Making the case for humans
I don’t have any interest in ChatGPT’s parasitic poetry
Hello GFPs!
Just a quick little missive to share the lovely news that I have been announced as the winner of the inaugural Unwin Award. This award is a little different to most literary awards, because it isn’t focused on the merits of a specific book; rather it recognises the work of authors in the early stages of their careers (I think the limit is three published books), “whose work is considered to have made a contribution to the world.” The overall focus of the award is the power of books in general, and UK publishing in particular, in effecting change.
And so what that means is that this award isn’t just about me and the book(s) I’ve written (everyone forgets about my poor first book — including me a lot of the time to be fair). It’s about all of you too — because without everything my readers have done in response to reading my work, it wouldn’t have been recognised. So, alongside the judges and my publishers, a huge thank you is due to all of you too. Thank you for reading, thank you for speaking, thank you for acting.
At the ceremony on Tuesday I was asked to say a few words, and I thought I’d share them with you here, because as well as expressing gratitude to my readers, I also wanted to use the opportunity to issue a warning — and it’s one that I want to record here too.
We are living in inhuman times — and I’m not just talking about the rise of far-right populism. I’m talking — and I gave this speech in the wake of the latest revelations about yet another billion dollar company stealing our (my!) work — about Big Tech and the soulless, mechanistic future its leaders are busy building for us all. A future in which they extract ever greater profits — and leave the rest of us ever poorer, not just in our wallets, but in our souls.
Because this award is focused on publishing, and because I am a writer, the warning I delivered was largely focused on my industry and its crucial role in combating the realisation of that impoverished future; but the message applies to all of us, because this is everyone’s responsibility. It’s YOUR responsibility. The decisions you make today — the media you consume, the books you buy, the artificial intelligence you engage with, the companies you give your money to — these are all the building blocks of the future.
So when we make those decisions, we should ask ourselves what we want that future to look like. We should ask ourselves what it is that we truly value. And we should make our choices accordingly.
Thank you so much for this, I’m truly honoured and delighted to receive this award that recognises the power of books and publishing to make changes in the world — because that is why I write.
I wrote Invisible Women because I wanted people to see the world as I saw it.
I wanted people to see, and to acknowledge this pervasive, systemic bias that we all share, where we treat men as if they are universal, neutral, standard human beings, and women as an atypical, niche deviation from that universal standard.
I wanted people to recognise the damage that this bias has done — and I wanted them to be inspired to make a difference.
I wrote this book because I wanted things to change.
And I have been so honoured and delighted that so many people have answered that call.
Readers have set up non-profits. They have made art — installations, plays, ballets — and about a million TikTok videos. They have changed their scientific approach — sometimes they have changed their entire career.
They have challenged their employers for better workplaces, they have challenged their doctors for better treatment, they have challenged politicians for better representation.
The response has been beyond anything I could have hoped for — and yet there is still so much work to do.
Every day I see evidence — in academic papers, in media stories, and in government policy — that we still treat men as the default human beings — and women as aberrations.
On top of this, we are living through a period of intense backlash, led by some of the most powerful men in the world. You could argue that the default male is becoming the official policy of the United States government.
In such a climate, the idea of making a positive change in the world can feel overwhelming, maybe even futile — but then again whoever said changing the world would be easy?
And this work is more crucial than ever.
While populists are doing their best to make our world smaller and meaner, writers today are also under assault by Big Tech.
Our work is being stolen, used to train robots that the New Sillicon Valley Barons hope will eventually replace us. The British government is currently proposing a change to copyright law that will make this theft even easier.
Not only as a writer, but as a reader, I hope with every fibre of my being that they fail.
I don’t want to read the derivative thoughts of Meta’s AI; I don’t have any interest in ChatGPT’s parasitic poetry; I don’t care what Grok thinks.
I don’t find a robot trained on stolen work exciting — and no matter how sophisticated these large language models get, I will never be interested, because ultimately, I don’t care what machines think.
I care what humans think. I care what humans feel. I care about their words, and their thoughts, and their minds.
I find them inspiring. They make me think, they make me feel.
They challenge me. They change my mind.
I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t get to have my humanity touched by theirs.
And so I want to say a word about the people who make this human endeavour possible.
The editors, the marketers, the agents, the publicists, everyone who enables writers to do the work that we do. Without them there would be no publishing industry - and I am so lucky to have such a passionate and talented team around me who believe in me and support me to do the work that I do - and so as well as thanking the judges I thank them too: everyone at Chatto and Vintage and of course my brilliant agent Tracy Bohan at Wylie, without whom none of this would ever have happened.
These are the people who choose and shape and fight for the books that we all eventually read and love, and just as much as human writers, they cannot be replaced by an algorithm because their power is in their humanity too.
An algorithm would never have chosen to publish Invisible Women. An algorithm would never have chosen to represent me, edit me, market me, or sell my work, because when I first submitted my proposal nobody could have predicted the effect this book would have — you certainly wouldn’t have predicted it from the sales of my first book. It was humans who decided to take that chance. It was humans who decided that what I had to say was important, and who let me tell a story that they believed needed telling.
And so tonight, while we celebrate the power of books and the power of publishing to change the world, let’s also remember that it’s the humans at the heart of this industry that drive that change.
I hope we will be strong enough and fight hard enough to preserve that power.
My dear GFPs, let’s make the choices today that will preserve our humanity tomorrow. I know you will.
Love,
Your fellow human, Caroline xx
Congratulations, your book has literally changed the world, and changed perceptions of it 🎉🎉
Thank you Caroline. I quote you, I recommend you, I think you’re the writer who helped me believe that my feminism still had merit and meaning.
Congratulations on your well deserved win.