AI lacks the emotions, cannot replace human authors, say publishers

Chennai: Can artificial intelligence (AI) replace an author? No, say publishers and authors from around the world who gathered at the Chennai International Book Fair, as it can't create anything new.
Participating in a panel discussion on global trends in publishing on Friday, author and Ambassador of Turkey to India, Firat Sunel, said AI made amazing progress in content creation in recent years. "It can create some prose and stories and so on. AI possesses information and not feelings, emotions. Literary works need a human touch and emotions. They are more than 0 and 1."
Aazhi Senthilnathan, founder-CEO of multi-lingual AI platform Ailaysa, concurred, saying AI cannot create anything new. "However, it will be helpful in publishing, translation, and other related works."
Simon De Jocas, founder of Publishers Without Borders, said, "AI-published books will simply be a marked copy of what human authors published many years ago." Prashant Pathak, consultant of Italy-based Giunti Editore and co-founder of Publishers Without Borders, said AI still has limitations and works on the basis of what was already created. "Human intelligence has no bounds. However, we need to master AI to stay ahead of it. If we don't make regulations now, there will be issues like copyright infringement, plagiarism, among others."
Christian Weiss of German publihing firm Draupadi Verlag said he cannot imagine AI translating poetry. "The best books that I know are creative and path-breaking. They were something new. AI always repeats something that is already here. So, I think AI cannot compete with human beings in being creative and inventing new forms of writing." He also wanted new rules to mention in the book whether it was written by a human being or AI or both in the future.
Bologna Children's Book Fair, guest of honour at the Chennai International Book Fair, plans an online platform for illustrators to help children's book publishers.