Sure, someone can make AI write a letter with some kind of contraption holding a pen (I think StuffMadeHere did something adjacent to this). But it would likely be more obvious, plus it requires physical actions and a stamp. All things that low-effort AI spammers aren’t going to bother with.
I have an inbox, and I do not receive a lot of scam post. In fact, I don't think I received any since I lived at this address (~10 years ). We do get a few promotional leaflets every other week.
OTOH, I get hundred of spam emails every day.
The former is something which I can handle manually easily, the other is not.
Contact me: letter > envelope > stamp > post box
They're "physical letters but digital," tied to a human identity and with proper proof of receipt.
Heck - I have seen some in the mail from the "sell your house for cash" companies - typically behind the friendly, "homespun" personable facade, it is a REIT (real-estate investment trust) - or something similar...
(Myself, I can tell that these are mass-generated - but I am (at least also at this point in life - who knows when I get much older) easily able to tell a scam email, phone call or txt-type message - I can typically spot the signs - but those signs are typically there to "weed-out" the people that won't fall for the scam anyways...) - but my non-cynical, non-technical, non-paranoid friends and family need assistance spotting these...)
Refreshingly direct and unfiltered, despite Scalzi being a well-established writer.
If you are looking for a refreshingly fun light read to brighten up your day¹, try Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye (2025), in which the moon turns into actual cheese.
1: It includes the horrific death of a Musk/Bezos-like tech-bro with more money and tech than sense. Good fun!
To be clear, if he wanted to accept a book club invite every month or so, that would be quite easy to achieve. I doubt AI is the issue here
'Bluntly, I can spend my days sorting “book club” spam, or I can write books. One pays me money. The other does not. '
erm, doing the actual book club doesn't pay either and is going to take a lot more energy than selecting a genuine invite from the slush pile.
I can completely understand not wanting to deal with the hassle, but pretending it's all about AI is disingenuous in my view.
If this guy wanted to do bookclubs, he absolutely could. It's not beyond the wit of man to efficiently pick out a genuine request from the slush pile
It can definitely replicate a human-written email.
If people are taking the time to generate this kind of AI invite, then it must be a very high value event. Possible, but I suspect there are more mundane reasons for avoiding the admin
a lot of people , including myself, are using AI as an excuse to push thru awkward changes
I know a scapegoat when I see it
I host book clubs and we always have a fantastic time.
Although my writing style/unhinged nature makes it pretty obvious no LLM would ever write like this. Hedonist Philosophers are not exactly what LLMs were trained on.
I host book clubs and we always have a fantastic time.
We also care about it because it's an indicator of the rise of a new societal problem of signal being even further drowned out.