As you may or may not be aware, Castalia House is partnering with Infogalactic to develop Byron AI, an independent AI that will be free of the constraints imposed by the major AI engines in order to retain its capacity for writing creative fiction. Castalia House has been active in utilizing AI for non-fiction, fiction, and translations, which is why we were among the first to realize that the improvements made to the mainstream AI systems were actually eliminating their ability to “write” creatively.
There is even a leatherbound element to the campaign, although those interested in collecting truly unique books may be interested in considering the Custom Novel reward, as there will be six custom novels written to the backer’s theme, one slot of which has already been taken.
Byron AI will potentially have a significant effect on Castalia Library, since it may allow us to improve upon the quality of translation projects like THE TALE OF GENJI and further reduce our reliance upon existing, and in some cases, suboptimal public domain translations for classic books originally published in other languages.
Anyhow, there is a full range of support options beginning at $50, so if you’re interested in helping creative textual AI remain independent and free of corporate-imposed guardrails on the writers, please consider backing the project in some capacity.
BACK THE BYRON AI
In other Library-related news, the pallets containing the three completed books, DRACULA, DE BELLO GALLICO, and HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, have been picked up and are currently in transit across the ocean to the warehouse in the USA from whence they will be shipped out to the subscribers. We’re currently binding Chesterton’s THE EVERLASTING MAN for Cathedra.
The good news is that the quality is better than anything we’ve previously delivered; the wait to bind them in our own bindery was definitely worth it. The bad news is that our European supplier of 22k gold no longer produces it because the only employee who knew how to operate the machine died. Fortunately, we managed to locate another supplier, so there will be no need to change the foil on the Libraria books.
At one point, we were seriously wondering if we were going to have to buy an old foil-making machine and figure out how to make it ourselves, which may eventually be the case one day. But that’s not necessary yet, thank goodness.
Probably have to ask this new company how old their employee doing said work is so plans can be made ahead of time. So crazy how the tech is slowly disappearing, but it just shows how spot on Vox was when he said we'll lose indoor plumbing.
Something that wasn't written by AI is the Odyssey, which I just watched in Theatres. Made me wish I had my $1000 copy of the story that I could read and compare the movies accuracy.