Mallorca AI debate: publisher calls it a ‘parrot’
Mallorca’s Formentor hears a blunt warning about artificial intelligence (AI) on 2 November: a publisher says it cannot create anything new. Piero Salabè of Germany’s Hanser makes the claim at the second European Publishers’ Colloquium, held on 1 and 2 November. He calls AI a “stochastic parrot” — a machine that combines material it has learnt rather than producing something original.
Publishers weigh AI checks
Salabè says editors still have a human role between writers and readers. But the technology is already changing how publishers handle manuscripts. French publisher Gallimard plans to check every submission with the AI detector Pangram, though its publisher Gustavo Guerrero warns that the tool will eventually be overtaken.
Joaquín Palau of Arpa calls the use of AI a form of cheating and urges publishers to return to the core of their craft. Elena Martínez Bavière of Alianza and Cátedra cautions against underestimating what AI may be able to do in ten years.
A warning about reading
Sophia Jansson of Finland’s Förlaget points to falling reading comprehension among European pupils in the latest PISA results. She is particularly concerned about language minorities. Her publisher produces books in Swedish in Finland, despite saying that the work does not pay for itself.
On 1 November, Formentor Foundation director Basilio Baltasar criticised the growing replacement of books with screens in schools. Ángela Núñez-Gaitán of the Vatican Apostolic Library’s restoration department offered a different reminder of what a book gives readers: its cover, its smell and the feel of its pages.
Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com