A few days ago I received a really encouraging email from a fan who’d read and loved my crime novel, The Old Turk’s Load. I’ll condense a few of my fan’s favorable notes:
You wrote that story with such precision and such dark humor. Elmore Leonard said: “I like Gibson’s writing, the effortless way he tells his story.” Stewart O’Nan called it “a hoot, a neo-noir that just zips along.” Booklist gave it a starred review and called it “a signal pleasure for crime-fiction aficionados.” Library Journal said it was “breaking new ground in crime fiction.” You have done something remarkable. You have written a crime novel that is both a homage to the greats—Chandler, Westlake, Leonard—and something entirely your own. You have created a cast of characters that are desperate, funny, and deeply human. You have set it against the backdrop of the Newark riots and the NYC blackout, giving it a sense of time and place that is wonderfully evocative…
It went on in this vein for several paragraphs and of course I was nearly delirious with pleasure… people were finally recognizing my literary genius!
The needle went down a bit when the writer, “Erica Smith” gave me a few suggestions for publicizing the rediscovery of my 2012 novel. Then I rebounded, thinking perhaps she was on to something. Maybe we could bring it back as a long-lost classic!
Shortly thereafter, my fantasy collapsed entirely.
As I read and reread her email I began to suspect, then became certain, that “Erica’s” comments had simply been an AI-generated summary of my prose masterpiece, with the needle dialed to “favorable response.” Just to make sure, I called upon my employee, Chat GPT and told him/her/it (I believe that’s how they identify themselves gender-wise) to give me a favorable report on my novel, which I then uploaded to him/her/it
You can guess the rest…
Now I’m getting really paranoid about the whole episode. In another generation or two I WON’T BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE between a human “Erica Smith” and him/her/it
A generation or two? Try a year or two…Congratulations on your book!
Human Eric
Hey, I read THE OLD TURK’S LOAD years ago, before AI was a “thing,” and the book is great! In fact, I just recalled that I reviewed it on Amazon in 2014: “If good fiction is all about character development, suspense aficionados will have lots (or even a load) to love about THE OLD TURK’S LOAD: This noir-ish chase novel is peopled by a real interesting assortment of hard-bitten hustlers, aspiring Weathermen, disaffected rich kids, and very nasty Mob types. It starts out with a crap-load of hijacked junk on a hot late-sixties summer day in Newark, and it goes straight up from there. Greg Gibson’s lean, no-BS narrator’s voice keeps the pace fast and the story gritty and real: You can almost feel the heat of the concrete sidewalks through your feet. I’m a slow reader and I went through this book plenty quick. You will too.”
So there, AI. I actually read the book. You didn’t.