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Ask HN: Do you see a human written book more valuable than an AI written one?

1 points by znano ↗ HN
I have been working on a book for the past year and half and Im finally done with it.

But now that it is time to publish it i think what I have written and reviewed by hand would not be as good as an AI written one.

I wonder if anyone values human work more than AI even if it's not as good. Would love to hear your opinions on this.

19 comments

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hans_castorp
I value human work more than AI - especially if that book is fiction rather than some technical documentation.
znano
It is kind of an technical book but very introductory about decentralization and cryptoanarchism. It is highly biased and opinionated tho.
mso3i
Fiction/Non fiction?

If its a text book I think you are looking at it the wrong way. Having someone who has spent serious amount of time on a subject, is like meeting someone who has explored some part of jungle I haven't visited. The info that has accumulated in your head through that process is what is interesting.

I stopped reading books not because AI is mesmerizing but because I find the non-interactive nature of books irritating after too much AI use. ChatGPT allows me to stop and explore something, slow things down, bypass other things, connect it to other things etc etc

My suggestion would be make it interactive. Release it with an interactive interface rag or fine tuned to your ideas and content. Use your imagination on how that interactivity should be shaped.

bell-cot
If you want human readers - remember that roughly zero humans will ever read even 0.01% of the world's human-written books. Sticking your head down the "human author vs. AI author" rabbit hole may be a poor use of time.

Or - back when electric typewriters were cutting-edge tech, only a puny percentage of human-written books were accepted for publication. Writing well is difficult. Look at bio's of famous authors - roughly zero mastered the skill after only 18 month and one book draft.

znano
Well im not gonna sell it so im not worried about publishers. It's a libre book, completely free and opensource but i don't like it to be mistaken with AI slop because i know how much effort it took me to write it especially since im not a native speaker. Im wondering now that any book can be written by AI does anyone still appreciate a book that's not perfect but it's written by a human.
sfpk
It sounds like you are presenting us with "100% AI" or "100% human".

You could prompt 'is this dialogue bit realistic for an [man v. woman]+[profession]+background. Or you can dream up other targeted prompts that could improve your writing, plot, realism, geographic details, character-arc, historical details, etc.

f646993e074382f
Yes, 100%. If you want to get the writing improved, hire an editor.
akudha
An equally important question is - how many people are easily able to differentiate between AI and human works? It will increasingly get harder and harder, especially with digital art. Maybe fiction not so much, but it will get harder in non-fiction writing too, especially sports commentary, technical documentation etc
diehunde
Even if people can't tell the difference, they will have an opinion about the content, and my intuition says AI-written stuff would get worse reviews.
mindwok
I don't think we'll differentiate by content, we'll differentiate by source. This has already been the case for e.g. news outlets for a while now, where it's easier for us to think "I like the New York Times" and read their stuff. Now it will just be extended to almost every form of media.

Also, congrats on finishing a book! That's a huge achievement and you should publish it regardless.

moomoo11
depends.

maybe to me, a book doesn’t have the same value it might to another who values the topic or whatever else much higher than i do.

for me, some fiction is compelling to read because it is imaginative. there are some authors i like, and i’ll read their works fully. i would prefer the author was a human who used his or her brain to imagine a brand new world, and not ai slop.

non fiction can be summarized. i look at this as reference material. i don’t really care if the author uses ai assistance as long as the factual information is accurate.

hey claude summarize this book for me and …

neilsimp1
> But now that it is time to publish it i think what I have written and reviewed by hand would not be as good as an AI written one.

A shitty book by a human being is better than anything an AI could produce. You are infinitely more interesting than an AI.

haute_cuisine
Not everything should have a value, does it have a soul?
fisher_sun
yes, the quality is just different. maybe the AI writes better, but the humain quality is unique for each writer. not like AI stuff.
sshussain270
It's really about does it the value (info, entertainment etc) I am looking for. I don't care if its written by AI or not as its a one way communication. I do care about two-way conversations if there is a human at the other end, for a connection. Although I think that might fade away for people over time.
incangold
A subjective view- my appreciating another human’s creative endeavour confers a tiny bit more meaning to the creator’s life. With limited attention it seems a shame to deny that opportunity.

Poetic rather than practical of course.

If we’re talking about a non-fiction book, why would I not just ask an AI my specific targeted questions? Not a rhetorical question. Perhaps your particular outline of the landscape covered has value? But then isn’t that just a ToC?

AnimalMuppet
I want to hear what you have to say. I want to hear from a human mind and heart. I don't give a rip what AI has to say.

AI may say it "better". But I can't read AI writing, because there's nobody there. There's not a mind that I can understand what it's thinking. I can't relate to it at all.

mindwok
There's a spectrum between "Book 100% written by AI" and "Book written 100% by human", and somewhere along that spectrum I would stop being interested. 100% AI written would be worthless to me.

I don't mind if AI is used, as long as whatever the book is trying to say is original human thought with a person who stands behind what they're trying to say. AI might help them express that more clearly, which is fine by me, but I want to feel what the other person is trying to get me to feel.