Member-only story
We have reached the stage in the history of publishing where AI-generated books are hitting the shelves.
The other day, I was in Barnes & Noble, puttering through the technology section. I was shocked to see a book on the shelf about prompt engineering. Unlike computer engineering, structural engineering, or chemical engineering, prompt engineering isn’t an actual discipline.
Yet somehow, there was a 400-page manual right there on the shelf.
I forget exactly which of these books it was… But as you can see, many books have already been written on the topic (presumably using ChatGPT):
My heart goes out to whichever poor soul has to read these books.
This is, of course, only scratching the surface of the AI-generated content that is now inundating all mediums.
While AI brings powerful potential to speed up some types of writing in many fields, we are quickly discounting the value of domain expertise.
As someone who reads 50+ books a year, I know how much domain expertise matters in nonfiction. I don’t want to read a nonfiction book unless I’m learning from the best.
Domain expertise means the author has first-hand experience with what they are writing about. It means that the author has original stories and the ability to communicate the book’s topic effectively. Most importantly, the author has devoted a career to developing an understanding of their chosen topic that has nuance and rigor.
Doubtless, none of the hucksters who are “writing” these prompt engineering books has any more than 12 months of experience with large language models (LLMs).
Thankfully, most readers are shrewd enough to recognize these books for exactly what they are — frauds.
However, this is a real and worsening problem.
A good cover image can make AI-generated books easier to sell in genres where they are harder to spot. Genres like education, science, history, politics, and fiction.
While I use AI daily in my sales and business management work, it seems to me the true value of human writing isn’t going to be replaced anytime soon.
Unfortunately, readers will have to continue sifting through an ever-expanding mountain of LLM content being pushed by spam artists.
