8/6/25
“I’m not conflicted on AI… it doesn’t belong in the arts and it’s critical to science. The general public are being shown everything wrong because of the corporate pigs and their ShitGPTs. It’s like nuclear over again. We’re doing the right thing the wrong way and we’ll pay the price for decades.” — Michael T. Huyck Jr.
If you came here this morning to see some excoriating rant about yesterday’s HWA newsletter, sorry to disappoint. While I 100% vehemently disagree with Sephera Giron’s expressed thoughts on Generative AI, I’m not going to drag someone who’s been a peer and colleague for thirty years.
I will say, however, (and I would say this to Sephera in person were we at a convention) that her essay showed a conflation of uses for AI — and there’s an important distinction that I think gets glossed over regarding this in social media’s abbreviated discourse. She’s right that artificial intelligence is baked into everything now, but the difference between those background AIs and GenAI are the difference between a cheap Phillips screwdriver made in China and purchased at the dollar store versus a five-million dollar oil rig. They’re both tools, but used for vastly different things.
I’m okay with an AI model that can cure cancer or create a way for us to safely traverse interstellar space. But that’s not what Generative AI and these GPT products do. What they do is spew slop based on stolen works. That’s how they function. They were built off stolen works — books, films, songs, and artwork. It is my contention that the end product they produce is not “transformative”. It is not “fair use”. It is not “inspired by”. It is my contention that this is morally and ethically wrong. It is my contention that these companies should be held accountable for that, and should provide a full list of the creators whose works were used without their permission, and should then make restitution for it. After that, it is my contention that going forward, these companies should have to seek permission from individual creators before using their works to train the systems, and the creator should have the right to opt-in or opt-out. If they choose to opt-in, it should be on fair and equitable terms. If a creator chooses to opt-out, that should be respected, legally and morally.
We cannot put AI back in the box anymore than we can put the printing press, automobiles, or nuclear energy (something Mikey Huyck knows a lot about, in addition to writing and editing) back in the box. Mikey is absolutely right about the immoral and brain-damaged way these companies are doing it. It is my contention that there should be legal and financial repercussions for the stolen works Generative AI was built on, and that going forward, there must be clear guidelines, laws, protections, and guardrails in place to make it safe, fair, and equitable for all creators — with the power in their hands to decide whether to opt in or opt out.
That is what I’ve been fighting for. That is what I will continue to fight for. Just as I was part of the fight to get professional rates raised from 3 cents per word to five cents (and later eight cents) per word. Just as I was part of the fight to get Dorchester Publishing/Leisure Books to return the rights of authors. Just as I was part of all the other fights for creator’s rights that I’ve been involved in over the last thirty years.
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My only other takeaway is that the HWA Newsletter, which I hadn’t seen in years, is wayyyyyyyyy too long for a digital format. And I say that as someone who served as the newsletter’s associate editor way back in the late 1990s. This issue clocked in at something like 22,000 words. I’m told there’s a concern that members aren’t reading the newsletter. If so, then look to your length.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 96
Happy Hour by Gemma Amor
The eccentric onwer of a '90s underground London cocktail bar has a unique and disturbing way of keeping an eye on everything and everyone, then disappearing those who don't behave. Famous politicians, glamorous actresses, and international stars are all dying to get in... and to get out.
Happy Hour is the ninth book in the Killer VHS Series, hailed as "the modern-day Goosebumps for Adults" by Horror Obsessive. Killer VHS Series titles are standalone stories featuring found footage elemnets and nostalgic vibes for horror's '80s and '90s glory days.
This book comes out on October 20th. You should go ahead and preorder it now, because trust me, everyone is going to be talking about it by year’s end. A ruthless and relentless thriller. Happy Hour is Gemma Amor at the top of her game. As a reader, it left me shattered in all the best ways. What i love about Gemma’s writing is that (much like Sarah Pinborough a few decades before her) there are two layers to everything she writes. The surface layer is either (depending on what she’s writing) big, slick, pulpy fun (as in the case of this book) or exquisite, polished thrills (as in the case of some of her more mainstream works). But beneath these there is a second layer — a razor sharp ability to cut right down to the core of the human condition. Gemma is one of the best of her generation at pulling the heartstrings and telling the truth in her portrayal of human emotions and motivations — of creating empathy between the characters and the reader. And since it has always been my contention that horror fiction doesn’t work unless there is some level of empathy between those two factors… Gemma is absolutely one of the best at evoking it. Her work has become a Must Read for me, meaning that when I recieve a new book or a new manuscript from her, everything else gets put to the side until i’ve read it. There are very few other authors who hold this distinction for me: Joe R. Lansdale, Brian Hodge, Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Stephen Kozeniewski, and a handful of others. Gemma has absolutely elbowed her way into that pantheon.
As for Happy Hour itself… the less said about plot specifics the better. But it is set in a high-end, high society nightclub and populated by an assortment of utterly irredeemable patreons, each one more problematic than the previous. It is not Extreme Horror, but I’ll argue that it is absolutely Splatterpunk. And like the best Splatterpunk, there’s a socio-political core at the book’s center. Gemma holds up a mirror to scoeity, and the reflection is dirty, gritty, and ugly.
Happy Hour is available for preorder in paperback and eBook from Shortwave.
