When reporters raised a question, Binh immediately typed the question, sent the answer to ChatGPT and after that, gave his view. He believed that this was the most effective comparison method to show if ChatGPT and AI would be a threat to the publishing industry. 

How does AI affect the publishing industry?

AI: Thanks for raising such an interesting question. AI and ChatGPT in recent years have had a strong impact on the publishing industry.

In the past, the publishing of books, newspapers, journals and documents required a lot of exertion and time to  correct spelling, edit formats, check authors and find relevant keywords, but mistakes still occurred.

However, with AI and ChatGPT, the work has become much simpler. AI apps can automatically correct spelling mistakes, search information and filter information.

Also, AI can automatically translate documents into many different languages, helping publications to be  distributed all over the globe. ChatGPT also helps readers search for information related to books and newspapers, update the latest publications, and manage inventories and salaries for workers.

However, a lot of challenges still exist. Machines cannot replace humans in generating new content and creation. Therefore, the combination of AI and authors is still a necessity to make publications gain the highest possible quality.

Binh: After trying AI and ChatGPT, I find it really awful. Technology has made incredible strides. It’s amazing how quickly and so closely it appears. AI not only exists on paper, it is not a fiction, but it is real. AI has really entered the publishing industry.

As I said above, the publishing of books, newspapers, journals and documents in the past required a lot of exertion and time. The works were done manually and could not be done completely well because they were influenced by circumstances, environment and psychology. Most experienced editors still had minor mistakes in published books.

However, AI and ChatGPT can change everything.

What is the real concern of the publishing industry when AI develops?

AI: One of the concerns is the possibility of authors and editors being replaced by AI. If AI technology can generate creative high-quality content without humans, this will be a threat to the professions of writing and publishing, which would lead to unemployment and decline of product quality.

Meanwhile, using AI would lead to an increase in the capability of monitoring and collecting readers’ information, which would bring benefits to publishers, but raise concerns about privacy infringement and personal information leakage.

Binh: First of all, AI would replace personnel with low qualifications and skills. Next, it would replace workers with higher skill and intelligence levels, and then replace authors.

AI can bring high-quality content because the content can be verified by different sources of information that humans cannot know. Professors and scholars may read thousands of books, but AI can read millions of books.

How will publishers apply the technology in their operation? Will AI be able to cooperate with the publishing industry?

AI: Publishing companies will have to make investments to generate AI systems and use the systems in the production of content. AI can also be used to create content automatically while saving time and costs. However, this will pose great challenges, because the system is still developing and the communication between humans and computers remains difficult. 

Therefore, in the near future, AI will serve as a tool to support humans and help their work become more effective and optimal, instead of entirely replacing humans.

Binh: AI will be applied in the publishing industry immediately, very quickly. Some tech firms, large publishing houses and individuals with high qualifications have used AI in their works. At Amazon’s Kindle store, there are 200 e-books written by ChatGPT and the figure is increasing.

AI will also be applied in other countries, including Vietnam. It will be used at companies in Hanoi, HCM City, and then other localities, as the internet was in the past. However, I think the coverage of AI/ChatGPT will go faster.

The next version of ChatGPT can generate a book with 60,000 words within 20 seconds. What will happen then?

AI: The generation of a big volume of documents within a short time will pose great challenges. The big volume of data to be processed may lead to an overload of the system, causing problems in using memory or CPU. In addition, this may affect the consistency and quality of output documents if the system cannot be set right or trained properly.

Binh: At first, there would be a huge volume of content, books, newspapers and articles. However, new problems will arise. Like many times in the past when new technologies appeared in human civilization, readers will distinguish real/fake content, and premium/average/medium content. Or will there be super premium content? I think there may be ‘condensed content’. While data is limitless, humans’ time is limited.

Tinh Le