Yeah, it's really a matter of when, not if. And the rate of advancement (and investment) into AI has been explosive in the last few years.

AI poetry has been done well enough to fool people. Longer forms of writing like essays have been done. A novel isn't so far off I'd say.

If a machine can do someone's job, then there won't be as many people needed for that job. Take making clothes, for example. We have massive amounts of machines that take the raw materials, convert to fabric, sew into clothes. But there is still room for bespoke goods that command a much higher price.

So yeah, a lot of authors won't be able to sell their books. Their ideas won't be as interesting, as well written, or have as much mass appeal. But some will still be successful.

The people who should be the most worried are the people most replaceable, the bottom rung.

Capital goods have that effect. But overall, it's a good thing. More people will have access to more books, for cheaper. You could tell an AI what kind of book you want to read, and get it within minutes, maybe seconds.

Truth is, authors are successful when people want to read their stories. AI can't stop that from happening. If they want to write, they can. If they produce work worse than billions of other books, well, blaming a machine won't solve anything.

I wonder how many artists or authors complaining about this are willing to stop using alarm clocks in favor of paying someone to come beat on the outside of their windows to wake them up heh