Publishing Has an AI Problem

In late March, the New York Times dispensed with the services of one of their freelance book reviewers. Normally, such things go without any publicity or wider attention, but the rationale in this case was an unusually specific yet potentially wide-ranging one, not least because it taps into a growing sense that AI is not just coming for writers’ livelihoods, but that it has already taken up position in our sitting rooms and studies, and is laying waste to all around it.