Our Artificial Intelligence
& Environmental Policy
At Pallina Press, we do not use generative artificial intelligence or large language models in any aspect of our work.
These so-called tools may seem like a heady balm. Isn’t it so pleasant to ask something a question and it spits an answer right back? Isn’t it a relief to plug a few keywords of a poem into a—.
Artificial intelligence – the very misnomer of it we abbreviate so it’s unburdened of its core truth: it is artificial intelligence – is a slow tranquiliser. Most will never feel the encroachment of technocrats until we have atrophied away our last good neuron. Our very human dignity is not guaranteed, nor is kept by any reliable law or system, but revealed time and again to be something forever encroached upon. We must fight, protest, and boycott wherever we can make our stand. We must safeguard our minds, our hearts, our art, our planet – not one of these things can stand to bear our capitulation and remain whole. We see evidence of this daily.
At Pallina Press, all art, covers, and design elements are created by the Editor, Suna Afshan. They are often drawn first by hand and then digitally scanned. Many vintage images are sourced from books and libraries, again scanned and painstakingly restored and vectorised. Some illustration packs have been purchased from graphic designers who are similarly ethically aligned.
Documents are drafted, formatted, proofed, over long hours stolen from the asks of ordinary life. All manuscripts will be edited in-house, bound and printed by the Editor at home. With these tools now embedded into word processing platforms (e.g. Copilot in Microsoft), it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid large language models – Suna does not have them installed at all. Minor grammar and punctuation suggestions through Microsoft Word’s internal spelling or grammar check may, of course, be accepted. Any change to content or style is performed by a human hand.
Naturally, we firmly believe in protecting the copyright of writers and artists. Copyright allows for expression free from fear of intellectual theft. Copyright is essential and must be protected to maintain its integrity, here in the UK and beyond. Using work without permission, licence, or contractual obligations to train generative artificial intelligence and large language models is theft. It speaks to the lack of consent core to the psyche of these people who, again, attack our dignity and humanness without appropriate consequence.
Furthermore, the environmental impacts of data centres on our world’s limited and dwindling resources – the water required to cool electrical equipment, waste created by data centres, the wholesale obscene methods used to mine the very materials needed – aren’t in aligned with the values of our little Press.
Pallina is the name of a village between Kallar Syedan (Punjab) and New Mirpur City (Azad Kashmir). Pakistan is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations on earth. Rising temperatures have caused glacial melt in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and the Karakoram ranges; devastating floods have washed away entire villages like Pallina. Trees are the first line of defence in regions like this that are at risk of landslides and flooding.
At Pallina Press, we aim to minimise our harm on the earth. Daily, we are investigating all the ways we can reduce and offset our carbon impact. To start, we commit to the following:
Our books will be made of 100% recycled and/or responsibly sourced materials wherever possible;
We will be recycling all our waste, including ink;
And for each book we publish, we will facilitate the planting of 5 trees in Pakistan.
Pallina Press was founded to support a robust, free, accessible, and vibrant literary ecosystem. Our thoughts and commitments outlined above recognise that life itself has an inherent carbon impact, and it’s not something we can escape; running a tiny business only expands that impact. However, by ruling out generative artificial intelligence and large language models, we can at least rule out that harm, venturing to remain unencumbered by its intellectual, creative, and moral consequences.
Finally, for the avoidance of doubt, Pallina Press does not accept or publish poetry generated or edited by large language models. These are imitations of poems and not considered to be in the scope of anything we would consider viable for print.
Thank you.
