TAA’s AI Committee recently launched a new survey, Generative AI, Your Publisher & You, to collect information that can help members advocate for themselves in conversations with their publisher(s) about Generative Al (like ChatGPT) in contracts, policies, and statements. In addition to sharing the results, the Committee will be using the data collected to offer TAA virtual roundtable discussions on Generative AI in 2024.
Textbook and Academic Authors Share How They Use Generative AI
In a recent survey of Textbook & Academic Authors Association members about their use of Generative AI, several shared specific ways they use AI in authoring and promoting their textbooks, academic articles, and books.
Textbook Author Stephanie Lenox has used ChatGPT to write a first draft and an outline, to make the writing process more efficient, to improve the quality of her writing, and to create marketing pieces to promote her work. She has also used it for brainstorming, generating titles, summarizing, refining conference proposals, and editing.
“AI helps me take the emotion out of my writing process in order to overcome anxiety and just get started,” she says. “AI helps me move faster on functional writing, such as emails, so that I can concentrate my creative energy on writing that matters. I use AI like I use Wikipedia to get a sense of what is already out there. I’ve used it to generate learning objectives based on a chapter summary or to come up with 10 possible titles for a textbook based on a description I provided. I’ve also used it to identify grammatical issues or logical fallacies in texts and explain what’s wrong and how to fix it. I rarely use it for purely generative reasons because AI tends to be overly enthusiastic in its responses.”
Majority of Members Surveyed Report Using Generative AI To Make Writing Process More Efficient
TAA surveyed 1,900 members between September 24 and October 8, 2023 to determine how they’re utilizing Generative AI in authoring and promoting their textbooks, academic articles, and books, and to share that information with other members who have yet to begin using it. Just over 54% of respondents reported being primarily academic authors and almost 46% reported being primarily textbook authors.
Of the 82 members that responded to the survey, 40 percent said they have used generative AI. Of that 40 percent, almost half said they’re using it to make their writing process more efficient, including helping them brainstorm, generate titles, summarize articles, generate discussion and reading questions for teaching, and altogether reduce time spent on early tasks in the writing process. Multiple respondents stated that AI helps them write emails, with one member saying, “it helps me move faster on functional writing… so I can concentrate my creative energy on writing that matters.”
TAA Signs Appeal to Governing Bodies to Uphold Protections, Overturn Exemptions Regarding Generative AI
TAA believes corrective action needs to be taken by the European Union and the United States Government to protect the financial and creative interests of authors. Along with 23 other creative and authoring organizations, TAA has signed an appeal to governing bodies to uphold protections outlined in the Berne Convention and overturn exemptions that allow AI technologies to reuse copyrighted materials without credit or compensation given to authors.
Sign Authors Guild’s Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders
The Authors Guild’s Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders calls on the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, and IBM to obtain consent, credit, and fairly compensate writers for the use of copyrighted materials in training AI. Sign now to voice your support. For more information on the Authors Guild’s positions, visit authorsguild.org/AI.
Chat GPT: Forget about it…
Unless you were on that island with Tom Hanks in Cast Away, you have likely heard a lot about ChatGPT, Bard, and other artificial intelligence chatbots in the last two months. I mean a lot. Like too much.
You have likely heard about the revolutionary changes coming to the web, the world, education, and more. I am here to tell you as authors, take a breath. Don’t give up the ship. It will all be okay.