SAN FRANCISCO – Until recently, Brett Schickler never imagined he could be a published author, though he had dreamed about it. But after learning about the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program, Schickler figured an opportunity had landed in his lap. "The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible," said Schickler, a salesman in Rochester, New York. "I thought'I can do this.'" Using the AI software, which can generate blocks of text from simple prompts, Schickler created a 30-page illustrated children's e-book in a matter of hours, offering it for sale in January through Amazon.com

AI is starting to take over the Kindle Bookstore, by authors taking advantage of Kindle Direct Publishing. In the first weeks of February, over 200 e-books that listed ChatGPT as an author or co-author. These books include "How to Write and Create Content Using ChatGPT," "The Power of Homework" and poetry collection "Echoes of the Universe" and sci-fi epic about an interstellar brothel, "Galactic Pimp: Vol. There could be even thousands of new books that have been submitted in February alone, due to authors not having to disclose if they used ChatGPT or not. The vast majority of these are low quality books that are submitted to the Kindle store, just to make a quick buck.

ChatGPT is listed as the author or co-author of at least 200 books on Amazon's Kindle Store, according to Reuters. However, the actual number of bot-written books is likely much higher than that since Amazon's policies don't explicitly require authors to disclose their use of AI. "I could see people making a whole career out of this," said Brett Schickler, a Rochester, NY salesman who published a children's book on the Kindle Store. "The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible." Schickler's self-published story, The Wise Little Squirrel: A Tale of Saving and Investing, is a 30-page children's story -- written and illustrated by AI -- selling for $2.99 for a digital copy and $9.99 for a printed version. Although Schickler says the book has earned him less than $100 since its January release, he only spent a few hours creating it with ChatGPT prompts like "write a story about a dad teaching his son about financial literacy."

Gary Furlong, a Texas-based audiobook narrator, had worried for a while that synthetic voices created by algorithms could steal work from artists like himself. Early this month, he felt his worst fears had been realized. Furlong was among the narrators and authors who became outraged after learning of a clause in contracts between authors and leading audiobook distributor Findaway Voices, which gave Apple the right to "use audiobooks files for machine learning training and models." Findaway was acquired by Spotify last June. Some authors and narrators say they were not clearly informed about the clause and feared it may have allowed their work or voices to contribute to Apple's development of synthetic voices for audiobooks.

How I created a children's book, based on my daughter's writing, using AI-generated images As parents, we all want the best for our children. Lately, my daughter Addison has not been having her best days. Addy is 7 years old and likely has ADHD (though our doctor won't officially test until she is 8). She struggles to remain still in school, particularly when it's calm or quiet. She has a tendency to fidget, making it difficult for her to concentrate on subjects and tasks.

We live in an age when AI technologies are booming, and the world has been taken by storm with the introduction of ChatGPT. ChatGPT is capable of accomplishing a wide range of tasks, but one that it does particularly well is writing articles. And while there are many obvious benefits to this, it also presents a number of challenges. In my opinion, the biggest hurdle that AI-generated written content poses for the publishing industry is the spread of misinformation. ChatGPT, or any other AI tool, may generate articles that may contain factual errors or are just flat-out incorrect.

'Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere," I type into Deep Dream Generator's Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I've described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don't go beyond drawing stick figures. AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It's already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway "due to production constraints". The biggest players in AI include companies such as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion and Deep Dream Generator (DDG). They're free to use, up to a point, making them attractive to those just wanting to try them out. There's no denying that they're fun, but closer examination of the images they produce shows oddities. The face of the woman in my image has very odd features, and appears to be holding multiple books. The images also have a similarly polished, somewhat kitsch aesthetic. And, while there's an initial thrill at seeing an image appear, there's no creative satisfaction. The implications of AI image generation are far-reaching and could impact everything from film to graphic novels and more. Children's illustrators were quick to raise concerns about the technology on social media. Among them is author and illustrator Rob Biddulph, who says that AI-generated art "is the exact opposite of what I believe art to be.

'Woman reading book, under a night sky, dreamy atmosphere," I type into Deep Dream Generator's Text 2 Dream feature. In less than a minute, an image is returned to me showing what I've described. Welcome to the world of AI image generation, where you can create what on the surface looks like top-notch artwork using just a few text prompts, even if in reality your skills don't go beyond drawing stick figures. AI image generation seems to be everywhere: on TikTok, the popular AI Manga filter shows you what you look like in the Japanese comic style, while people in their droves are using it to create images for everything from company logos to picture books. It's already been used by one major publisher: sci-fi imprint Tor discovered that a cover it had created had used a licensed image created by AI, but decided to go ahead anyway "due to production constraints". The biggest players in AI include companies such as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion and Deep Dream Generator (DDG). They're free to use, up to a point, making them attractive to those just wanting to try them out. There's no denying that they're fun, but closer examination of the images they produce shows oddities. The face of the woman in my image has very odd features, and appears to be holding multiple books. The images also have a similarly polished, somewhat kitsch aesthetic. And, while there's an initial thrill at seeing an image appear, there's no creative satisfaction. The implications of AI image generation are far-reaching and could impact everything from film to graphic novels and more. Children's illustrators were quick to raise concerns about the technology on social media. Among them is author and illustrator Rob Biddulph, who says that AI-generated art "is the exact opposite of what I believe art to be.

The end result is impressive to anyone unfamiliar with AI but often far from perfect: Images tend to appear with strange anomalies -- in Reshi's case, crooked eyes and 12 fingers -- and text created by ChatGPT can have quirks and errors that remind us that AI is not quite human. Reshi spent hours refining prompts and editing text generated for the book, and he rejects the criticism that all he had to do was "hit a button."

Ammaar Reshi used AI to write and illustrate a children's book in a weekend. He became the center of a fiery debate: Are these tools a grim reaper for the arts?