Google's AI Writing Tool Study Sparks Backlash Among Science-Fiction Authors
In the spring of 2022, Google approached several award-winning science-fiction authors and New York Times bestsellers for feedback on an experimental writing tool called Wordcraft. The researchers were testing a natural language generation model called LaMDA, which had demonstrated emergent writing capabilities.
Thirteen writers participated in the Wordcraft Writers Workshop, each given eight weeks to write a short story using the LLM for any purpose. At least one author used no AI-generated text at all.
The resulting stories were published on Magenta's website alongside a white paper from the researchers.
However, when some authors discovered that their participation in the study was being shared online, they faced backlash for allegedly 'legitimizing' Google's AI technology. Critics pointed to the fact that Wordcraft was trained on vast reams of copyrighted texts without authors' permission.