Daunt mentioned that the chain “will consider selling AI-generated books if there’s clear demand.” He clarified that B&N wouldn’t “ban” credible books from reputable publishers, even if they are AI-generated, as long as they are properly published, labeled, and there’s concrete evidence of customer interest, like when a customer specifically requests a title. However, he added that B&N “finds it highly unlikely that there will be significant customer interest in AI-generated books, or that reputable publishers will choose to publish them.

So, they won't ban them because they have procedures in place for selecting books and they feel confident that an AI book would not make it through the selection process. Seems to be a more nuanced response than the headline implies.

Anyone remember when Assassin of Secrets came out 15 years ago? It was a detective novel that got middling reviews, but shortly after it came out, people realized that the whole book was plagiarized. Like, every word.

But the author didn't rip it all from one other book. They took sentences, phrases, paragraphs from dozens of different detective novels. It was like a collage of other, better authors' words copy-pasted into a weird amalgamation, a rough interpretation of the genre.

When that came out, the author was basically burned at the stake. Never had anything published again. The publisher had to refund booksellers. It was a whole to-do.

...I think about that book and how people reacted to it a lot when we talk about AI.

Barnes and Noble still exists?

B&N should work on making their author-side of the website run better. Just an opinion of someone who put a few books on it. I would rate it and Tracfone at about the same level from my experience. And at least even with the crashes and errors, I can still get Tracfone's to eventually work.