This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** The publishing industry may have an AI slop problem, and readers are not OK. Book fans reacted with horror when Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt said during an interview last month that as long as the “author” discloses that the book is AI-generated, it can be stocked on store shelves. “I have actually no problem selling any book, as long as it doesn’t masquerade or pretend to be something that it isn’t, and that it has an essential quality to it, and that the customer, the reader, wants it,” Daunt said during a “Today” show interview. “So as long as an AI-written book says it’s an AI-written book and doesn’t pretend to be something else and isn’t ripping off somebody else, as long as that’s clearly stated and the customer wants to buy it, then we will stock them,” he added. This led to more than a few meltdowns online, with diehard readers pushing back against the relentless wave of AI in the publishing world. All hope is not lost, however, as at least one publishing veteran said Daunt is wrong about one essential fact. In his experience, customers are moving away from AI and embracing human content instead. Keith Riegert, president of The Stable Book Group and CEO of Ulysses Press and VeloPress Books, has been watching the AI wars play out in real time. And while the Barnes & Noble CEO’s recent comments about AI book selling sent shockwaves through literary circles and beyond, Riegert wasn’t surprised. “I think that it makes sense. I think it is really disappointing, but it is the direction that everything is going,” he told The Daily Wire in an exclusive interview. “It is a very clear signal — and should be a clear signal to every industry — that this is a monumental threat to the way that people make a living and to just about every white-collar job.” Riegert knows the industry well. His parents founded Ulysses Press in 1983, launching with “Hidden Hawaii” and going on to create one of the pioneering adventure travel imprints of its era. When the internet essentially killed off travel books in the early 2000s, the company pivoted to data-driven publishing. The Stable Book Group now encompasses four publishing companies and a distribution operation.  During our conversation, Riegert said he thinks it’s worth paying attention to who’s pushing back on AI and what they’re saying. He said he keeps his finger on the pulse by regularly interacting with Gen Z. When he surveys his students in NYU’s publishing master’s program on AI use, the results catch him off guard. Only about a third report using AI on a daily basis. The other two-thirds say they actively refuse to use it. “This is a digital native generation that has grown up with iPads and cell phones and computers, and they are actively rebelling against a lot of that,” he said. This pushback goes beyond the classroom. Riegert said he sees the same hunger for authenticity showing up in consumer behavior across the board. He mentioned the recent popularity of vinyl records as evidence that analog objects are making a comeback. “A book or a vinyl record is now a luxury object because it is a symbol that you have the time to not be on a screen,” he said. One of his students recently told him that he brings a book to bars because scrolling his phone makes him feel “like an idiot,” but sitting with a novel is more likely to spark meaningful conversation, plus it makes him seem “approachable and cool.” Riegert said this is representative of how many of his students think and act in the world, which includes how they’re choosing to spend their money. However, it’s not all retro sunshine and analog roses. The AI revolution is definitely real, and it’s affecting the publishing industry in a big way despite some very vocal critics. The publishing exec said that AI is to nonfiction what cheap knockoffs are to Amazon, but at a massive scale. “There are plenty of books that are doing very well in nonfiction categories, especially, and now in fiction, that have fake authors with AI-generated images, and the books are targeting well-established niches — and they are selling,” Riegert said. “It does not seem like the consumer is put off by the fact that it is AI-generated, and it is going to have a very serious effect on the publishing industry and on human authors.” The numbers bear it out. Publishers Weekly recently reported that the total number of books entering the market jumped by one million titles year over year, a figure Riegert calls “mind-blowing.” Meanwhile, output from established Big Five publishers remained essentially flat. These books are mostly not coming from human beings. They’re coming from AI-generated content saturating the market. But here’s the irony Riegert keeps coming back to: The saturation that AI is creating may be what saves human publishing. He’s already seeing it in his own marketing data. The slick, AI-generated book trailers and polished social content are no longer working as customers react more strongly to grassroots campaigns, or at least ones that feel that way. “The marketing angles that are working for us now are taking us back to the original ways that we would market a book,” he said. “It is a shaky iPhone video of the author talking about their book. It is something that is very authentic. And if the video is too good, it is actually a detriment to the performance.” Consumers are growing skeptical of reviews, rankings, and products that feel fake. Riegert sees it as a key driver behind the ongoing resurgence of Barnes & Noble under James Daunt and the broader indie bookstore revival. A handwritten staff recommendation carries more weight than 10,000 five-star reviews on Amazon because it’s probably not the work of bots. Self-publishing dismantled the publishing industry, removing the barriers that aspiring authors once faced while trying to be heard. Now, those gates are open way too far. Riegert believes the industry is reverting to the way it was, at least partially. “I think that we’re starting to get to this pivot point where the role of the gatekeeper and the critic is going to come back,” he said. “At the end of the day, the most valuable thing that you have — and the thing that all of us media organizations are competing for — is your time. We’re all entertainment companies at the end of the day, and we’re fighting for your time. And if what we’re peddling is not worth your time, then it’s a big problem for us and for you.” Now that AI is being heavily scrutinized, there’s a chance Daunt will not end up stocking the shelves of Barnes & Noble with AI-generated books because the customers won’t want to buy them. We can only hope.