Éditions Le troisième interlocuteur
How a book is made at Éditions Le troisième interlocuteur, step by step: what the author does, what the AI does, and what a human turns down.
We publish books written by humans and prepared with the help of artificial intelligence. This page sets out who does what, and in what order. It takes five minutes to read; the pages that go further are listed at the end.
1. The idea, and who carries it
A book starts with a question an author is asking and cannot yet answer. The subject, the angle and the reason for writing come from the author. The machine does not suggest subjects: it has none of its own.
2. What the machine looks for
Once the subject is settled, the AI is used to explore. It reads fast, compares, summarises, tracks down a source, spots a contradiction, points out what is missing. It works like a quick, tireless researcher — and one that is sometimes confidently wrong. Nothing it reports goes into the book without being checked.
3. What a human turns down
The author keeps, cuts and rewrites. When a phrase suggested by the AI is kept, it is because a human judged it right, not because a machine produced it. The author remains responsible for what they write, what they keep and what they turn down.
4. Where the sources come from
Statements that matter to the reader are attributed. What is established, what is interpretation and what remains open are kept apart — and where doubt remains, the book says so. Bibliographies are published on this site, book by book, and kept separate so that titles are never mixed up.
5. What happens when we get it wrong
An error can be reported through the contact form. It is checked, corrected and then entered in the public log of corrections. We do not promise to be infallible: we promise that an error can be reported, dealt with and made visible.
6. What the book keeps doing after printing
Some books give access to additional resources: bibliographies, prompts, practical tools, documents. These resources change after publication and show the date they were last updated. The printed book does not change — which is why whatever moves is online, and dated.
What this commits us to
This protocol is not a sales pitch. It is what we undertake to uphold, and what we can be held to.
Further reading: Editorial policy · How we use AI · Sources · Corrections
