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The Conversation
The Conversation
Clementine Collett, BRAID Fellow at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, University of Cambridge

Half of UK authors fear AI could replace them – what my new research suggests about the future of the novel

In the survey, 39% of novelists reported that their income has already been negatively impacted by GenAI. Antonio Diaz/Shuterstock

Back in 2023, I was completing my doctorate on AI and gender bias and my debut novel, Something About Her, had just been published. It was also the year that many prominent authors including Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and George R.R. Martin filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using their work to train generative artificial intelligence (a type of AI that creates new content based on user prompts) without permission. This case is still proceeding through the courts, as are many others on similar grounds.

At the time, I remember thinking: we desperately need to know more about the implications of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for the novel. As a writer, avid reader and an academic researching the impact of AI on work and society, this felt like a pivotal and crucial time to investigate this.

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