AI Found My Blog!

‘Searching’ Image © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2022

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I personally dislike AI on the grounds that it does not enhance knowledge, it takes away incentive to pursue and learn. Anyway, I was scanning my stats and noticed that twice I have been viewed and possibly, hopefully, ‘recommended’ by Artificial Intelligence as a source for two readers. Okay, that’s kind of flattering but what post of mine was viewed/recommended? Who was the reader? Will this offer any benefit to me?

Importantly, have I been acknowledged as the original source?

I guess once I put my work out there, it stands to reason it will be seen and read and maybe used, but we bloggers always acknowledge our source or include a website link especially to anything we re-post.

Artificial Intelligence (like most of the internet) has been launched on the world wide web without workable social, legal, ethical or cultural boundaries. Humankind may melt down into one homogenous mass. Perfect conditions for a maniacal dictator.

Lots of questions need to be answered, especially since an AI ‘borrower’ cannot be traced. At least not by me, so I may never know the source or where my material ends up. How can I truly know where my blog posts end up anyway? Certainly readers can cut and paste anything they like but they are genuine readers. I think a faceless nameless Artificial Intelligence is invasive until proven otherwise.

Ask a human novelist about AI rip-offs and AI non-existent royalties.
Meta allegedly used pirated books to train AI.
Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, George R.R. Martin and others have filed a class-action suit, still unresolved, alleging OpenAI Inc copied their works without permission or payment.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/authors-lawsuit-openai-george-rr-martin-john-grisham

Of course many people will benefit. There are quite a lot of AI sites out there, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, etc, the first being Perplexity AI. Also Character.ai is a neutral (as if!) language model chatbot service. Another human job lost? Of course, there are strong opinions on all of this and numerous disagreements for various reasons.

We humans like shortcuts more than memory retention. Ask anyone studying. Internet users can take a detour but often it can misdirect or misinform, as in the case of a person who used ChatGPT for a literary book club review and gave a dry, soulless analysis of the story. In my opinion, do your own homework.

I like to personally do my own web surfing and pick up interesting and genuinely human stuff along the way – alternatively I read words on real paper. Under my mythical (as in not real) Creepy or Could-be section, I imagine one future day an AI bot will activate a microchip implant in a school student’s brain which will find web logs (blogs) or text books and release classic volumes straight into their grey matter.

Unlike young generations before them who opened a real book and discovered the works of Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, J.K. Rowling, John Marsden, Jackie French and Maurice Sendak, they will probably use an inside-head reading app. I certainly hope not but who knows!

💗 © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

‘Books’ Image © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2023

A Question of Copyright on Goodreads

THE CREATION https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/feb/the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse-saved-my-life.html

The beautifully illustrated book ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ by Charlie Mackesy is intended for children not cynical adults.

The content has been reproduced in countless book reviews on Goodreads to the extent that a large portion of the book has been copied.

We should all know our own country’s copyright laws. Where possible I acknowledge the source of material I use and only quote a sentence or two for emphasis in my book reviews. Copyright is adhered to in many areas including business, education, libraries, publicity, government, even blogs and hand-out leaflets.

So why do certain Goodreads reviewers think they can profusely post someone’s artwork?

Would they like their creative endeavours photographed and reproduced, and in this case vilified, and used for a different purpose other than originally intended?

I believe that by reviewing Mackesy’s work on Goodreads, a reviewer is not justified in reproducing the words and illustrations constituting a chunk of the author’s work.

“Copyright is a form of intellectual property that protects the original expression of ideas. It enables creators to manage how their content is used.”
https://www.copyright.com.au/about-copyright/

There may be Goodreads rules and regulations in the fine print which I could not locate but I am waiting on a reply from the Librarians.

My WordPress followers know that I do not activate Comments but I suggest if you think the copying is unfair or unjustified, check the book ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ on Goodreads and perhaps submit a message to the gatekeepers.

WEBSITE LINKS:

PUBLISHER https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse-9781529105100

AUTHOR https://www.charliemackesy.com/

GOODREADS https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43708884-the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

“I have noticed on Goodreads that generally there does not appear to be any control over spoilers or plot reveals so what hope does copyright offer Goodreads authors. Copyright is mentioned under https://www.goodreads.com/about/terms and it would appear action has to be taken by the author.” GBW.

POSTSCRIPT—Below is my contact post to Goodreads Librarians on Monday 29^th March 2021—no reply has been received:

“What are the copyright limitations on posting author illustrations on Goodreads? The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy has had pages copied by reviewers to such an extent that they almost represent the complete book. The book contains original work by the author and has significant meaning to him while naturally being a source of income which could be impacted due to continued copying by book reviewers. I know it is hard to control copyright (particularly on social media) but I would expect a certain level of copyright control on a book-dedicated website. I have no vested interest in this book other than enjoying it, and wanting to see Goodreads and reviewers being more circumspect regarding the posting of images from inside this book, or indeed any illustrated book.” GBW.