When it comes to a comparison for influence and affluence, Mark Zuckerberg and I are as far apart in scale as an amoeba and the universe.  Although I know of him and his Google, I would think that he has no knowledge of me, being as I live in simple retirement in a relatively obscure part of the small nation that is New Zealand.  Yet it seems that he is stealing from me … stealthily and sneakily, and also telling lies about me.  Let me explain … and I will tell you about the lies first.

We pretty much all know of Google as a ‘search engine’, and Wikipedia as an information source.  In times gone by there were those of us who were a little sceptical of Wikipedia because it was edited by the general public.  It was sort of ‘by the people, for the people’.  However, it has come to be a reliable information portal, because inaccuracies are picked up by the general public and amended according.  It is not owned by any of the big players, and it is free.  How much in life can we say that about?

Now possibly MZ and his Google cronies got a bit of the ‘green eye’ and wanted to be more than just the ‘search’ part of the equation.  Maybe they yearned to also actually provide you with an answer to your question. A one-stop-shop!  Enter the unasked for Meta AI.  Suddenly, when you asked a question, there was an answer offered by the mysterious Meta. Was this the marvels of Artificial Intelligence at work for you?  No longer did you have to scroll down and find a link to Wikipedia.  Bingo! The answer is right there.  Well that’s handy!

It took me a little while to realise that often the Meta AI answers strayed from the truth … in fact sometimes they were complete BS.  I know because I was asking Google about an Italian travel writer … and somehow also entered my own name (us writers are a bit vain).  To my surprise Meta AI stepped in and told me all about an Irish-born, Australian-based adventurer and writer of the same name as mine.  To my further surprise when I read of his rides and books, I noted they were similar to mine, but all slightly different.  I was impressed that he had won awards for his travel writing and featured in various media outlets, including the BBC, ABC, and CNN.  He’d covered over 1 million kilometres riding around the globe.  Wanting to make contact with this interesting character I Googled all the book titles and awards, trying to find out more. No, none of them exist … nix, no ay, nada.  All BS!  Even the awards didn’t exist.

I might ‘gild the lily’ in my writing or even embellish … but I don’t lie or make stuff up.  Why would you?  Immediately before penning this piece, I again asked Meta AI about me. Her/his (non-binary?) answer! – Des Molloy is a New Zealand writer. He's a playwright and novelist. His work often explores themes of New Zealand identity, history, and culture. He's known for his thought-provoking and insightful writing style, which often blends elements of fiction, drama, and non-fiction.  

I am none of those things.  Yes, I have written five biographical travel adventure books, but the description is totally wrong.  I am not a playwright or novelist!  Who are they writing about … and why?  If they don’t know, why not say so?

So I’ve covered off the lies, now about the stealing …

Only recently has The Atlantic publication come into my consciousness.  Notoriously, their editor was texted the war plans of the US national-security leaders for hitting the rebels in Yemen.  This information was subsequently spread to the interested world. However, this was not their only recent journalism coup. This 170-year-old journal discovered that Meta AI has been hoovering up writers’ books illegally to teach their ‘bots’ how to better write … or is that write better?  Not only have they been sprung, but The Atlantic has created a tool where you can check if your writing or books have been taken.  When I learned of this through a recent New Zealand Society of Authors’ alert, I presumed that Big Brother would be filching stuff from Dan Brown or Lee Childs, Stephen King, J K Rowley, Paul Theroux etc … or maybe Noam Chomsky.  

Again, my writer’s vanity led me to enter my name in the provided link … and Holy S***, Meta AI has stolen one of my books and a piece I wrote for a ‘Studies in Travel Writing’ course of a UK University.  This is small cheese, BWTF are MZ and Meta AI doing knicking our work and not paying for it?  My books only sell in numbers to give truth to the maxim – ‘If you want to make a small fortune … start with a big one … then self-publish your own work.’  But a sale is a sale, and MZ can afford to pay for it like the rest of us do.  If you want it, buy it!

Des Molloy

https://www.kahukupublishing.com/

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