This interview is part of a series of conversations with creatives and professionals who deal, now every day, with the advantages and limits of artificial intelligence
The birth of a new publishing house, in an era dominated by social media in which (at least apparently) people read less and less, it’s a small miracle. This time it happened in Arezzo, from an offshoot of the record label Woodworm which publishes albums by notable Italian artists. Between these Malika Ayane, The Representative of the List and the Ministers.
The CEO of Woodworm, Marcus Gallorini, some time ago he thought it would be nice to make some space for books. And so she entrusted it to Damiano Scaramellaa young editor with a long history in The Assayerthe guide of Worda publishing house that debuts at Book Pride in Milan, next March, with three titles. Among these there is an essay signed by Hiroshi Ishiguro which caught our attention. Is titled “How to build a human being” and brings together the observations of the Japanese engineer who dedicated much of his working life to creating a humanoid as similar as possible to a real person.
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ITW 2023, Ishiguro (Atr): “Avatars will connect humans”
Ishiguro, who was a guest at the last one Italian Tech Week which took place in Turin, is a fervent supporter of the future one symbiosis between men and avatarsfacilitated by the enormous strides made byartificial intelligence. Ishiguro is a fascinating figure, a luminary of robotics. “But I always had the feeling that in Italy he was a little undervalued” says Scaramella. “And so – he adds – I tried to include it in our editorial plan”.
How did he do it?
“In a very naive way, perhaps: I wrote him an email with words of esteem”.
It worked?
“Yes,” he replied, directing me to a text that had just been published in Japan, a sort of logbook that he kept for 30 years, where he wrote down all the observations on the androids he worked on.”
What did you like about Ishiguro’s book?
“I call it the notebook of a contemporary Doctor Frankenstein. It’s not just about an engineer building robots. But of a scientist who, while working on his creatures, realizes that something is missing. Ishiguro intends to create a robot that looks like him, but he understands that something human is needed to do so. And in his book he talks about the search for that something that makes us human beings. It is a text that can also be considered philosophical.”
You are the head of a young publishing house in a historical period in which many words are generated by artificial intelligence. At least 100 billion words a day come from OpenAI’s AI, according to Sam Altman. What are your thoughts on ChatGpt?
“I happen to use it sometimes, but for me it’s like the oracles of ancient Greece: I never completely believe them. It cannot answer, for example, the most important question.”
What would it be?
“A publisher must ask himself, at this moment, what is the gap between what is human and what is artificial. And the answer, in our opinion, intersects with Ishiguro’s work: the gap that a human being can guarantee is that of imagination. We must become even more “thinking” beings. And AI must remain a tool for automating the simplest tasks.”
Are you concerned that someone might send Wuds a manuscript produced by an artificial intelligence?
“We are still in the phase in which we propose the works to authors, but something is starting to arrive and we have already thought about tools that can identify a text written entirely or partially with an AI”.
But is it really that difficult to recognize a book written by AI?
“Not really, because when I read a manuscript I focus on the idea behind it. I’m interested in understanding whether it is in line with that of the publishing house. And I don’t think ChatGpt can do this thing.”
But AI is also good for good things, don’t you think?
“I use it to get information on markets that are a little more difficult to monitor, those that are not dominated by Anglophone or Francophone books. I believe that artificial intelligence offers great possibilities for knowledge. It’s all about how we manipulate and educate it, as Ishiguro himself says.”
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Would you entrust the evaluation of a manuscript to an AI?
“I did it on one of my lyrics, almost for fun. A novel I was working on. He gave me scholastic but interesting feedback. But I wouldn’t use it for a Wudz lyric. There are evaluations that are not so immediate for a car. For example, there are stylistic choices in a novel, which characterize it, and which ChatGpt may instead find wrong. In my case ChatGpt wasn’t an exceptional editor but I’m curious to try again.”
Why can AI never be a good editor?
“The concept we have of any work experience is to never remain the same. It happens in Wudz too. Many times the book that we would never have published a month earlier instead suddenly becomes an important text for building a piece of our world. Our work is open to continuous metamorphosis, something that a machine would never be able to do. A car would never change course towards new islands and places. This is a quality that I think is still very human.”
Where does the name Wudz come from?
“It is the phonetic transcription of the English word ‘woods’. Our books will cover very different topics but share the same cultural habitat. A bit like very different elements coexist in the same ecosystem hosted by large forests.”
How did you fall in love with publishing?
“I have a degree in Philology, I didn’t think I would work in a publishing house. But then I did an internship at Il Saggiatore and stayed there for ten years. I really liked the possibility of knowing and touching on very different themes, having an aerial vision of things, and this vision is precisely what I want to transfer to Wudz”.