On May 9, at the awards banquet for Thrillerfest, the International Thriller Writers organization honored Charles Graeber, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and me with the inaugural Trailblazer Award to recognize our work as lead plaintiffs on the landmark class-action lawsuit Bartz v. Anthropic—the first major win for creatives against an AI company as well as the largest copyright recovery in history.
Organizers asked if I’d like to give a brief acceptance speech, and I said yes! In the audience were publishers, editors, booksellers, agents, audiobook narrators, and many incredible authors (including—pinch me—R. L. Stine, Lisa Scottoline, Harlan Coben, and so many more of my heroes). My hands shook as I spoke, but I’m proud I used the opportunity to tell my community, in no uncertain terms, that where we’re headed is not okay.
By popular demand, I’m sharing the remarks I delivered that night (full video above, full transcript below). May it be a counterpoint to all those awful graduation speeches cluelessly thrusting generative AI onto future generations. Resist!
“On behalf of Charlie [Graeber, author of THE GOOD NURSE], our fellow class rep Kirk Wallace Johnson, and myself, thank you for this recognition.
To paraphrase Kirk, whose true-crime book THE FEATHER THIEF you should all purchase: There were plenty of moments along the way when the three of us felt awfully alone, so to receive this award on the other side of it all is truly heartening. We were honored to take up this fight on behalf of our fellow creatives, and we’re proud of this crucial victory.
And here I’m speaking for myself and not on behalf of my fellow plaintiffs or counsel: “Victory” might not be the right word. We haven’t vanquished anyone, obviously. This settlement is a first, corrective step. And in my opinion, the fight is so much bigger than that.
This isn’t just a battle over copyright. It’s a battle for our souls.
I know that sounds bombastic. But what are our books, if not our innermost selves made manifest? We write to wrestle with the human condition, to explore universal themes and alchemize our humanity into words and bravely beg of strangers: Please tell me I’m not alone. Please say you feel the same.
Chatbots are sycophantic and seductive, convincing users that there’s no real reason for them to think critically or deal with human conflict or consider something from someone else’s point of view.
Generative AI is sending people into delusional spirals, egging on self-harm and withdrawal from the world. OpenAI estimates that every week, a half-million ChatGPT users show signs of mania or psychosis.
And even in less-extreme situations, the facts are sobering. “Therapy and companionship” are now the most-common use case for generative AI, having surpassed technical tasks.
My own therapist told me that when she encourages clients to go home and spend time reflecting on something, she now gets the reply: “I’ll talk to ChatGPT about it.”
The reason LLMs can ape empathy and human connection so well is because they were trained on our books—actual expressions of vulnerability and tender contemplation. We are the reason that chatbots wield so much power over their users.
And that’s to say nothing of LLM’s devastating environmental impact, the terrifying ways developers are already losing control of their creation, and the companies’ sociopathic CEOs, all so breathtakingly villainous that if I wrote one into a book, my editor, Hilary, would say, I dunno, Andi, that’s a little on the nose.
It sometimes feels like there are too many big, bad things happening at once, and AI is just part of the horrific tornado. But I believe it’s the most crucial battle of our time. And writing is very much a form of fighting.
We were given the power to infiltrate strangers’ imaginations, helping them conceive of the way the world could be. We can force readers to experience compassion and conflict. Across time and space, we make people laugh and tear up and gasp with staggering revelations.
And we’re doing it all via a one-way medium. Teaching them a swiftly vanishing life skill: the ability to sit and listen and think critically…without talking back.
Thank you again for the Trailblazer Award, and let this be a reminder that the trail is blazed and you’re not walking it alone. AI isn’t some unstoppable tsunami just because a handful of unhappy men who’ve never once picked up a pen and written something emotionally resonant say it is. The future is unwritten, because we haven’t written it yet.
I hope this settlement reminds you that you can loudly and proudly say no to using generative AI, that you have a sacred duty to lovingly push your friends and family and coworkers and readers to resist, and that you don’t have to start dialoguing with ChatGPT lest you “fall behind.”
We’re not “falling behind”, friends. We are grabbing our pens and sprinting ahead.
Right onto the battlefield.
Thank you.”
