BOA Podcast 33—Ai and the Future of Books

Publisher Peter Goodman and author/translator Frederik Schodt talk about artificial intelligence as it relates to writing and publishing books.

Schodt’s book Astroboy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution was recently listed as one of the books used to train generative AI. Peter Goodman is publisher of Stone Bridge Press (our podcast sponsor), and released Schodt’s Astroboy Essays in 2007. Both of these guests are going to give us their views on AI, the use of published books to train artificial intelligence, the issues of copyright, fair use and plagiarism, and what the AI industry should be doing to move forward and make the advancements beneficial for everyone involved.

If you’re an author and would like to find out if your book was one of 183,000 used to train AI, see this article in The Atlantic:

Link to The Atlantic — The search engine The Atlantic devised to use to see if particular titles were used to train generative AI.

Frederick Schodt is author/translator of The Osamu Tezuka Story (Stone Bridge Press, 2016), Manga, Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha, 2013) The Astro Boy Essays (Stone Bridge Press, 2007) and My Heart Sutra: The World in 260 Characters (Stone Bridge Press, 2020, read our review), Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe: How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan and Japan to the West (Stone Bridge Press, 2012) and Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2013).

(Note: Since this podcast recording, Frederik Schodt has been inducted into the Manga Publishing Hall of Fame)

You can find Schodt on his Website, on Twitter(X) @fschodt and on Facebook

You can listen to our podcast with Schodt, where he talks about Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe and Native American in the Land of the Shogun, at BOA Podcast 32: Frederik Schodt and Historical Non-Fiction on Japan.

The Books on Asia Podcast is sponsored by Stone Bridge Press. Check out their books on Japan at the publisher’s website.

Amy Chavez, podcast host, is author of Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2018) and The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island (Tuttle Publishing, 2022)

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