The publishing industry can no more put the AI genie back in the bottle than it could the paperback genie, the word-processor genie, the email submissions genie, the social media genie, the self-publishing genie, the subscription genie and the genies for every other industry development that has been fought tooth and nail while screaming The Sky Is Falling, before slow but inevitable acceptance and even slower embrace.
In an article on Kaptur this week, Hans Hartman takes a hard look at the prospects for the photography industry as AI enters its second year of public awareness.
AI has of course been around for decades, and has been impacting photography, video and publishing for as long, albeit behind the scenes, so no-one really took any notice, and even fewer were worried by it.
Chat-GPT changed thatChat-GPT changed that overnight, ushering in AI 2 as it not just brought public awareness to AI, but made it accessible to pretty much anyone, anywhere. The entry-barrier was not just removed for low-level public use, but radically lowered for those who know what they are doing but previously couldn’t afford to get in on the act.
Hartman’s article looks especially at the photography industry, but the lessons apply across the visual and audio industry spectrum.
Photography today is of course is a different planet from 2010 when the iPad launched. Digital cameras were all the rage, rolls of film were still sold in shops, and smartphones were a geek novelty – no-one was excited by camera quality on mobile devices back in 2010.
Today there are still professional photographers out there, of course, but everyone and their dog has a device that can produce a photo of acceptable technical quality in all but the most specialised fields.
In many ways the arrival of smartphone camera technology was on par with the arrival of self-publishing and the widespread adoption of ebooks. The entry barriers fell. Anyone could have a go, for many it would be career-changing, and for the industry it became a battle for the vested interests to maintain the status quo, or at least slow down progress as much as possible.
But with the arrival of AI 2 in November 2022, pretty much every industry is having to redraw its battle lines.
In the photography and video arenas the response has been largely embracive (the actors unions’ response an exception) while publishing’s response has been largely circumscriptive and driven by knee-jerk responses.
In the Kaptur article, explaining that “AI tech makes some of the work that used to require specialised software and expertise trivial,” Hartman quotes from Lightricks CEO Zeev Farbman’s as saying: “It’s clearly a complete game-changer, meaning that we completely need to revisit our technological stack because it’s obsolete.“
Farbman concluded: “Photos is almost like a solved domain, meaning pretty soon in the future, there’s not going to be a competitive advantage to anyone there.”
For book publishing at least, that dystopian future (if indeed it is to be dystopian and not, as far more likely, a phoenix opportunity) can be left on the pages of science fiction books. Book publishing is not the photo industry.
But those in the publishing industry hiding full-on behind ethically and partially legally justified rants about copyright, permissions and compensation, need to wake up and smell the coffee.
The publishing industry can no more put the AI genie back in the bottle than it could the paperback genie, the word-processor genie, the email submissions genie, the social media genie, the self-publishing genie, the subscription genie and the genies for every other industry development that has been fought tooth and nail while screaming The Sky Is Falling, before slow but inevitable acceptance and even slower embrace.
Fighting change and then realising it was a stupid fight to start and even more stupid to prolong, is a rite of passage for the publishing industry, and right now the industry’s relationship with AI is at that rite of passage stage.
Hartman’s position on the photo industry is worth examining. Hartman argues the photo industry needs to review “the lessons we’ve learned from that other not so long-ago tech revolution that upended our photo industry: mobile photography.”
Similarly publishers need to review the lessons learned (or not learned) from the self-publishing revolution and from the digital books revolution, both still disruptive forces in the industry, both still growing in impact.
Hartman says the photo industry needs to “understand how today’s AI tech revolution is different from when going mobile was all the rage.”
For which in the publishing industry read online sales and early ebooks. Both are still with us of course, and digital audio is the new black for publishers, but what’s different for us is consumer expectations and (relatively) new consumer formats like subscription.
Harman goes on to say that today, “Anyone with a creative idea and some programming resources can license or open-source generative AI or large language models and crank out innovative AI-powered apps.”
While publishers are in full resistance mode, desperately clinging to the present with both eyes on the past (the golden age of steam, anyone?), disruptive opportunists will deliver new products and services, some of which will fall by the wayside, while others will revolutionise the way the industry works. The incumbents clinging to the past, eyes tight shut, will find the ground has shifted beneath their feet. The more nimble and forward-thinking will reap the rewards.
Yes, many publishers have for many years now been dabbling with AI at some level, usually mechanical stuff at the back end, aimed at running the business more smoothly.
But the real revolution is going to happen at the front end, with creativity and delivery to consumers, and here the industry is about as unsettled as an industry can get.
Publishers – especially the big corporates where the CEOs are completely detached from the reality of everyday life for their employees and creators – spend an inordinate amount of time and energy telling everyone how valued they are, usually just before sacking a ton of them.
It’s the same story with royalties and advances. The CEOs will wax lyrical about how essential their creatives are, as their profits and bonuses soar, but royalties stay unchanged and advances fall.
Lately the new corporate CEO chant is “We care about your future,” as AI threatens, at least in the minds of the Luddite Resistance extremists, the jobs of authors, artists, narrators and translators.
Big publishers happily hide behind the smokescreen of ethical and legal drama over copyright, permission and compensation to avoid taking decisions about the new world that is AI 2.
And yes, it’s real smoke with real fire. There are clearly issues of copyright at stake, and permissions and compensation issues need to be resolved. Publishers understand that. Especially the latter. Compensation, when it eventually comes, as it must, will go to the publisher before it gets to the author. And I somehow doubt the authors will see much of it.
But what matters here is that AI 2 has arrived. The legal issues will be resolved in some way, probably to the satisfaction of nobody, and some sort of compensatory infrastructure will be put in place, and the industry will be able to move forward.
But the pace will be driven by AI, not by corporate CEOs with vested interests in the status quo.
Because AI is no longer the obscure domain of the super-tech-geek and the super-rich.
AI 2, led by the Chat-GPT public release, has blown down the publishing industry’s walls, opening up the soft underbelly of the publishing industry to anyone with innovative ideas and the willingness to exploit them.
Hiding behind author paranoia about jobs is not an option for publishers. And it reeks of hypocrisy in an industry where any author is only as good as his or her last book. Small and boutique publishers may and often do care about their authors, but the corporate CEOs will never even meet an author unless they are a gazillion-seller or a celebrity with a book to bid on.
Publishers of all sizes need to look at AI 2 as an opportunity, not a threat.
Yes, it is and will be disruptive. Yes, there will be casualties. That’s life.
But opportunities abound, for publishers and creatives alike, and where the two parties can gel and work the new tech to mutual advantage, everyone, including the consumer, will be a winner.
AI is not a threat. It is a tool, that can be used or misused like any other.
But it is not a tool like any other. AI 2 is not a slowly evolving tool that we can spend years honing our skills on before moving to the next level. AI’s evolution is happening so fast that there are new developments literally daily. New opportunities literally daily. New ways of doing things. New ways of thinking about things.
No, this is not the publishing industry’s comfort zone.
But business as usual is not an option.
