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This is, at best, hopelessly naive. At worst, it's willfully negligent. These pledges are toothless and vague, especially in light of reports that publishers are using AI regardless of what authors - and even their own employees - want.

wired.comBook Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are RevoltingWorkers at three major publishing houses tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech.

This is not the action of a union ready to tackle an existential fight for the workers they represent. It's a mealy-mouthed capitulation built on meaningless slogans like "AI should only be used for good". At least I know what to do when my next membership renewal email arrives.

finance.yahoo.comAI Books Are Flooding Amazon — 63% of Religious Titles Flagged as AI, While Human Authors Face a Revenue Squeeze: ReportAI-generated books are proliferating across Amazon, with research pointing to growing competition for human authors and lower revenue per selling book. An Originality.AI analysis of 2,034 religious bo...

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This approach is built on the assumption that Generative AI is the inevitable future, and the only path open to us is to use it rather than resist it. It's nonsense. AI can no more "protect and support" authors than a fox can protect and support chickens.

This technology cannot create. It is designed to consume and regurgitate. Taking our work for free, and replacing us at cost, is the reason it exists. That's its purpose. That's the business model.