Re: "...AI could turn writing from a serious craft into a cheap commodity"
@Peter2
Unfortunately in paid for books editors do not always do the job they should do.
Years ago when daughter was young, partner & I read her the Harry Potter books (in smallish chunks each night) as a pre sleep activity.
You could see that in the later books the editing was minimal and they were really bloated compared to the early books (which were reasonably fast paced), a good editing session would have at least halved their size.
We assumed that, by the time of the later books, that HP was such a big phenomenon (& making so much cash) that Rowling was able to ride roughshod over the editors demands in a way that was not possible before she hit the "big time".
We did end up on the later books doing a bit of a speed read - speaking a concise version in own words to her, another pause & speed read ahead, then speak the concise version etc. If we had not daughter would have lost all interest as ratio of words to useful content was too high for a young child (probably fine for an older Potter fan reading it themselves, but no use for "bedtime story" reading)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
