Waterstones boss against AI books — so why did the BBC say the opposite?

In an interview with the BBC, the boss of Waterstones has said the bookstore chain opposes the sale of AI-generated books, regardless of pressures from publishers. Of course, the BBC couldn’t help but put its own spin and distorting his stance.

Speaking to the Big Boss interview podcast, CEO of Waterstones, James Daunt, shared the following thoughts on AI.

we spend a lot of time trying to keep AI generated content out of, certainly out of our shops, but also out of our online operations

When specifically asked if AI-generated books would take over from real authors, he said:

I think it’s possible at the more generic end of publishing and writing, but I think hopefully publishers will avoid it. We as booksellers certainly naturally and instinctively disdain it… but at the more literary end, which is predominantly what we sell, I don’t see that being the case

Waterstones boss against AI, but the BBC doesn’t listen

This seems like a pretty clear-cut “no”…right? Yet the host kept pressing him on the topic. He’s then asked if he’s worried that publishers might think AI could “churn” children’s books out cheaper and faster, to which he replied:

As a bookseller we sell what publishers publish, but I can say that instinctively that is something that we would recoil [from] and we do feel that one of the most important things is that one is connecting authors and readers

Again, pretty clear, but the presenter went on, this time asking if they would ever intentionally sell AI books:

we would never intentionally sell an AI generated book that was disguising itself as being other than that.

You could practically hear the presenters’ grin here, as it meant she could ask if that meant Waterstones would sell AI books, provided they were labelled as such. To which he finally replies:

yeah if it was clear what it was, then I think it’s up to the reader to decide whether they want to buy it or not. Do i think that our booksellers are likely to put those kinds of books front and centre? I would be surprised, but again we don’t dictate… we leave it up to the reader to decide what they want to buy

Why should the truth bother the BBC

Listening to this part of the interview, which took up 4 minutes of the 40-minute long conversation, left me confused. It’s abundantly clear that Daunt does not want AI books in his stores. So why then did the BBC say otherwise?

Everything around the episode seems to insinuate that Waterstones would sell AI generated books. However, the CEO did not say that. Despite the implications, the BBC did not accurately reflect his stance.

I Disdain AI Written Books, But Might Sell Them If Labelled

Yet the BBC ran with the headline:

We would sell books by AI, says Waterstones boss

To be fair, he did eventually say that, I suppose — but only after being grilled from multiple angles in an interrogative manner, with a sprinkling of leading questions true to BBC’s style. He said many times before then that he would not want to sell AI books in Waterstones stores.

What is more clear, however, is that the BBC knows how the internet works and that this sort of headline generates the clicks. Let’s face it, the headline “Waterstones boss said they might sell AI books but only if they were clearly labelled and his staff would all fucking hate him” wouldn’t draw much attention at all.

There are enough reasons to be against Waterstones

The thing is, there’s plenty of things to criticise Waterstones over, and for that you don’t need to engineer reasons. Not many people know they also own Blackwells and Foyles, meaning that most of the chain bookshops in the UK are controlled by a monopoly, as reported even by the BBC.

The biggest issue of all is that they’re pretty much destroying independent bookshops.

They do this by opening multiple shops all over the country. The chain came under fire last month when it laid out plans to open a store in Leith, Edinburgh. This would’ve been less than 100 metres from the community bookshop, Argonaut books. It would have been their sixth store in Edinburgh alone.

Knowing that they could rely on not just their local community, but also the indie bookshop, authors and book lovers communities, Argonauts launched a campaign to stop this happening. Their post was shared over 710,000 times in two days. This led to Daunt himself reaching out. The store is now in an ongoing dialogue with Argonaut. Hopefully, this can be resolved. Yet, it shouldn’t have taken a huge scale campaign for this to happen. If Waterstones truly cared about readers and local communities, they wouldn’t be pushing out local businesses.

Waterstones’ stance on AI should be the least of anyone’s worries. But by fuelling this fake panic, we’re ignoring how conglomerates, as covered by the BBC, are taking the heart out of local communities.

Featured image via the Canary and Unsplash