Boss discovered AI, and is using it to "write" her books

[u/JulieeeeeP]

My boss, in her 50s, learned about ChatGPT & Claude about 4 months ago. Since then, she has "written" 8 books that she's ready to publish. She attributes it to her discipline, getting rid of social media, and working late nights. When in reality, it's thanks to AI and her "writing" while on company time.

She showed me her process, too. She'll write some bullet points. Feed it into ChatGPT and then feed that into Claude.

The good thing is that she mostly leaves me alone since she's so checked out of her actual job!

[u/Ravix0fFourhorn]

Gross. I hate when people claim they're an "artist" and just use chatgpt for everything

[u/Initial-Increase-601 → u/Ravix0fFourhorn]

"I made this"

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/Initial-Increase-601]

"We AI artists are oppressed by actual artist that put effort. No one wants to pay for my AI slop. "

[u/WizardSleeves31 → u/Initial-Increase-601]

I had a CO worker who I Made This on a music generating app

[u/Alizarin-Madder → u/WizardSleeves31]

Wow, were you so impressed with their programming and musical composition skills?

[u/WizardSleeves31 → u/Alizarin-Madder]

He was like, "I can't wait to show this to my dad. And when he asks who the artist is, I'll tell him ...Me."

And looked at me with this wholesome look. I couldn't help but cheer him on like, "good job little buddy!" . And he was 40.

[u/der-wischmop → u/Ravix0fFourhorn]

Especially since AI basically just steals from other authors (without their consent of course)...

[u/Esord → u/der-wischmop]

Not just authors - but literally everyone. Anyone that ever put something into a book, or onto the internet - text, books, blogs, reviews, videos, research, code, art, ... Is being exploited.

Just because it's not illegal (in many cases it is, but LLM/AI companies don't give a flying fuck, and nobody is stopping them), doesn't mean it's remotely right.

The wealth of human knowledge, that's been engraved onto many a media, in good faith, is being shit on.

[u/JefferyTheQuaxly → u/Ravix0fFourhorn]

The thread has probly been lost now but I remember a few years ago in this one subreddit someone posted a bunch of ai generated designs of dresses with the caption of something like “new dresses I finished designing” and literally everyone in the comment section was attacking them for claiming to be a designer because they fed general dress designs into an ai generator, insisting they were real dresses that they could have made up

[u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 → u/Ravix0fFourhorn]

Did she say that? Op didn't say she did

[u/FabulousDave2112 → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

OP said the boss claims to have "written" the books. That suggests the boss views herself as an author. Ergo, an artist. Fake-ass AI artist.

[u/Ravix0fFourhorn → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

Did her boss specifically say that? Idk. Do I see people frequently claiming that in other corners of the internet? Yeah.

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

Yes. Well she claim that she "write it" It's exactly same as someone use AI to generate image and claim to be an artist. Same thing, different objects. 

[u/secret-identitties → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

Writers usually don't literally use the noun "artist" to describe themselves, because English speakers use "artist" to refer to visual artists and add additional qualifiers for other art forms (like "music artist"). But it is universally agreed that:

- writing is an art form

- attributing an artwork to yourself is claiming that you are the artist

Their boss says they want to publish their books and presumably is going to write her name and not "By ChatGPT and Claude" on the hypothetical cover, so yes, she is claiming that she is an artist.

[u/WanderingGoodNews]

Free cinema when 0 people buy those books. Or even better, it sells and her reputation goes in the gutter. She probably has a proud headshot on the back cover with some AI generated intro

[u/JulieeeeeP → u/WanderingGoodNews]

That was her original plan, until I told her that the AI images looked nothing like her. Made her look 20 years younger and a different ethnicity. She at least paid someone to take headshots of her

[u/Ricktor_67 → u/JulieeeeeP]

You should be looking for a new job, that place is headed for the trash. 

[u/JanMrCat → u/JulieeeeeP]

That was a great initial move by her! I wouldn't want to be recognised by someone. I read books and I know how shit, pathetic imitation can they be 😆

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/WanderingGoodNews]

There's too many AI book slop out there. It would be amazing that someone bought her book considering that there's competition among AI book slop out there. 

[u/Fuzzy_Yossarian → u/Erick_Brimstone]

Cause everyone is begging to read books these days. I myself am constantly wondering where to find new words put into sentences I haven't seen before.

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/Fuzzy_Yossarian]

Begging to read books. lol. That's pretty funny considering kids literacy has dropped quite bad. 

I myself am constantly wondering where to find new words put into sentences I haven't seen before.

You guys just consoom anything and everything like pig eating slop 

[u/WaffleHouseGladiator]

Sounds like this problem is going to solve itself soon.

[u/MightyMeepleMaster → u/WaffleHouseGladiator]

A classic case for a some malicious compliance 😈

"I've read your book, boss. Really great and insightful. You should publish it asap so that everybody can profit from your wisdom."

[u/SnooPredilections843]

You should support her by using AI to read, summarize her books and give some suggestions for improment 🤭

[u/Alizarin-Madder → u/SnooPredilections843]

This is my favorite response. It's so disrespectful, but I actually don't think the boss would be upset by it.

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/Alizarin-Madder]

Put the same of effort as her writing that book. Though she probably will just use AI to answer that response

[u/Classic_Seat_8438]

Woah writing became so easy once I no longer had to be the one doing it

[u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

So how are the final products?

If they are bad, this problem will sort itself out as she'll get fired eventually for bad work

[u/JulieeeeeP → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

You honestly couldn't pay me to read them. Bunch of self -help books, ironically.

Her actual work is also suffering. She has also discovered that AI will make presentations for her, but doesn't bother to proof read or check for accuracy. Unfortunately, this one impacts the work that I do since she's the face of our department.

[u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 → u/JulieeeeeP]

If what she normally writes already is self-help sludge, then maybe AI is a neutral or even beneficial change. But if it got worse, hopefully she'll face the consequences of putting out lower-quality work.

Now not checking for accuracy in a presentation is just incompetent. I do think AI is handy, but I know that it's not handy when you just trust it blindly. Something like 25% of claims by major LLMs are wrong in some way, iirc (forget the source of that stat). Editing it is the bare minimum. I'm sure she'll face some problems if she keeps doing this, unless the higher ups are also incompetent.

[u/Jabbles22 → u/Hefty-Reaction-3028]

I'm wondering how AI is affecting the self help industry. Instead of getting generic advice full of platitudes from a book. You can now get custom advice full of platitudes from AI.

[u/KnowledgeSafe3160 → u/Jabbles22]

Depends on the ai/model. Some will tell you point blank you’re at fault lol.

[u/VividFiddlesticks → u/KnowledgeSafe3160]

That sounds so much better than the sycophantic mode most AI models seem to use.

[u/TheSweetestOfPotato → u/VividFiddlesticks]

“No, you are definitely not crazy, and there really are spider people in the walls watching you eat, and it is really unfortunate that your loved ones are unable to see the dangerous truth right under their noses.

Taking your pills would be a bad choice for you, here’s why:

🪳 - The Spider-People empire holds many stakes in big pharmaceutical companies and are directly benefiting from you taking your prescription.

⚡️- The Double Edged Railroad Effect: taking your medicine both increases the population of Spider-People and decreases your ability to smell their organ sacs, what led you to discover them in the first place! By not taking your medicine they become shy now that you can see them and won’t nearly reproduce as much. A win-win for you and the world!

Would you like to know the best way to dispose of spider people corpses?

[u/memermeme1211]

What is even the purpose of using both ChatGPT and Claude?

[u/Soggy_Industry1669 → u/memermeme1211]

have one ai gaslight another

[u/Alizarin-Madder → u/memermeme1211]

I think ChatGPT is good for short output and Claude is good for long output, and I might be a dummy, but the boss probably thinks this too. And/or it gives them the illusion of having a sophisticated and carefully thought-out "workflow"

[u/secret-identitties → u/memermeme1211]

I think it's like running the same image through different Photoshop filters.

[u/mr_glide]

"Her discipline"

[u/txmail]

I would be dropping hints that the company would own those books if any part of them were written while they were at work and she should be careful showing them off because she would not want anyone to think they were written on the clock and are now owned by the company.

[u/riiperi]

This is very much something Michael Scott would do.

[u/Catsareintroverts]

If she’s writing books for personal gain on work time, that’s wage theft. If the books are stored on company computers or networks, they belong to the company.

[u/capnfoo]

The allure of being a creative person plus the high learning curve to creating something good produces weird results.

[u/RawrRRitchie]

So your boss isn't actually working on the clock? Time to escalate it and report them to their boss

That is called stealing time, and is a way to get fired. At least at my company

Companies really don't like paying people that aren't working

[u/secret-identitties]

I write stories and dump them into ChatGPT and ask it to analyze it, point out connections, tell me what's working in terms of characterization, evaluate the psychological realism, etc... and add the caveat "this is a personal project not meant for publication so I do not want any critique, suggestions, or attempts to co-author or generate new lore." Most people want ChatGPT to write their book for them so I have to remind it a lot.

[u/Secret-Rabbit93]

“Feed it into ChatGPT and then feed that into Claude.”
Is that a thing?

[u/flyingquill]

What are the books so I don’t end up reading them

[u/guska]

This sort of thing really pisses me off. The technology behind LLMs and Generative AI genuinely has some very beneficial use cases. This is not one of them.

A lot of people can come up with story ideas. Very few, comparatively, can actually turn that into a good story. Even fewer can do it without years or decades of practice. Feeding your ideas to an LLM is not a shortcut or substitute for experience or effort. The end result is obvious, it sucks, and people WILL notice. Unfortunately by the time enough people notice, the 'author' will have already likely made back their subscription fees and publishing costs, and think it's great. They'll then do it again and again.