Attending London Book Fair 2024 was an eye opening, exciting, and at times daunting experience for me. Being at such a massive event within the publishing industry with so much to digest and learn was at times overwhelming, but it made me extremely excited to be on the road towards beginning my career in this field, and gave me the opportunity to learn so much about what the industry looks like and how it functions as things stand currently.

There were a plethora of informative discussions that took place during the weekend long event, regarding issues such as taking steps towards making the publishing industry one that is more sustainable, or the process of book cover design and production to name a few. I was particularly eager to hear about the ways in which AI is impacting and changing things, whether this be in positive or negative ways. This topic was discussed largely, and hearing about it was just as interesting as I had hoped it would be.

The various discussions tackling the topic at the event explored both the positives and negatives of how AI can impact the publishing industry. For example, Bill Thomson of BBC Research and Development, expressed that whilst roles such as a writer may not be able to be replaced by AI technology, ‘The whole industry is going to be transformed,’ (2024), specifically mentioning that changes are likely to come in areas such as copyright and marketing.

Additionally, panellists shared their opinion on the topic. Some felt that AI programmes such as ChatGPT have the potential to be used as a tool that you can rely on if you require assistance, rather than as something that simply does the work for you. This implies that AI can be used in a way that is beneficial, without doing all of the work for us. In relation to this, there was a lot of discussion surrounding the issue of ethics when AI softwares are at play, and how use of such programmes can lead to inaccuracies, whilst also proving problematic in regards to copyright. The panellists therefore had a conversation on ethical and responsible use of AI within the industry, which included the use of collective licensing. This solution would be beneficial to both writers and users of AI systems, as it would provide a simple and transparent means of copyright protection to a multitude of works and authors. Brady Lund states that, ‘From an ethical standpoint, research papers created using ChatGPT can be seen as unoriginal and potentially problematic,’ (2023) and having such measurements in place has the potential to negate these issues from arising. Find Lund’s full article here: https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asi.24750?saml_referrer.

It is interesting to take these discussions and opinions and apply them to the publishing employment industry marketplace, and evaluate potential impacts that AI could have on this. An impact I found to be potentially the most glaringly obvious, is the potential risk of loss of jobs in the industry. With AI’s ability to provide so much assistance in such a multitude of different publishing job positions, this does in theory pose a possible threat to the necessity of jobs being filled by actual human staff. However, it could be argued that AI allows publishing companies to maximise their trading by providing quick and effective methods of producing or improving work, and as such it is interesting to the range of potential impacts that AI could pose for the industry and its employment field.

In summary, London Book Fair was an extremely enriching experience and I learned a lot about many different aspects of the publishing industry. Given that it is such an at times controversial topic but one that is only ever growing in relevancy within the industry, it was one that I was keen to learn more about, and it was great to hear such extensive discussion on the matter. It permitted me the opportunity to get a true glimpse into the potential threats or benefits that AI could bring to the publishing industry as a whole. Furthermore, it provided me with the opportunity to evaluate what this may mean for the employment marketplace of the industry I am working to pursue my future in.

Reference List

Lund, B. 2023. ‘ChatGPT and a new academic reality: Artificial Intelligence-written research papers and the ethics of the large language models in scholarly publishing’, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 74(5), pp. 570-581. [online] Available at: https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asi.24750?saml_referrer [Accessed: 25 April 2024].

Thomson, B. 2024. ‘Transforming the Future of the Written Word with AI [Presentation], London Book Fair 2024. 13 May.