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Barbara Graver's avatar

Hi Ann. Thanks for keeping me on this list! I know we've talked about AI before so I wanted to share an update.

My son has a friend who's a wonderful artist and I have hired him to do my book cover. In working with him, I realized that I don’t want to use AI images at all anymore and am actually going back to remove the old ones from my blog on here Substack (there are still a few more to go and some on my old blog but I won't be using any anywhere going forward).

Over the last few days, I've been reminded that artists put too much heart and soul into their work to be usurped. It’s not like I didn’t know this before. I actually did a lot of art at one point in my life. I just told myself that if it’s only for a blog post, it’s no big deal. But I've changed my mind about that.

Could I please be pleased on the other list? By the end of the day everything on my blog should be credited Unsplash images or public domain art. Also, I've gone back to the old publication name (Writing After Dark).

Thanks for all you do!

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Not sure who Ann is. I assume this was for me. And YES! I will move you to the AI Free Zone. Wheeeeee! Keeping the arts human is gonna be tough, but we can do it. And I'll change your pub name back. Thanks for letting me know.

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Patricia J.L. 👻🧶🖊️'s avatar

I think now is finally the day when I feel bothered enough (often thought about it, but that's as far as I got) to let you know I don't use AI for anything as I really can't be bothered to learn. I'll let you know if that ever changes as it'd probably be whenever (if ever. I'm lazy) get off my butt and do audio books as I prefer listening to the robo voice over real people for audio books. (I know, I'm weird and in the minority.)

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

I totally understand. Issue: if you have AI do the audio of your book, it is at the same time “learning” your writing style so in a month or two it can crank out books that sound like yours. Of course, that’s probably already happening to us all through bookselling sites like Amazon. Sigh.

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Patricia J.L. 👻🧶🖊️'s avatar

I would not be the least surprised if Amazon quietly added something to TOS and is training an AI on all the books uploaded.

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Adam Kozak's avatar

Thanks for this! Do you mind putting me on the AI free list? I’m completely opposed to AI and I’ve never (knowingly) used AI images. I use license-free photographs and public domain art.

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Gotcha moved. Thanks for letting me know and so happy to hear. Lots of folks only indicated they didn't use AI for writing. I couldn't assume they didn't use it for other things, So I put them on the mostly list. Erring on the side of caution.

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Terry Freedman's avatar

Thanks for the mention.

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Jasmin So Armada's avatar

Thanks for mentioning me. I do use AI to generate images when I can’t find any photos to use for my stories.

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Yeah, that’s why you’re in the Mostly AI Free Zone. AI can be so alluring.

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Shain Parwiz's avatar

I do everything DIY, only when Its really and rushed piece that struck me and I felt comfortable in publishing and I won't have a visual then I head down to hugginface (to use their image models, one because I think its mostly free, and the second those people on there are smart the can combine different models. I don't even want to know how time-consuming that is. It takes me almost a week to record a 3-minute spoken word track, if I attempt to do the programming, it would probably take a decade, and I release it feeling proud, only to see that the current tech at the time has moved so far beyond what I released. Like you came up with a new ice cream flavor, only to find Baskin-Robbins had added another 1000 flavors to their menu, or unsplash, that's my go-to for black and white photography (another weird obsession), but sometimes have the images that I had already imagined. I just credit and post as is because I don't know if I can change it to black and white without infringing the free-to-use terms. If you do know, please let me know my upcoming, Criminal Minds fan fiction episode needs a black and white photo. Thank you-Shain

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Shain Parwiz's avatar

Thank you so much for even considering me!-Shain

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Richard Ritenbaugh's avatar

What must one do to get on this list? I don't use AI in my writing, although I've used a few AI-generated images when I couldn't find a suitable stock photo.

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Added you to the mostly AI Free Zone. Btw, I posted articles a couple months ago asking people about their AI usage. You were on the list of people in the article. Lots of people didn't respond, so I didn't included them in either of the two lists.

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Richard Ritenbaugh's avatar

Thank you! And I'm sorry I didn't respond.

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Not a problem. A couple hundred others didn’t respond either. Best wishes!

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Maria Hanley's avatar

Thank you so much for the mention!

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Sincerely, Jessie Ann's avatar

You can remove my information for The Waltz of Devil’s Creek because I removed the book from here.

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A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author's avatar

Ok, thanks for letting me know.

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Angela Morris's avatar

Thank you for keeping it REAL!

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Paul Aaron Roman's avatar

Thanks for the mention 🙂

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Michael B. Morgan's avatar

Thank you, AC!

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S.L. Stallings's avatar

Thank you, AC! I know creating this list is a ton of work!

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Kerrie Noor's avatar

Thanks for the mention

😀

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Rian Stone's avatar

Ayy! Surprised you didn't kick me out of the list :)

But it makes sense. I see the intent behind your work, you want authentic creative work. Having an AI do spell checking to fix the right spelling of the wrong word, and using it to manufacture an entire essay out of thin air are not the same thing.

I do hope you influence other people into being savvy readers and writers who can see through the slop

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