It's the first Wednesday of the month,
the day that members of the
Insecure Writer's Support Group
share their writing struggles
and writing successes
and offer their encouragement
and support to fellow writers.
To visit the IWSG website, click here.
To become a member of the IWSG, click here.
Our wonderful co-hosts who are volunteering today,
along with IWSG Founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are
along with IWSG Founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are
Stop by their posts and thank them for hosting.
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Every month the IWSG announces a question that members can answer
with advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story in their IWSG posts.
with advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story in their IWSG posts.
Or, the question can inspire members
if they aren't sure what to write about on IWSG Day.
Remember the question is optional.
This month's optional question is:
What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?
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Happy August, Everyone!
I hope all is well with each of you.
I think the most unethical practice in the publishing industry
is the increasing use of generative AI, especially in creating content.
I see it as a threat to writing as a profession,
and it is already being used to supplant writers in a variety of fields and in journalism.
The large language models that trained generative AI platforms were built
by illegally using vast numbers of copyrighted works
without any compensation for the authors
or any control by the authors over how their material was used.
Now these platforms are being used to cheaply and easily create content
that competes with human-written books and other forms of human writing.
Competition from generative AI will make it more difficultt
for human writers to earn a living as writers.
Because these AI generative platforms lack human intelligence, emotion, and judgement,
the content they create can provide false information and misrepresent material.
They can also incorporate and/or amplify biases
that were present in the materials used to train the models.
Malicious users are already using generative AI to create deepfakes
or for legitimate-sounding emails and documents to extort or fleece unsuspecting people.
Frequently the sources of generated content cannot be traced,
so it is difficult to hold malicious users accountable.
This makes it challenging for people to know what is true and what isn't,
which undercuts the legitimacy of our democratic foundations.
Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle and growing ever bigger,
and it's going to be difficult to develop and enforce
effective guardrails for the use of generative AI.
At the very least we need to be able to clearly differentiate
human writing and content from that of generative AI
and to hold generative AI platforms accountable for their sources, validity, and applications.
Yesterday Ashton Jackson wrote in a CNBC article
about a new Microsoft report that listed ten jobs as the least AI safe.
Writers and Authors ranked #5.
Researchers wrote: "We find the most common work activities people seek AI assistance for involve gathering information and writing, while the most common activities that AI itself is performing are providing information and assistance, writing, teaching, and advising."
Something to think about.
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To lighten up a little, here's something to make you smile:
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Today I'd like to support a real, human writer
who is releasing her latest book this month, The Quest for Orichalcum.
Written by Jemima Pett, a long time member of the IWSG,
it's the prequel to her three-volume Viridian Systems series,
and it will be released on August 12, 2025 as an ebook only (for now).
Readers of the Viridian Systems series had questions and the two orichalcum miners
who starred in the series obliged by writing a memoir.
Says Jemima, "The Quest for Orichalcum tells how it all started – the revolution that transformed the galactic economy, let alone space travel. How did a postgraduate student–a refugee from an obscure planet–change galactic communications? Why did a talented software engineer take up asteroid mining? Which girls influenced their choices in life? And did Lars really kill a man in cold blood?"
Jemima Pett is well known among IWSG members. Like me, she started writing when she was eight years old, and like me, she scoured her local library for science fiction books to read as a teenager.
Jemima's writing career began with her 10-volume series Princelings of the East,
a fantasy/time travel series.
In this year's A-Z Challenge, Jemima's G is for Guinea Pigs post relates
how her guinea pigs Fred and George became the inspiration
for the boys in her Princelings series. Now that's original!
G is for George by Jemima Pett
After the successful launch of her Princelings Series,
Jemima's thoughts turned to space adventures.
She had an excellent cross-disciplinary background in math, astronomy,
earth science, environmental technology, and human resources.
These interests led to her three-volume Viridian Systems series
featuring two asteroid miners Big Pete and The Swede who mine
orichalcum, a rare and valuable metal, in the asteroid belt of the Viridian System.
Here is a brief introduction to the Viridian Systems series by Jemima:
"It started with a chase around the alpha quadrant, looking for pieces of orichalcum to make up The Perihelix. First the Federation kidnapped Pete and Lars, then the Imperium kidnapped Lars, and all that left the girls in their spaceship working out how to get home safely. Or not…
Two more books followed – Pete following his destiny to rescue his race on the planet Corsair, but diverted by a wormhole accident to the other side of the galaxy. Four travellers with no apparent way of returning to civilisation – definitely Curved Space to Corsair.
Then there was a galactic disaster – all the orichalcum communications failed. Nobody could contact anyone off planet, or steer their spaceships to a new destination. But how do the Federation manage to get their attack force to leave the outer planet’s ring system to launch a takeover of Lars and Pete’s new homeland? That’s part of the mystery of Zanzibar’s Rings."
I've been curious about Jemima's books for quite a while,
both the Princelings series and the Viridian Systems series,
but for some reason I hadn't read any yet.
(There are so many great books written by IWSG members!!!)
But the idea of a memoir written by two asteroid miners did it!
I'm going to start with The Quest for Orichalcum and go from there.
I've preordered the book from Amazon, but it's available at other places as well:
~~Amazon~~ ~~Apple iTunes~~ ~~B&N~~ ~~Kobo~~ ~~Smashwords~~
I wish Jemima lots of success with her latest sci-fi book!
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As for me and my life right now, I can so relate to Lucy and Ethel!
Wishing each of you a great IWSG Day,
and a big thank you to our awesome co-hosts.
Have a healthy, happy, and creative August!
Take care!
Till next time ~
Fundy Blue
Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com
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My next post will be Friday, August 15th. 🤞
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