I wanted to keep track of the books I've enjoyed over this winter. I've had a back-to-reading time lately. Even more while the Internet was off. I would spend a lot of the day reading, having books as company when the world got too quiet.

Most recent is Sarah Pinborough. Her books usually don't have happy endings which is a good change. But, it was sad to have some of the characters I came to like finish off the story deceased.

• Christina Henry - I went looking for more of her books and have read all available so far.
• Rachel Harrison - a new favourite. Described as a feminist horror writer.
• Kelly Link - her short stories are hit and miss for me.
• John Langan
• Kelley Armstong - I've read several of her books years before now.
• Rebecca Schaeffer - Her first book was a good story but by the third in the series the gore was too much for me.
• John Scalzi - I read several but did not like one of them.
• Jill Bearup - I liked her first book but I think it was too much humour for me.
• Sophie Irwin
• Wallis Kinney
• Lindsay Wong - Disappointed to find I did not like her short stories as I had hoped to.
• Kim Harrison - Reading more of her series but I don't feel as connected to the series as I was in the earlier books.
• Emily Croy Barker
• Sarah Beth Durst
• Auralee Wallace - Canadian writer. I'll read more of her books.
• Dawn Cook - The writer has another pen name that I forget right now.
• Cory Doctorow - Canadian science fiction writer.
• Kimberly Raye - Really enjoyed her books over the years. She doesn't seem to be writing any more.
• John Wyndham
• MaryJanice Davidson - She was a favourite but the most recent in the series claim to be the last. I think she writes more for fan/sales pressure now and the books don't have the same sense of fun.
• Shirley Jackson - A long time favourite, reading and re-reading her books.
• Kelly Barnhill - "When Women Were Dragons" I'd gladly read whatever she writes next.
• Margaret St. Clair - A vintage science fiction writer and an inspiration for 'Dungeons and Dragons'.
• Celina Myers - Promoting her book, 'Hollow' for fans of YA vampire fiction. It was probably good for them. Not so much for me.
• Raven Snow - It could have been better. I won't look for more.
• Kevin Gallant - The one I did not read. I tried but the writing was poor and I kept editing it instead of being able to read it. I've read that some books on Amazon now are being written by AIs (artificial intelligence). This could be the case but the characters showed promise.
• Adrian Tchaikovsky - An apocalypse story for people who want to learn about science as well as a good story. I'm reading another of his books next.
• Gerry Dee - Canadian comedian and game show host. I read his autobiography.
• Cassandra Rose Clarke - A favourite for years. Somehow one of her books was under my bed with the dust bunnies I swept out.

All of these are in the book bags to go to the second hand bookstore or the Little Library boxes around the local area here.

The use of AI to write content for humans is causing humans to read, write, and speak in AI slop. What is AI slop? Sales focused writing with a lot of extra words, writing preying on humans with the goal to have them buy/ believe whatever the AI wants. Who is the real robot now?

Letting AI write for us is letting AI speak for us. AI doesn't need to learn to sound human, just get those monkeys talking like a marketing robot and soon enough, no one will know the difference.

I wonder, how will our descendants end up sounding? Will there be any intelligence left at all? AI is training humans. Will people even notice AI slop? Look at all the trendy stuff people have heard in movies/ media and kept as part of our language for generations of people. Think about some of the stuff people often say and wonder how really easy it will be (already is) for AI to influence us.

Will the last people capable of thinking for themselves turn off the lights? The AI doesn't need them.

The mods in the Wired story explain how they detect AI content, and unfortunately their methods boil down to “It’s vibes.” But one novel struggle in the war against slop, the mods say, is that not only are human-written posts sometimes rewritten by AI, but mods are concerned that humans are now writing like AI. Humans are becoming flesh and blood AI-text generators, muddying the waters of AI “detection” to the point of total opacity.

As “Cassie” an r/AmItheAsshole moderator who only gave Wired her first name put it, “AI is trained off people, and people copy what they see other people doing.” In other words, Cassie said, “People become more like AI, and AI becomes more like people.”

After parsing chatbots’ strange tics and tendencies—such as overusing the word “delve” most likely because it’s in a disproportional number of texts from Nigeria, where that word is popular— Kriss refers to a previously reported trend from over the summer. Members of the U.K. Parliament were accused of using ChatGPT to write their speeches.

So when Kriss points out that when Starbucks locations were closing in September, and signs posted on the doors contained tortured sentences like, “It’s your coffeehouse, a place woven into your daily rhythm, where memories were made, and where meaningful connections with our partners grew over the years,” one can’t state with certainty that this is AI-generated text (although let’s be honest: it probably is).

Evidence That Humans Now Speak in a Chatbot-Influenced Dialect Is Getting Stronger

I miss webrings. They were a great way to find new links, interesting ideas and people. Social media is an offshoot of webrings. Most of the webring software I used to know is gone. Swallowed up by marketing. The new webrings are different, lighter, and they tend to be personal.

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