Case of Conscience - Or Am I Being Particular?

[davejonescue]

Hello all. The reason I am reaching out, is, as some of you know I have been working a bit for Monergism for the past year. Recently though, there seems to be a large uptick in the books they are producing that appear to be AI generated modernization's of older works. This is really starting to nag at my conscience, especially because in many of the books there is no indicator it was updated by a machine. It is just put out there are an "updated" work. The thing that is bugging me a lot is, I kind of have a little idea as to the work necessary to deal with AI in a text, as even when I use it to transcribe a text verbatim, I still have to go over it word by word and catch the numerous mistakes it makes. Let alone letting it mechanically reword and rephrase an entire book. And they are being done at a rate and size I know it is almost impossible to go over them word by word to compare. The other problem I am having, is because there is no indicator to the reader that it is an AI output, many people may take them for the actual work. Am I being too picky? Am I making this a bigger issue than it is? I have touched on the subject with them before, and in their eyes, I think they are perceiving the original works as not worth the effort, or, as if they are all of a sudden "inaccessible" to the "modern reader." This is making me want to give up altogether and just be done with the whole book thing. I just want to make sure I am not going of the deep end, but it does bother me feeding people AI modernizations. I have no problem with modernized texts, at all. But when it is just ran through a machine, that is another thing.

 

[Ploutos]

Hello all. The reason I am reaching out, is, as some of you know I have been working a bit for Monergism for the past year. Recently though, there seems to be a large uptick in the books they are producing that appear to be AI generated modernization's of older works. This is really starting to nag at my conscience, especially because in many of the books there is no indicator it was updated by a machine. It is just put out there are an "updated" work. The thing that is bugging me a lot is, I kind of have a little idea as to the work necessary to deal with AI in a text, as even when I use it to transcribe a text verbatim, I still have to go over it word by word and catch the numerous mistakes it makes. Let alone letting it mechanically reword and rephrase an entire book. And they are being done at a rate and size I know it is almost impossible to go over them word by word to compare. The other problem I am having, is because there is no indicator to the reader that it is an AI output, many people may take them for the actual work. Am I being too picky? Am I making this a bigger issue than it is? I have touched on the subject with them before, and in their eyes, I think they are perceiving the original works as not worth the effort, or, as if they are all of a sudden "inaccessible" to the "modern reader." This is making me want to give up altogether and just be done with the whole book thing. I just want to make sure I am not going of the deep end, but it does bother me feeding people AI modernizations. I have no problem with modernized texts, at all. But when it is just ran through a machine, that is another thing.

Knowing that that site is doing this would be sufficient cause for me to write them off completely.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Unless you see another direction to, or even if you, don't simply give up. Focus. When I started in the mid 1980s I was naive about the work of editing older works such as the Puritans of the 17th century. I persisted and finally hit a stride or rebirth 30 years on and now 40+ years on I'm looking at the last half decade or maybe more of usefulness in this genre, focusing on manuscript works of the 17th century and a few loose ends. The later works are better than the early; that always going to be true. I'm not impressed with Monergisms sense, or lack thereof, of propriety, if I will put it that way and leave it there. All they have to do is put a disclaimer and let the reader know. How hard is that? But don't let their nonchalance about what should be proper sidetrack you. They aren't the only game in town. If you have to, create your own game. That's basically what I did. And it didn't work out too bad.

 

[davejonescue]

I dont want to really badmouth Monergism. I think what they have done since their inception is awesome, I am only frightened with the rise of AI, and what looks like the new direction to focus on "modernizations" via its usage, goes against my conscience. I do kind of see the temptation to do so, as they have let me know that they receive many messages from people complaining about the language Puritans were written in, and he has mentioned people from his own church "refuse" to read them because they claim they are too hard to understand. So, do I think it stems from malice, absolutely not. It most likely stems from an actual perceived need mixed with the allotted resources they have to work with. But, my biggest hick-up is mingling AI modernized books with every other book without a way to tell which is which. And I have brought this up on several occasions. I personally could care less about AI being used, AS LONG as there are clear notifications of its usage, so people like me, who wouldn't really waste my time reading them, can easily bypass them.

And as far as doing them in a professional pursuit, outside of giving access to people who may not have it; no, I wouldnt want to be in the professional publishing game. I have been privy to some sides of it, at least in the commercial sense, that personally it isn't for me. So if it isn't Monergism, I will let it go, and focus on reading the 1,000's of books I have. Now days they make 13inch tablets fairly cheap. I can read Blackletter and Puritan era font easily. I would simply take advantage of all the free PDF's and enjoy, never really worrying about buying another book again.

 

[MW]

Some of their books were modernisations before AI got involved. From memory I can definitely mention Plumer and Manton as examples. One work looks like it comes from gracegems, which updates everything, and sometimes in their devotions they present statements which are all over the place.

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

I don't have a problem with modernization, per se, but they really should make clear 1) that it's not the original, and 2) that it was done with AI and not verified to be correct.

 

[davejonescue]

I believe we have resolved the issue now with hopes that all future works will include notices if AI were used in the process of editing or modernization. Thank you all for the responses.