HarperCollins Criticized for AI Offer to Writers

When a tech company is developing an AI system designed to communicate using language, programming it often requires written material for training purposes. Just how this material is acquired is where things get more complicated. Last year at The Atlantic, Alex Reisner reported on a database called Books3, which Reisner noted “was based on a collection of pirated ebooks.”

More recently, prominent AI companies have sought a more legitimate way to gain access to copyrighted written materials. For instance, earlier this year Condé Nast signed a deal with OpenAI allowing the company to display content from the publisher’s brands within its products, like ChatGPT. The most recent example of this comes from the publishing world, where some writers who have worked with HarperCollins recently found themselves navigating similar terrain.

Writing at 404 Media, Samantha Cole received confirmation from the publisher that it had signed an agreement with an unnamed AI company. According to a spokesperson for HarperCollins, the deal would “allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance.”

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You may wonder what writers are being offered for this, and there’s an answer there as well. As Literary Hub’s Drew Broussard pointed out, author Daniel Kibblesmith recently posted on social media about the offer he’d received: the nonnegotiable sum of $2,500 for a three-year license. The images Kibblesmith posted of the email from the publisher also contained the ominous phrase: “there is concern that these AI models may one day make us all obsolete.” Nothing like a little existential dread to sweeten the pot, apparently.

Kibblesmith, for the record, passed on the deal. Acclaimed science fiction author John Scalzi expressed his disdain for the proposal as well in a post on social media.

“What’s the offer? $2,500 a book?” Scalzi wrote. “Okay, here’s my counteroffer: Go fuck yourself.”