What a simp

I understand how you feel. But this post is just weird AI virtue signaling by basically throwing other authors under the bus. It’s cool you feel that way personally. Don’t weaponize it and use it for social cred.

If you want to give the money back, just buy their Claude subscription. 20 USD per month, you have 7500, enough for 30 years of subscription.

Authors have a wide range of responses to their work showing up in model training. The spectrum itself is interesting because it reflects how people value influence, compensation, and participation. The question, now, is what this mix of attitudes does to future licensing models... My sense is that companies will need to design programs that accommodate all of these motivations at once.

Accelerate

Interesting.

Couple of mine in there, apparently. But doubt either were registered for US copyright which means I don't get to make any choice. Annoying, there's a decent price MX5 available locally....

I know a thing or two about settlements. Take the money; if you dont want it give it to charity.

That is... noble. Uh? Anthropic is not philanthropy, they sell the usage of your books, that's no NGO. So, can I repackage and sell your books too without providing a dime to you? If so, thank you! 😉

New business plan - use AI at $20 a month to write slop books then receive $1500 compensation per book. I can probably put out a book a week with AI

Current LLMs are basically compression algorithms and based on open source implementations where it was acceptable to train on large corpuses (mainly The Pile) to see what they could do. Commercial implementations are not the same and should be required to pay for training data.

This will age horribly

This can't win surely. If a human learns from books, it's not considered copyright. Luddite behaviour.

Stewart, that is a noble take. However can you please tell your agent to send the payment to Dalmatian Technologies instead? We're building an autonomous firefighter to protect houses from wildfires and we could use the help.

Getting included in AI models is the new SEO. Most creators don't understand this Most people don't click on search links, they just read the AI summary

i’d take the money if for nothing else than the fact they pirated your books instead of paying for them. you might be for their cause, but to condone theft?

I doubt the amount will be anything near that figure as these class action suits usually involve only small token payments. I got a notice of four books where I am the translator. I have no idea what they will pay per book for the authors, much less the translator. If I get any payment, I will keep it as I was paid only 5 cents a word to translate these difficult books published by Yale University Press, at a time when the going rate was 10 cents. And the authors worked hard on their research with a lot of archival documents now no longer accessible, and likely they will want to keep their compensation as well as you never make much on academic works. It's ok to get paid for your work, and if AI slurped it up to help make billions for that company, it's more than fine to get some just compensation for that slurp without permission. I think all the platforms have to make it easier to both give consent AND ask for a payment, even just a tip, from readers. Not "Creative Commons" which is designed to work AGAINST legitimate commerce by content creators but an automated system where permission, payment, and tips can be made. The big platforms resist this because they want to keep ads and subscriptions as their business model. All you're doing is keeping alive a business model that is in fact a failed one for most people, creators and users. Be bold and future-oriented and advocate automated micropayment systems.

Pissing in the wind

Very performative.

Tragedy of the private

Anthropic isn't offering a free service though. If someday, you wish to use their services, you'd most likely pay for it regardless of the fact that they use your books to train their AI

Stewart... reading these comments, it's obvious that there's a lot of differing views being expressed. This one is merely my own. Regardless of anything else... you made a choice. And, I respect that choice. I don't need to know your reasons or personal take on this. You sharing your choice in the matter is enough. Nothing you've said in this post positions you on any side of a debate on this matter. That's smart. It's just expressing your own personal choice in how the matter effected you and your work. I respect that even more. I've been an avid writer my whole life. I've only had a few small things published... and for my own personal reasons. I never committed to writing as a career or life long passion. It's just part of who I am. My point in saying this... is that I think I would have taken the same track as you did... if I had a published work included in that training data as well. For my own reasons... just because I would have felt honored to have my work included in the data that trains a new frontier technology. Personally... that would have resonated with me in that way. A lot of others... who've committed a great deal of their time, energy, and life... to pursuing writing as a career... may certainly feel differently. And if they do... then they should. But, I get the choice. And I respect it, Stewart.

These people should have their books removed from all libraries with that thought.. Proud of Steward for doing the right thing.

It’s amazing that your work will be immortalized in the AI model. It’s a way for creators to gain enormous leverage with their ideas in terms of shaping cultural and intellectual spheres. But that doesn’t mean creators shouldn’t be paid, no? Are the labs not patrons?

Rare to see someone choose principle over payout. Most chase a check even when the long-term value is in goodwill, not compensation. This kind of gesture says more about a person’s orientation toward the future than any settlement ever will.

Congrats on those books making the cut! Nice win for creators getting fair pay in the AI era. Fingers crossed for that payout.

I think I have four in there. I doubt many cents will reach the UK but let’s see

Hello sir, I've just discovered you, I can't wait to start reading your books! Have a good Sunday! 🙏

Based

You should ask for usage credit of equal value!!!

Wow insane!

No wonder Claude is the best AI in writing🤣🤣🤣

Anthropic has a solid understanding of Pace Layers. I use it for my R&D when looking at change. It's one of the best frameworks for designing and thinking in long term incentives. Thanks for sharing it with the world. longnow.org/ideas/pace-layer…

A bunch of my books are in there as well, and I feel the same as you. The problem is that most authors/publishers - at least as represented by the Authors Guild or the AAP - don't actually know what a "data set" is - or don't care.

They should offer you a lifetime subscription to Claude as thanks :D hehe