It should be noted that these stories were 1000 word stories, with each one taking 5 minutes to read on average.
It could still be quite some time before they're writing entire songs and books, though.
No one buys 1000 word stories, or listens to 12 second songs on Spotify, so for the time being it's not really any cause for concern.
If Facebook has demonstrated anything it's that people have preferred AI memes for a while already.
People "prefer" lower quality art all the time - look at what's big on the radio and in theaters, what's popular on TV, etc.
Why should I be concerned if AI is making trash art instead of humans?
I loved Britney Spears when I was 9. Is the world really worse off if I'm listening to an AI version or Toxic or the Britney Original?
I can see why people would be scared if AI was pumping out Purple Rains and Superstitions on the regular, if it was writing a Secret History every hour, but it's not, nowhere even close.
This just seems like people being grumpy that people prefer Marvel movies over what they think are good movies.
Human artists have been pawning off derivative trash as art for a very very long time, and people have been consuming it and loving it. I'm not going to lose sleep if in 10 years AI is pumping out the derivative trash personalized to the exact level of trashiness desired by the consumer.
We didn't stop playing chess when Deep Blue beat Kasparov. We don't stop swimming because boats are faster. We don't stop running, even though we can't outrun a car.
Humans do these things because they are gratifying to do. It is satisfying to train for and then run a marathon. It's fun (and rewarding!) to challenge yourself to pull the image out of your mind and place it on a canvas, an invitation to the inside of mind.
I don't care if The Beatles are considered a better band; my bandmates and I simply like making music together. It's fun.
A huge limitation of the study IMO.
Most people who read are not reading 1000 word short stories. If they could replicate this story using novella length stories (25-40k words), I'd be curious to see the results. I would wager that a much larger % of people would prefer long form content from humans.