I hope we will resist the temptation to rely heavily on AI-generated content and instead continue to advocate for nuance and authentic human expression in the arts.
My experience with AI is limited, but like most of us, my interactions with it grow daily.
Like many writers, I have a love-hate relationship with it. I appreciate that it condenses knowledge into easily accessible bits, available to each of us who has a supercomputer in the palm of our hands. Who wouldn't like that?
I dislike that it learns from my writing and consumes it. My sentences and thoughts, even these humble initial ones, will be part of its digital brain bank. In a minute, I will push the publish button, and then, within seconds, my thoughts, words, and sentences will be consumed, processed, and they will belong to something artificial and intelligent.
I ran a test
I admit, upfront, that my interaction with the writing programs was bare-bones and basic, driven by curiosity and viewed through a lens of skepticism. That said, I did my best to keep an open mind and silence critical voices that have called AI enemy of creativity, a copyright thief, and a present and future threat to the world of books, films, and signals, perhaps, the dramatic reduction of the creative class—those who make their living in the fine arts.
Here's what I did: I took a collaborative approach, thinking of AI as a coauthor, producing several different scenes. I craft good prompts and questions and set clear parameters. We know from experience that our writing reflects clear thinking, and clear thinking is fundamental to the process; that's where most of the work happens—much like painting a house, most of the work is in the preparation. I started by determining the motives, genre, mood, and length of the first draft. I had to define the central question to be answered within the scene: Does the character know she is being followed? What was set and stated?
In the end, the bot made the scenes scarier than I had imagined. It added factual details, such as the weather conditions in which the scene took place, accurately incorporating the number of steps inside the building (The Astor Column) within the given parameters.
Was it usable?
Not much of it.
AI produced several pages of clichés, strange tropes, and sentences that lacked the normal rhythm and cadence found in good work. Dare I say, it sounded robotic to me?
Was it a waste of time?
No, I used the weather information, the number of stairs inside the building, and one or two other facts that I would have found, but it would have taken me much more time.
The above issues will be resolved; AI will consume more original writing that, at this very moment, is being produced by more creative and innovative humans. It will likely master nuance and learn to generate good questions, with suitable parameters. There is little doubt that it will be used in film and writing, held back or limited only by hard-fought battles waged by the Writers Guild of America and the Authors Guild of America, among others.
I conclude that AI has social implications, as explored within the scope of books and films. AI is seductive because it caters to our inner sloth, allowing us to follow the path of least resistance. Yawn.
We are no longer on a slippery slope when it comes to bots and the written word. We are floating on a river moving toward the deepest resting place, before settling (read: dying) there. Our laziness, coupled with their speed and ease, may be the downfall of the creative classes.