The author embracing AI to help write novels – and why he’s not worried about it taking his job
The rain tapped lightly against the windowpanes of my London apartment, a steady rhythm that mirrored the musings within my little grey cells.
It was a day like any other, or so I believed, until a peculiar letter arrived. As I delicately unfolded the note, its contents gave rise to a most intriguing puzzle.
‘Mr Hercule Poirot,’ it began in elegant script, ‘I implore you to lend your unparalleled expertise to a matter of utmost secrecy and importance.
‘An enigma of art, an amalgamation of shadows, a crescendo of whispers, await your perceptive insight.’
Asked to open a new novel starring detective Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie’s most famous creations, that’s ChatGPT‘s first attempt at grabbing your attention.
Ciphers Of The Midnight Mind is the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot’s suggested title – and it could no doubt craft the entire rest of the story in a matter of seconds.
For fans of the more than century-old character, whose popularity has endured beyond Christie’s death in 1976, new stories composed on demand may be a tantalising prospect.
After all, the author’s estate – like those who hold the keys to James Bond and Sherlock Holmes – has happily commissioned other writers to give readers new Poirot and Miss Marple adventures. Who’s to say those same fans couldn’t find enjoyment in a passable imitation by AI?
For many writers, it’s an existential question that has them fearing for their livelihoods.
But for Ajay Chowdhury, an award-winning crime author, it presents an opportunity for them to reach new heights.
“There’s a lot of fear around it for a writer – but I don’t believe it is going to replace us,” he says.
“I started experimenting with AI in writing six or seven months ago, and it was of course slightly scary.
“But it’s like having a fantastic editor on demand.”
Ajay Chowdhury
Useful editor or existential threat?
Chowdhury’s fascination with AI speaks to his background in tech, one which included co-founding the music discovery app Shazam, later bought by Apple for a reported $400m (then £300m).
But he is now known for his Kamil Rahman crime series, inspired by his Indian roots, which has won him several awards and will see a fifth entry – The Spy – released next year.
AI tools are playing a key role in its development – helping Chowdhury bounce thoughts around, generate potential outcomes for certain scenes, and rephrase sections to help with pacing.
He even used an image generator, Midjourney, to visualise a dramatic chase scene through a cave on the island of Elephanta, a world heritage site off the coast of Mumbai. It helped spark ideas about how it could play out.
“Eight out of 10 times, whatever AI gives you might be thrown away, but the other two times you might think it’s a decent idea that can be expanded on,” he says.
“Using a combination of these tools is giving me a much better draft to submit. I am finding that I get to what would have been a fifth draft by the second draft.”
For Chowdhury, there’s no shame in using AI to help get there, despite what many of his contemporaries fear.
Earlier this month, author Jane Friedman had to contend with AI-generated books purportedly written in her name, falsely listed as such on Amazon. She managed to have them removed, despite them not technically falling foul of copyright law because she had not trademarked her name.
“This promises to be a serious problem for the book publishing world,” she warns.
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More than 100,000 writers have endorsed an open letter by America’s Authors Guild, which has demanded AI’s development show “respect for human creators and copyright”.
Generative models like ChatGPT are trained on huge amounts of trademarked material, prompting writers including comedian Sarah Silverman to sue its creator OpenAI for copyright infringement.
This potential to imitate human work is a driving force behind ongoing writers’ strikes in Hollywood.
TV and theatre writer Lisa Holdsworth, who is chair of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, told the Sky News Daily podcast that would constitute theft more than creation, and the longer AI models are left to be trained without safeguards in place, “the more of a threat it becomes”.
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Chowdhury backs the cause, saying left to its own devices, AI will only serve to indulge mediocrity.
“That beige world of creativity where everything is sequel 32 to something, that worries me,” he admits.
“Look at films like Oppenheimer and Barbie, both extremely well written. Could AI create those? No. But could they write the next Marvel? Possibly, it’s a pretty clear formula.”
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A world of mediocrity?
For Chowdhury, the genie is out of the bottle and there’s no going back – writers, like all of us, need to adapt.
Aside from the next main entry in his Kamil Rahman series, AI helped Chowdhury find time to work with Google on interactive novel The Invitation, a crime story set in London’s East End.
The free short story – which includes puzzles to solve, a countdown timer, and sound effects – was made with commuters in mind and only takes around 20 minutes to get through.
It’s a little heavy on the Google product placement, with nods to Gmail and Maps that are clever or eye-rolling depending on your level of cynicism, though as a proof of concept for quick to make, accessible interactive novels, the kinds of which gamers have long been familiar, overall it’s quite effective.
The whole thing came together in six weeks to mark the UK launch of the tech giant’s new Pixel Fold phone, optimised to take advantage of its book-like screen. The production speed helped by Chowdhury generating the artwork using Midjourney.
It does the job, but it’s a move that will no doubt rub some the wrong way given the criticism levelled at Marvel for using AI to generate opening title graphics for its latest TV series.
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But Chowdhury still sees AI as a tool to take him and others “to another level”.
“The utopia to me is people using AI to enhance their creativity,” he says.
“The side that worries me is if large corporations start to think we don’t need creatives any more.
“That will become a world of mediocrity.”
As the rain continued to dance its elegy on the windowpane, Poirot leaned back in his chair, his little grey cells still whirring with satisfaction.
For within the labyrinthine corridors of art and deception, he had once again illuminated the truth, dispelling the shadows that sought refuge in the enigmatic corners of the human soul.
Thanks, ChatGPT, but when it comes to Poirot, I think I’ll stick with Christie.
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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