Our editorial method
Between AI and the book, there is an author
Our sources are public. You can consult them, check them and try the experiment yourself.
Copy the sources of one of our books into an artificial intelligence and ask it: “Write me this book.”
You will discover something quite simple: sources plus an AI do not make a book.
An artificial intelligence can summarise, compare, search, rephrase, suggest, criticise and sometimes surprise. That is precisely why we use it.
But it does not decide, in our place, what deserves to be told. It does not spontaneously choose the right angle, the structure, the rhythm, the examples, the silences, what to explore in depth or what to leave out. It does not spend weeks reworking a chapter because it is technically correct but humanly poor.
Between what AI produces and the book you hold in your hands lies the essential part: the author’s work.
Try another experiment
Ask your favourite AI to write a thoroughly documented work on the sex life of foraging bees at the North Pole.
It will probably try. It may even be remarkably convincing for a few paragraphs.
The small problem is that foraging bees are female workers that normally do not reproduce, and that honeybees do not naturally live at the North Pole.
You will thus have discovered another reason why we do not confuse producing text with writing a book.
AI acknowledged, human responsibility
At Éditions Le troisième interlocuteur, artificial intelligence is neither hidden nor a source of shame. It is part of our working method.
- It researches.
- It cross-checks.
- It questions.
- It criticises.
- It helps us spot our mistakes and blind spots.
But someone still has to choose the questions, check the answers, settle the contradictions, build the reasoning and take responsibility for every sentence published.
The human writes. AI illuminates.
And if you doubt it, that is perfect. The sources are there: try the experiment.
