A.I.,the Big Five & Fallibility

Even Before A.I., Editors Weren't Infallible

RE: ‘Amazing that an editor at a Big 5 publisher acquired it in the first place and didn’t spot the AI slop that many readers did.’ Adding on to this story that’s been viraling about the fallibility of big five editors who did not pick up the AI content in newly released book, this isn’t as unusual as the public might think.

Likely when AI was in the developing phase, in 2003, James Frey’s ‘A Million Little Pieces’was published by Penguin Random House. When Oprah Winfrey added it to her booklist, this memoir flew off the shelves. Frey had one of the finest editors in the country manage this memoir of his troubled young life, #NanTalese. She never caught the inconsistencies. Readers did. I was one. I worked in in-patient psych for many years and could not suspend my disbelief from page one when he boards a plane, bloody tee-shirt, missing teeth and loaded. Years later, Anthony Bourdain called him out too. In 2017, Bourdain said “such an obvious, transparent, steaming heap of falsehood from the first page that I was enraged that anyone on earth would believe a word…”

Back in the early 2000’s Oprah Winfrey stood at the top of the mountain. She was P.O.’ed and felt set-up, so much so that she set up Frey and Talese by inviting them to appear on her show under false pretenses. She switched the agenda backstage. She was going to get her pound of flesh and she did.

That show upset me. I found her to be cruel. I wasn’t alone. David Carr of The New York Times wrote, “Both Mr. Frey and Ms. Talese were snapped in two like dry winter twigs.”[11] “Oprah annihilates Frey”, proclaimed Larry King. That show haunted me so much so that I wove it into the opening of my novel, SweetSpot: Now and Then.

Dear Readers,

When I first wrote ‘SweetSpot: Now and Then’ I didn’t consider it fiction but it wasn’t my memoir either. Years ago, literary legend Norman Mailer defended the author that Oprah eviscerated on her show for fudging the facts in ‘A Million Little Pieces’ his memoir turned best seller once Oprah added it to her ‘Book Club’ list. Mr. Mailer said every memoirist has to lie because no one’s life is that compelling, not even his own. ...’

The Big 5 aren’t infallible nor is anyone else out here publishing stories. With the MILLIONS of books now published yearly, I can only image how many include half truths made up by humans hoping to hook readers.

Add A.I. to this equation?

Readers, be careful what you believe out here.