ChatGPT , a chatbot with artificial intelligence from OpenAI , has spawned a new breed of book authors who use the tool for their works.
ChatGPT , the OpenAI chatbot, continues to set the time when it comes to technology and continues to break through to other industries. His most recent feat consists of boosting the sale of electronic books written with artificial intelligence on Amazon , one of the most popular marketplaces in the world. The ability to create texts that seem to have been devised by a human being has led her to be the axis of a new movement of authors who use AI to develop their projects.
According to what the Reuters agency reported , by mid-February there were already more than 200 e-books in the Amazon Kindle store that had ChatGPT as author or co-author in their credits . Among some of the most popular works are ” How to write and create content with ChatGPT”, “The power of homework” and even a collection of poetry entitled “Echoes of the universe” .
The rise of this type of electronic books has been such that Amazon has designated a new subgenre to encapsulate all these copies: “Books on the use of ChatGPT , written entirely by ChatGPT”.
New possibility for authors or latent danger?
In its report, Reuters highlights the story of Brett Schickler , a New York salesman and amateur author who always dreamed of writing and publishing a book, but didn’t get the chance until ChatGPT launched last November 2022. “The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible. I thought: ‘I can do it’” , said the American.
Schickler was able to create “The Wise Little Squirrel: A Tale of Saving and Investing” , a 30-page illustrated children’s e-book, in just a few hours using the OpenAI platform . After this, the author put it on sale in January through the self-publishing unit of Amazon.com at a price of US$2.99 or US$9.99 in its print edition. While he has made less than $100 so far, Shickler says it’s enough to spur him to create other books with this tool and that he “could see people making a career out of it.”
Although the capacity of this AI is immense and it is not clear how many books it can generate, there are doubts regarding its authenticity. In the past, the CNET portal conducted an experiment to verify that ChatGPT learns to type by scanning millions of pages of text that already exist to generate its text blocks, leading to apparent plagiarism and a considerable amount of errors.
Is ChatGPT a threat to mainstream authors?
The rise of eBooks created using ChatGPT and published through Amazon ‘s Kindle Direct Publishing has caught the attention of thousands of Internet users. On platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, you can already find dozens of tutorials that explain how to create a work with AI on various themes. “These books will flood the market and many authors will lose their jobs. There has to be transparency from the authors and the platforms about how these books are created or we will end up with a lot of low-quality books ,” said Mary Rasenberger , executive director of the Writers Guild.Authors Guild .
Reuters noted in its report that, after consulting with the company, Amazon did not say whether it had plans to change or revise its Kindle Store policieson authors’ use of AI or other automated writing tools. “All books in the store must adhere to our content guidelines, including compliance with intellectual property rights and all other applicable laws,” Lindsay Hamilton , an Amazon spokeswomansaidby email.
Although some authors are somewhat worried about their future due to the popularity of this chatbot, the truth is that there are some who do not consider it a threat. For example, Mark Dawson – an author who claims to have sold millions of copies through Kindle Direct Publishing – mentioned the following:
“ Merit plays a role in how books are recommended to other readers. If a book gets bad reviews because the writing is boring, it will quickly sink to the bottom . “