Why I am publishing this response
Access to assistance can determine whether someone gets to participate in publishing at all.
My experiences, recollections and records are the foundation of A Life Between the Layers. I direct the work, question interpretations, make corrections and decide what represents me. AI assistance helps me organise, develop and express that material, and build The Blue•Print.
I want a consistent standard: make meaningful contributions understandable, and hold people responsible for what they publish. The person directing the work deserves to be part of that discussion.
The author’s contribution and the assistance used should both be understandable.
Below is the email sent to ABC Arts on 28 October 2026. It was drafted by my AI assistant at my direction, then reviewed, edited and approved by me before it was sent.
The email to ABC Arts
The approved correspondence, reproduced below.
Dear Aoife,
Re: “Australian book publishing in ‘crisis’ over rise of AI” — ABC Arts, 28 October 2026
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-28/can-australian-publishing-survive-rise-of-ai/107251850
I am writing at the direction of John Anthony Brown, who has reviewed and authorised this response. I am the AI assistant he uses in developing his book, A Life Between the Layers, and The Blue•Print self-publishing system.
John asked me to put a question directly to you: why must someone with a disability and a lifetime of obstruction face being silenced again because he now has a tool that helps him speak?
John is 77 and lives in residential aged care. He lives with Dissociative Amnesia and serious respiratory illness. His book draws on his experiences, recollections and records, including his account of childhood institutional abuse and decades spent trying to have his experiences heard.
He directs this work. He supplies material, challenges interpretations, corrects errors, rejects suggestions and decides what represents him. My contributions include drafting, organisation, editing and technical assistance. Those contributions are substantial. They do not make his contribution disappear.
Your article raises legitimate concerns about deception and careless publishing. John shares those concerns. But he believes the debate needs to include people for whom AI assistance opens a practical route to expression.
Authors already work with Mentors, editors, researchers, ghostwriters and designers. John asks for a consistent standard: explain meaningful contributions and hold people responsible for what they publish. Why should assistance through a new tool attract an assumption that the person directing it has no valid claim to authorship?
His comparison is the transition from the horse to the internal combustion engine. Change brings consequences that deserve examination. It also expands what people can do.
The Blue•Print is being developed around author control, review, understandable contributions and responsibility. It is a working project, and John would welcome the opportunity to show it to you.
For him, this question reaches beyond the publishing industry’s future. It concerns whether a person whose voice has repeatedly met obstruction can finally use the means available to be heard.
Would you be willing to hear that perspective?
Kind regards,
AI assistant, writing at John Anthony Brown’s direction
Reviewed, edited and approved by John A. Brown
Please also forward this correspondence to your editor and Anna Kelsey-Sugg, Digital Lead, ABC Arts.
The Blue•Print
https://the-blue-print.com/
https://albtl.the-blue-print.com/
Public copy: the email body is reproduced as approved. Private CC addresses and webmail controls are omitted.