Tanitha's Cosmic Musings

We have lately seen a surge in AI slop. And yes, I will call it AI slop, because that is what it is: slop produced by AI. And if someone needs to use AI to create any kind of work of art, then they are not artists, but thieves. We all know that AI has been trained on actual artist’s works without consent. AI companies have stolen those works and have trained their LLMs on it. None of those artists gave their consent, and they have not been paid for use of their copyrighted work. A corporate beaurocrat admitted that “If they paid every artist and writer for the use of their copyrighted works, the companies would go bankrupt”. Well, so what? It will be better for everybody if they do.

As everyone knows, I am a big reader. Unfortunately, due to people trying to pass AI slop for original work, I have created a list of writers that use and/or defend the use of AI slop to write their works. I have just started this list, and it will probably grow in the next year or so. I am hoping to be wrong on this last one, but, the way things are going, I do not think so.

I will not read any author that uses or has ever used GenAI in their works, even if it is for the cover. It is so easy to make a simple cover. As readers, yes we like a nice cover on the book; but we mostly like stories, and those are the ones that stay with us. A simple cover is fine; there are so many free images on the internet, like the one that I used above. You can make a simple cover on Powerpoint or the equivalent free software. There is an image manipulation program called GIMP and anyone can learn to manipulate an image; take a photo of flowers in your garden and manipulate them to create a nice cover on any image processing software, or even in Word!

Firstly, we have someone whose book I DNF’d last year: Mary E. Lowd. She uses AI slop for her covers, and has defended the use of AI slop multiple times. Before I knew all that, I bought a book of hers, and it was absolutely awful, felt like it was written by AI instead of a human being.

Next, we have Jesse Pack who uses AI to make her books. In her latest book, which was also poorly edited, she left the AI prompt in. I cannot say that she wrote her books, because she did not write anything! She just put a prompt and let the AI make a mashup of phrases and words. Her editing was non-existent. I cannot call these people “authors” because they are not.

Cassie Alexander, who supposedly has written over 40 books, admitted herself that, for her latest book, she used AI slop. She was awful to another author, Elizabeth Stoltz. Stoltz just made a post criticizing and ridiculing in general (not even mentioning any names) so-called “authors” who use AI slop in their books. You can find the whole mess Cassie Alexander made on threads. I did go on Alexander’s thread and told her plainly that she is going on my never to buy list due to her using AI slop. Even if Alexander did not use AI slop, I would have put her in my other Never Authors list because of the way she treated a fellow indie author.

Last, but not least, at least for now, is Cherry Stark. This author defends people who use AI slop to make their books. She said that it is a tool for disabled people to use in making their books. Look, I am autistic, which means I am disabled, and I do not need anyone to write for myself in this blog. And there are plenty of other disabled authors who write their own books, without using AI slop. Not sure if this author ever used AI slop in her books, but she has made my never ever list.

There are a lot more people using AI slop in their books. If you have evidence of one, please let everyone know. I want to read books written by people. I want art created by people. I do not want AI slop.