It was a statement that had the British book world clutching its pearls. “AI ‘likely’ to produce bestseller by 2030,” read a headline in The Bookseller in June. The story in the parish newsletter of Britain’s book industry reported a speech at a publishing conference by Philip Stone of Nielsen, a company that compiles book sales data in the UK.
The reaction in the normally sedate bookish corners of social media was swift and harsh. Stone’s prediction was, variously, “propaganda”, or “nonsense on stilts”, or “the NFT grift all over again”. The reaction may have been a solid-gold case of shooting the messenger, but it reflected the importance people place on books — novels, stories, non-fiction narratives — as human artefacts.
People thought “I was going to put Lee Child out of a job”, says Stone. “I definitely didn’t say that.” He hadn’t actually said anything about novels at all. “I made what I thought was quite a casual comment [?.?.?.] for example, could AI produce an adult colouring book? Or a book of ‘dad jokes’ that could sell well enough in that single week before Father’s day to sneak into the top 10.” Only in that sense did Stone “find it likely that AI could produce a bestseller by 2030”.