Abstract

Artificial intelligence is widely seen as the most important technology of our time and has attracted a huge amount of interest regarding not only its technological capabilities but also its economic and ethical impact. It has, however, been less discussed with regard to the book world and publishing. AI is applicable to publishing at multiple levels, all of them significant. It could change the business-processing aspects of publishing; but, even more importantly, the latest advances in machine learning from the likes of Google and OpenAI demonstrate a powerful capacity to translate and even compose text. Publishing and publishing studies alike need to grapple with the implications of a world where machines as well as humans can produce the core product.