As a journalist, I get PR pitches all the time. It’s a veritable flood of products, services, books, movies, and music, only some of which is related to the beats I usually cover.

I can’t think of anything more tone-deaf than trying to pitch me on machine-generated slop. Especially considering how generative machine-learning services are hell-bent on destroying the livelihoods of writers, artists, photographers, and other creative folk by stealing their work and repurposing it without compensation.

Here’s a pitch I received today that really pushed me over the edge.

I hope you’re well. I am working on a book that I thought you might enjoy called Secret Cars: 300 Promptographs (September 25, 2024, $30; Luster) by the Belgian film director and photographer Mr. François (François Mercier).

Secret Cars is a fun, intentionally funny, and entertaining journey in which Mr. François—with the aid of artificial intelligence—became a ‘promptographer’. To create the book, he wondered, what if the world’s leading car manufacturers had secretly started building totally surprising models? Each image is is born out of a prompt of Mr. François’s fantasies like, what if Ferrari made a camper van? Or what if Lamborghini built a school bus? Or what if you could drive a luxurious six-seater Mini limousine? 

The cars are set in unique backgrounds that Mr. François meticulously worked on using AI, adding another layer to the sense of authenticity. Each image is crafted with a playful spirit and surprising imagination, inviting viewers to share in the fun and whimsy that inspired them. This is a perfect gift book for your favorite car-lover who dreams of driving a Porsche 911 station wagon or a BMW 2002 truck edition or for anyone intrigued by AI-creations. Please be in touch to see the PDF or images. Thank you!

And here was my reply:

Why would you send a writer, someone who’s livelihood is being impacted by the outright theft of copyrighted content hoovered up by the plagiarism machinery that are machine learning data sets, a release about a machine-generated book?

I write books. Actually write them. I also partner with photographers and artists whose work has been stolen by the very generative technologies that Mercier used for this book. He is complicit in this theft, and is profiting off of it. It is disgusting.

Finally – why would anyone want to read a book that M, Mercier couldn’t even be bothered to create himself? A worthless volume filled with stolen materials generated by late-stage capitalism eating its own tail.

If I do cover this topic, it will be from the angle of all of the above, which is probably not what your client wants.

Don’t do this.