OPEN! I swear it's not AI
On AI making contacting and creating more complicated
Morning darklings,
When everything is AI slop, how can you contact strangers? This is a question I've been dealing with over the past few weeks.
I'm not a cold emailer. I think by the time I needed/wanted to do that, the world at large was tired of receiving emails by people they weren't close to or their favorite brands sending them coupons. Which, fair. But how does one email another author they don't know or influencer they'd like to work with if every email subject line that was once totally normal and to the point is now what AI uses?
A local publisher shared a screenshot of her inbox flooded with emails similar to ones I get every day on Facebook a few days before I deleted mine—invites to be featured places, requests to help someone, offers to make book covers, blah, blah, blah. I send most of those to spam, reading only the very original titled ones. Not once have I read one and thought, yes, this is worthy of a response.
Here is one I recently got:
First came the email—surprisingly decent, but don't think I didn't clock that they wanted me to pay them. The banner at the top (accidentally cut off in my photo) made me wonder if this was an actual business. A google search turned up a nice website—at first. Oh, the photo... Two guys with identical faces and hair, facing the same way. Hm. Now I'm curious if the whole thing is AI. A reverse image search showed me it's an AI rework of a woman's trip to a library. Not in even Australia, I should point out.
What fun we're having.
So the other day, when emailing three people I did not know, I realized there was no email subject that would get them to open. I could be random or funny—straight to spam. To the point—straight to spam. Emotional and raw—straight to spam. Short and sweet, long and rambly, medium and in ALL CAPS—straight to spam.
I sent the emails anyway. I'd already crafted them, after all. As a human person, I didn't even think about how my work may be read as AI until after the time and effort had been spent. In a way, I think I would have tried anyhow. I don't want money. In fact, I'm offering my periodical for free and asking if they want to write for an upcoming project. They'd actually get paid if they said yes. But why would they open the emails (if it made it to their inbox at all)?
I've been told that if I drop my em-dashes, no one will question me. I've been told that if I use smaller words, people won't question me. More blahs here. Also, I don't think that's true. The models are learning, reading the posts that say don't use em-dashes. Whatcha bet they'll drop em soon enough?
Besides, people will assume AI now whether or not it's true.
I saw a trailer of a film winning awards at festivals. It reads good slop to me. He says it's original. On his IG, he only shows his screen with audio tracks and bits of the film to prove otherwise.
Is that because he never records his screen, because he isn't in the studio when the music is recorded, because he doesn't like his handwriting enough to show his original notes? Does he need to do something in order to prove to me that it isn't AI?
Am I one of those people? Are those blips in his film human or not?
Matt Bernstein shared a little YouTube short about preferring bad photoshop now because he knows it's human. But what happens when that's what AI spits out?Will people forever need to watch the individual artist make something—but only in person?
(And does it even matter anymore, because there are pretty convincing AI model accounts being run by creeper dudes making money off of other women's faces and bodies?? Cool exploitation, fuckwads. What a devastating thing, honestly.)
To assume every author is AI is crazy to me, but now even traditionally published ones are using it, so...
How do you even get someone to open your email? Read the book? Click on the essay? See your handmade art? Clickbait titles feel scummier than ever, nothing feels real unless it's verified, and soon, billionaires will be using our likeness to do whatever they want.
Does this mean it's analog and in person or bust from now on? Must I go to events here, there, and everywhere? Travel to other cities for book readings and conferences and conventions to meet the people I want to (speaking of creepy)? And what then?
I get it, though. We're all just so fucking burned out.
Watching the whole inception of the internet as we know it now has been so strange. From one large computer that took forever to log-on just to check my email to write my long-distance middle grade boyfriend to a super computer being able to be a fake long-distance boyfriend instantly still feels like a fever dream sometimes.
It's been decades and days at the same time—my sense of time is fun.
But we've gone through it all now. In a way, it feels like a moment in time that's done. Remember when we were on AIM just chatting with friends til 2am? Remember when we left our phone numbers and locations on friends' Facebook walls? Remember when we shared food pics on Instagram? Remember when books took a while to write? Remember when people either made their art or paid for commissions?
Because yes. Yes, I do.
So do many of you all.
Now, I guess we just can't have nice things. With so many bad faith actors, it's hard to trust people at all, let alone strangers. Where do we go from here—as individuals, as a society?
Truly, I'm asking.
Given the state of things, don't take too long with your answer. Just hit reply and solve the big riddle for me. That'd be great, thanks.
*A fun last minute addition: one of the people I emailed did write me back. Either I give really good email or some people have a little faith left in the tank. Either way, it felt nice to know I wasn't lost in the sea of "write me an email with the synopsis of that book and ask for money at the end". <3
Until next time, harness the Little darknesses and embrace the Little things.
Don't forget to check out The Little Periodical! Lots of cool things coming up. And hey! There is no AI. Words are mine, photographs are mine or a credited photographer, and the collages/mixed media art is made in one of two ways—a free photoshop program called Gimp or with glue and paper then photographed. What a world.
