Between this and the Age of Scorpius fiasco, I'm baffled at the idea of authors making statements saying "the editor did this and I didn't notice." What do you mean your name is on the book, you wrote those words, and you're not the last set of eyeballs on those pages? Are you not going through the book again to implement the notes given to you? To check that everything is as you want it? It's just a cop-out statement that doesn't hold up.

I think the author admitting that AI might have been used in the editing process is pretty strong proof that AI was used in the creation of the book.

as a writer I would rather publish my lightly edited book raw than have someone else change my words unbeknownst to me.

> says she has a background in graphic design
> thinks Pinterest sh*t is fair use
😮 That's what baffles me here 1:37

It's such a huge difference between "i downloaded this picture, printed it, and put it into my book journal as a pretty image, for my own personal usage and it's nice and pretty <33" and "i snagged a picture off of pinterest and made it as my cover without doing anything to make sure i can do that because 🤷 " jfc

Thinking you could never be tricked by AI is like thinking you could never be tricked into a con or a cult. It's a comforting belief to have, but it ultimately leaves you vulnerable. Being tricked isn't a moral or intellectual failing, it's an inevitability. All you can do is arm yourself with information and humility.

Even if the author herself didn't use AI, it was absolutely still her responsibility to read the final copy of her own book before publishing it! Especially if she used a non-professional editor.

I sharpened as soon I got the video notification

I mentioned this on Frankie’s video too but one theory I have is that she trained a LLM on a short piece of her own writing so that she would feel like “she” was still writing the book. That’s the only reason I can think of why the word “sharp” would be used more in her book than even other AI novels — because she used it multiple times in the piece it was trained on, so the LLM assumed it was an important word.

Author publish a bad book and not blame the editor, Level: Impossible

Tech bros developing and promoting their AI detection software is very “selling you the solution to the problem we created.” It’s giving hot dog man trying to find the guy who did this.

Also agreed Frankie did nothing wrong. They made a video with EXTENSIVE evidence and explanation for why they believe this. This is not a “baseless” accusation or a “witch hunt.” And Frankie picked up this book expecting to like it! They didn’t just get a copy to prove it was genAI! The people who did wrong here are Mia Ballard and, quite frankly, Hachette, who either didn’t do their due diligence beforehand or didn’t care and hoped they could just get away with it.

frankie mentioned by meredith this is my dream

Thank you! Frankie was charitable about the strengths of the book and he didn't go into it looking to investigate whether it was ai, he was genuinely excited to read it. I think a lot of people trying to place the blame on his shoulders did not watch his video. It's frustrating because Hachette has been shady about this from jump.  I know people are pointing out James Frey who used ai, and as much as I don't like him he was upfront about using ai  to write his last book.  Silver Elite is being brought up too but I honestly don't think that book is ai, I think it is just a mid book with a ghost writer attached to it.

Off topica kinda, but the cover debacle is my worst nightmare as an artist who's art gets constantly reuploaded to Pinterest uncredited. Pinterest is a reuploading site, most of the pins you see are not owned by the people posting them. If the image is uncredited (or doesn't have a watermark) you'd have to reverse image search to find the original author, but even then you might not find them if it's been reuploaded hundreds of times on every site imaginable. It's unnerving to think that your work is floating around in the internet, in any language, any website, and someone could easily steal it without you possibly ever knowing.

Im a freelance book editor myself, and if an author blamed ME for the book being poorly received id be so mad

There is an interview Mia Ballard gave where every single answer was em dashes, rule of 3, it's not X or Y it's Z. I don't even think she answered the questions without ChatGPT's assistance. It was so bizarre.

Edit: Also most importantly is that the moment she admitted she didn't write all the prose herself, she broke her own contract. The book doesn't even have to be AI. Per her own admission, Mia Ballard doesn't have sole authorship of Shy Girl.

I peeked at Whyn Lewis's instagram, and apparently Mia lied about resolving things with her. In the comments of a post with the original painting, Whyn Lewis said that Mia didn't follow through on whatever settlement they came to about the stolen art.

12:52 The “friend did it” is giving Cait Corrain energy.

if i had a nickel for every self published author discussed on meredith novaco’s channel that shifted blame to an editor for the glaring errors, formatting issues, and odd phrasing within her book, i’d have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that happened twice.

Your point about "If I like it, it's not AI, if I don't like it, it is" is so well observed. It seems to be coming up a lot on Ao3 with people who are maybe new to fandom - I've seen a lot of comments under well-established fic writers saying just that, to the point that some writers are stepping away.