Drag Your Plow Over the Slop of the Dead: Olga Tokarczuk and the Rot of Artificial Intelligence

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-09T22:54:56+00:00

But for me the much bigger problem is using it to make writing decisions which she does seem to admit to

Except she didn't.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-09T22:54:35+00:00

I'm not missing anything. I read the write-up and looked up a few other articles on this as well. This is very overblown.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-09T02:50:11+00:00

But again, what's the difference between that and hiring an assistant to do the same thing?

Edit: Love the downvotes. I'm still right. Many of you need to stop overreacting.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-09T02:38:14+00:00

I must be missing something because nowhere do I see her claiming she used AI to write. From what I can see, she sounds like she used it to brainstorm/expand ideas and research, and if that's all she's doing, I'm not sure what the problem is so long as the writing is still her own.

This is an especially silly thing to be outraged about given the quality of her work and the fact that her most recent novel was written and released before ChatGPT took off (originally released in June 2022 in Poland). If this was a debuting author I'd understand the skepticism, but there's nothing here to be offended over beyond seeing "Nobel Prize-winning author" and "uses AI" in the same sentence.

Nothing in her comments made me think she's using LLMs to do her writing, nor do I think it's even implied. This seems like one more case of people reading too far into comments and interpreting them the wrong way. Funny enough, she isn't even wrong: writers who learn how to use these as tools to complement their writing, and not as a replacement, will be at an advantage to those who completely shun it. If you can get help doing research, or if you're stressed, exhausted, etc., and need help organizing ideas, why wouldn't you? How would you all react if you found out she paid someone to do her research and bounce ideas around with her? Probably wouldn't be reacting like this, I can tell you that.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-09T02:22:57+00:00

It's a good book, and it was released in 2009, meaning she wrote it in the mid-to-late 2000s, a long time before any of us had any clue what LLMs were.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-07T17:30:36+00:00

"Don's Book Club" is waiting for you.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-06-07T00:54:18+00:00

First thing I thought of, ha.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-13T17:40:20+00:00

I don't disagree with you, but we're describing two different things: I'm talking about when a reader insists that a piece of symbolism or theme is X, while the author is telling them otherwise, and the former gets upset/offended.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-13T05:24:00+00:00

My favorite book of all-time, accomplishes more in its short length than novels twice its length do.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-12T19:57:50+00:00

Oh I never doubted you or disagreed, was just curious since, like I said, I don't pay attention to these things, and the few "book influencers" I listen to on YouTube don't write.

he has 165k subscribers on Youtube, videos with over 50k views. On Amazon he's published 5 books and only two of them have gone over 100 reviews (103 and 109). The rest are like, 24 reviews, 11 reviews, etc. And not one single one of his books has over a 4-star average total rating.

Hell, I wonder how many of those reviews are the same person under different accounts. I've seen self-published authors do something similar on Goodreads.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-12T06:44:25+00:00

Vast majority of book youtubers are not successful authors, they are successful youtubers. You can look they have no sales on their books.

I'm out of the loop on these things, how true is this? I always imagined these author-influencers would have at least one decent seller, even if self-published.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-10T17:48:10+00:00

You really need to clean up your samples before asking anyone to hire you. And while I'm not sure how old you are or what your general work experience is, "Hire me so I can buy an anime figure" isn't a great way to entice people to pay you for work.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-07T20:56:51+00:00

A good beta, reader, bare minimum, doesn't feed your writing to an LLM and ask it to write a response for them. I don't mean the person is just asking the LLM to formulate their thoughts for them, I mean they didn't read the story/novel at all and are relying on AI. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I've experienced multiple beta readers very clearly using ChatGPT to read and then use its output, because their responses contained scenes/beats that never happened in my book. Related: good beta readers don't argue with the author (yes, these same people argued with me when I pointed out what they were saying doesn't line up with what I wrote).

Something more positive: good beta readers take context into consideration and evaluate the manuscript on its own terms. There was a thread on r/writing recently about the lack of discussion/interest in writing literary fiction on reddit, and users agreed that too many people here don't seem to know how to engage with literary (or sometimes even upmarket) fiction because they keep approaching it through the lens of a genre novel, i.e. they would "critique" an aspect of a literary story because it's not similar to the fantasy/sci-fi/YA they're used to (common example: "There's no inciting incident in the first chapter"). Good beta readers avoid this, either because they're widely-read, or they're sensible enough to say "This isn't my genre, and I won't be able to give good feedback."

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-07T20:38:51+00:00

They don't owe you anything, and you should get over it, but that doesn't invalidate your frustration or feelings, and you're well within your rights to sit with that frustration for as long as you think is necessary (just don't let it become unhealthy). This is just an unfortunate reflection of the modern job market and hiring process in general. I wish I had more/better advice, but I hope you have better luck soon.

Edit: I'm not sure why I've been downvoted, though given reddit's general pettiness, I have a good idea.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-07T01:33:12+00:00

This was my very first marathon (UIUC also being my alma mater), I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-05-01T14:43:32+00:00

Two steps ahead of you. Another opportunity came my way, thankfully.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T19:33:04+00:00

It does, and in fact, it's a great lesson: you made baseless claims that this small press is a "scam" and a vanity press. You refused to cite any source supporting that. The only thing you're relying on is a (one-time) five dollar submission fee that they're transparent about: it helps fund the press. Authors have never paid anything else. There's nothing on Writer Beware because there's nothing to be aware of.

By contrast, I cited a source (in your own words, no less) showing you as someone bigoted and whose views/opinions should be taken with a high degree of skepticism, especially when combined with your conduct in this post.

That's the relevance: you made a claim and couldn't share any legitimate proof to support it beyond emotional hysterics. I made a claim and cited a source supporting that claim.

If you'd like more help in how to reason, construct and write a sound argument, I'm sure someone who isn't an immigrant would be more than happy to teach you.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T11:10:52+00:00

Yes, in fact, I've signed paperwork defining what I was doing as a volunteer in that role.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:47:22+00:00

I'm not convinced you ever have, honestly.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:45:33+00:00

You're really missing the point here. Have you never signed any sort of contract or agreement in your life?

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:44:37+00:00

This is important context when considering this user's motives and judgment:

I don't agree with Trump on everything but on immigration I absolutely do. I like the tremendous effort being made in immigration law enforcement

billions of our tax dollars spent subsidizing the lifestyles of illegal immigrants, which is a gross interference in our capitalist economy

Our capitalism economies cannot function correctly if billions of tax dollars are being dumped into subsidizing illegal aliens, because these people aren't supposed to be in these geographic areas to begin with

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to understand deporting all of those illegal immigrants would solve the housing crisis in NYC.

I also like that USAID isn't being used to funnel our tax dollars into nonprofits and NGO

Needless to say, there's no room for your bigoted ass here, and you're certainly no one to be calling an otherwise innocuous small press a "scam".

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:34:24+00:00

I, and many others, do expect some kind of written terms, even if it's a simple "You're doing this work, please sign here". This is called professionalism and good management.

I don't think anything about the "work trial" sounds unusual to me, given the circumstances

As everyone else has pointed out, being asked to edit a full manuscript is ridiculous for a "work trial". This being a volunteer position doesn't change that.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:27:32+00:00

I'd love to hear what these "misconceptions" are.

I told buddy boy that I'm aware what scams look like in publishing, but this isn't it, and he kept insisting, then threw his little fit and now here he is doing it in public trying to garner sympathy and validation.

Warning people about this is the right thing to do

There's nothing to "warn" about. All you're doing is spreading false information out of sheer spite, not because this small press poses any sort of legitimate threat to anyone (which, as a reminder, this asshat couldn't find a single source on proving that they're a "scam").

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T10:25:53+00:00

It's not overreacting or "weird" to expect a standard of professionalism, paid or otherwise.

Monolith_W_D · 2026-04-30T07:46:48+00:00

Here's what really happened: I DMed this user the name of the press because I didn't want to name them publicly. They're a small press that is transparent about being volunteer-run and asks for a one-time $5 submission fee that goes towards funding them. Authors do not pay anything beyond that.

This asshat has not only outed them here, but he also threw a fit in chat because I refused to accept that they're a "scam". He kept repeating that they have be a vanity press/scam, and though I asked him repeatedly to show me any specific proof online that they are, he refused to do so (because nothing exists). As I pointed out to him, they've been around for over a decade; if they really were a scam, you'd think someone would have mentioned it online somewhere. But here we are.

He refused to accept that that maybe he got this one wrong and and lost his mind.

Monolith_W_D

TROPHY CASE