I was kind of trying to become an author, in my case a writer, and I spent a lot of time perfecting my style and polishing my chapters, and studying the novels I read to write well and interestingly. But a month ago I finally gave up when, after studying the material and asking other people, I realized that I had no chance.
And if there is a chance, then for a year or several to become the author of AI, and I did not want to stoop to such a level, for me it is the greatest shame and insult. Alas, soon there will be much more real art in the comments than in these generated empty shells.
Yeah, I’m damn offended, and yeah, I think I’ve made a post like this before, but now I just want to have a heart-to-heart talk, and now I’m damn hurt, and I keep writing, and I don’t even know why, but I feel like I have to.
Yes, unfortunately, in addition, I am not a native English speaker, so this post may read strangely or stupidly, alas, but I apologize.
The reality is that statistically you are more likely to win $1 million in the lottery than to become an author in the US who can live on their income from writing fiction. It does still happen but the people who’s work leads them to become full time authors are extraordinarily lucky, talented, hard working, AND again, lucky.
So you have to write for the joy of writing and expect to have a day job. And if that writing makes money, that’s great and you should keep doing as much of it as you can. But please accept that it’s not going to be your income driver for the foreseeable future.
I think that’s true for the arts in general. Unless you are both extraordinary talented and are able to get lots of people to recognize that talent it’s hard to make a living in the arts. Art is a wonderful thing to be passionate about, and it is an important part of life and society despite how some people tend to downplay its value. It’s rarely stable work. There is a reason why there are tropes like the starving artist or actors waiting tables.
Because of AI, I will probably never be able to make a decent living from this, or at all. Before AI, there was still some chance, but now it is simply destroyed, and it does not matter if I spend 10 years or less, my creativity will not be needed by anyone if AI does it faster, cheaper and also better.
But your thoughts are quite relevant for the current time.
This was true even in the 90s I’m sad to say. It’s one of the reason I didn’t pursue fiction writing as a career 30 years ago. I don’t think AI will replace any working authors because poorly written slop and computer generated text are both a lot older than today’s LLMs craze.
The field of authorship has been in a slow decline for a long, long time. It has a lot to do with the way the book Publishing industry was run in the middle and later half of the 20th century. We stopped valuing authority and authors and it became a less valuable occupation. This happened to teachers and a lot of other thought-based fields too.
Oh, how damn right you are, I just remember some cult writers of the past who lived no better than ordinary workers, if not poorly on the brink of survival.
Only in the future, thanks to these AIs, even earning a penny from writing will be a miracle even for the talented and lucky.