation, AI.

Which means, as a teacher, it would be criminal of me not to embrace new opportunity as it presents itself.

And as an author and industry commentator I have no hesitation is saying AI is the most exciting thing ever to happen to the publishing industry and the teaching profession.

Books And AI Both Share Something Similar

And Seth, old bean, books and AI both share something similar. You have to learn how to use them properly if they are to be useful.

No-one is born knowing which way up to hold a book, or where to start, or how to read, or how to navigate chapters and sections and the index. These are skills we were taught at school and now do on autopilot, just as our kids will one day learn how to use AI at school and then use it on autopilot.

Meantime, there’s learning curve for everyone, and at this early stage in AI’s evolution it’s a steep learning curve. But looking the other way, or giving it five minutes randomly hitting keys on the keyboard and declaring AI useless, is not an option.

The Dinosaurs Have Had Their Day

So Seth, keep up, or step back. The dinosaurs have had their day.

And please, give up on the fossil-thinking.

“AI in every field, does mediocre work faster and better and cheaper than humans can. For your mediocre record producer, your mediocre writer — AI is a threat, because it can do it faster for less. It’s harder than ever to write great music or a great book. Sure you can use AI as a tool to help you organize your thoughts, but it’s going to be a while before AI can write a book that’s better than the best book a human being can write.”

Wait, what? Why is it harder than ever to write great music or a great book? The degree of difficulty does not increase because AI exists. Just the opposite. By freeing the writer from the chains of mediocre work we are able to devote more time to elevating our craft. And with all this mediocre stuff supposedly out there, our great writing will surely stand out like a beacon!

And The Award For Best AI-Assisted Novel Goes To…

For the accomplished author, AI can help take our work to the next level. Just ask Rie Kudan, 2024 winner of the biannual Akutagawa Prize, said to be Japan’s most prestigious literary award.

Kudan’s novel, “Tokyo-to Dojo-to”, was lauded by a judge for being “almost flawless” and “universally enjoyable.“

After receiving the award Kudan admitted she used AI.

“I made active use of generative AI like ChatGPT in writing this book. I would say about five percent of the book quoted verbatim the sentences generated by AI.“

Oops! There goes the AI-writing will ways be mediocre nonsense. Seth, did you miss that story?

In the above post, almost a year ago now, I said:

When first Gary Kasparov beat IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996 in Philadelphia, mankind breathed a collective sigh of relief. With five years still to go until 2001, the spectre of HAL2000 had been relegated to the movie reel of history.

That is, until the following year in New York, when the notion that a machine could never beat a human was blown out of the water in the 1997 New York City rematch when, in possibly the most exciting spectacle of human achievement since man landed on the Moon, Deep Blue trounced Kasparov. The greatest chess player the world had ever seen had been defeated by a machine.

A machine, of course, created by humans, just as the modern-day chatbots have been created by humans.

Created By Humans, Even When Its Created By AI. Is That Really So Difficult To Understand?

And that is the key to all this. AI is not about robots replacing humans.

It’s about humans creating new technology that uses our collective human knowledge and expertise and creativity to take our civilisation and existence to new heights.

If we don’t understand that and don’t see that as desirable, then we deserve to be left behind.

Yes, there will be casualties along the way. Some writers will join the chimney sweeps and typewriter-factory workers and horse-drawn carriage drivers and dry-stone-wall makers in the great redundancy room in the sky.

To those of you who still write their books on paper with typewriters because you care about all those jobs lost in the typewriter industry, good luck. But of course you won’t be reading this, because this essay is only available on screen, and you won’t even have a television, let alone a computer or smartphone, because mediocre jobs must be protected at all cost.

Watch out for that T-Rex behind you. It’s about to bite your butt off.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.