Tag: workshops

June has been a lovely month so far, and a busy one for our family with two birthday celebrations, Father’s Day, and a local writers’ festival coming up. Surgery recovery is almost complete, and my arm mobility is pretty much back to normal. The weather’s been great lately and, as you can see, more flowers have been blooming in our garden.

Writing Info

Those who’ve been following me know that I’ve been writing about the impact of AI on our lives. Much of my research is to prepare for a workshop I’m giving in a few days. It seems I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of information, which is almost impossible to keep up with, but if I can help others learn at least one useful thing, then it’ll be worthwhile.

Elise Abram on Substack, wrote a piece about the terms and conditions of AI platforms. She doesn’t cover all the platforms, but what she did learn is quite insightful. For instance, the friendlist terms and conditions are from Chat GPT (Open AI). They state that they cannot claim your work as its own or any work you’ve created with their help. You can also opt out of allowing them to use your work as a training model. Yay!

You might be wondering why an author would give AI their content in the first place. Well, it appears that some writers are using AI as their editors, not just for chapters, but for their entire manuscripts. Others might seek help with character development. After brainstorming with ‘super helpful’ AI, it’s possible to come up some amazing characters. Although Chat GPT won’t lay claim to your work, things become more sketchy with Google’s Gemini.

Elise’s research showed that you do retain ownership of your work, until it goes public. Wait! What? Apparently, this platform states that they reserve the right to modify and/or translate your content, or even create derivative works based on said content. Happily, you can opt out of allowing Gemini to use your content. Whether that is enough to protect your work, in my view, is questionable.

Finally, how many of you have used Microsoft Copilot for basic editing? Again, while they won’t claim ownership of your content, they do claim that they can copy, transmit, edit, translate and reformat it. They don’t have to ask your permission, pay you, or even tell you that your material’s been used. Yikes!

I did some research of my own, first with Perplexity. Needless to say, their terms and conditions go on for pages, but here’s an excerpt you might find interesting:

“By using the Service and uploading Your Content, you grant us a license to access, use, host, cache, store, reproduce, transmit, display, publish, distribute, and modify Your Content to operate, improve, promote and provide the Services, including to reproduce, transmit, display, publish and distribute Output based on your Input. You agree that these rights and licenses are royalty free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide and irrevocable (for so long as Your Content is stored with us.”

Going back to the question of creating characters, does this mean that Perplexity has the right to use your characters for its own purpose? You can read the whole thing HERE

Here’s an excerpt from Claude’s (Anthropic’s) terms and conditions. Oddly, AI helped me simplify all this without my asking.

“Free and Pro consumer tier users have the “Help improve Claude” feature enabled by default, meaning de-identified interactions may be stored for up to 5 years. You can opt out in your privacy settings, though this doesn’t apply to “Incognito” chats. Commercial users (Team, Enterprise, and API) are strictly exempt from model training. You generally own the output generated by Claude, provided you follow the usage rules. However, because AI outputs are not human-created, they cannot be copyrighted in the same manner. ‘Generally own’? Hmm. I was also given a link to a more complete list of the privacy rules HERE.

The big takeaway from all this is that it is crucial to read the terms and conditions before sending and/or creating content using any AI, even if it’s just ad copy. Also, keep in mind that it’s highly possible that terms and conditions could easily change over time, and be even more unfavourable for authors. So, please be vigilant!

Promotional Stuff

This month, I’m offering a $.99 sale for my third Casey Holland mystery, Beneath the Bleak New Moon. This book was inspired by true-life events several years ago in Vancouver, where street racers wound up killing a pedestrian. Since that time, others have died from illegal street-racing, and I explore the issue in this novel. Here’s a short blurb:

The unthinkable happens when transit security officer Casey Holland watches a racing vehicle strike a woman in an intersection. Casey tries to save the woman’s life but fails. A second hit-and-run soon afterward causes public outrage. Witnesses insist that the victims were deliberately run down. Young journalist, Danielle Carpenter, is determined to identify the racers and asks for Casey’s help. But Danielle is reckless and on a personal vendetta. When she goes missing and a suspected racer is murdered, Casey is compelled to find answers.

Available on   Amazon      Kobo      Apple      Barnes & Noble      Google Play

What I’ve Been Reading

Two of my favourite reads over recent weeks are both fantasies.

Successors by Felicia Jedlicka is filled with atmosphere and a really interesting premise. Captured and thrown into slavery, 23-year-old Cori fears that her miserable existence is about to get even worse when she’s bought by a large, surly man named Donato. Donato also purchases a teenager named Ethan. Both are taken to a remote place in Russia that is actually a large, secretive prison that holds all sorts of dangerous creatures. Cori is assigned housekeeping duties in the home and later the prison, but otherwise is treated reasonably well. Her curiosity leads her to a werewolf named Vince who changes her life. The characters are great and we’re introduced into all sorts of interesting creatures in this highly entertaining read.

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. This book is a bibliophile’s dream. Twenty-six-year-old Alix Watson is having a tough week. She’s fired from one of her dead-end jobs and is kicked out by her roommate, leaving her homeless. Having no real friends to turn to, Alix heads for the Boston Public Library. Books have always been a source of refuge, especially after her mother abandoned her at age eight. During this latest venture into the BPL, Alix finds herself in an unusual room, where a librarian she’s never met before, tells her that this is the Astral Library. The place is magical, but is not without its problems as Alix soon discovers. When those problems threaten the librarian and the library itself, Alix has major decisions to make. Aside from the beautiful prose and obvious knowledge of books, the author has a subtle message about the importance of libraries and the threat they’re under in these tumultuous times.

That’s it for now. We’ll talk again soon!