AI has been in the news a lot lately. It is the source of much controversy. Even those who helped create it are now warning against it. Yet, many will aggressively defend it.
Who is correct? Personally, I feel that the people who know the most about AI, such as those directly involved in its creation, would be the people to whom we should give the most credence. Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered the godfather of AI, is one who speaks out about the danger of AI. He even calls it an existential threat. Read here. However, let’s get to something a bit more pinpointed than the general argument of “Is AI bad?” I want to discuss AI and creativity.
There have been discussions about relatively new developments in the creative word concerning AI. There has been news of a book created by Ammaar Reshi, who had an idea and the AI helped complete the book. The illustrations are completely AI. Reshi didn’t choose to create the illustrations himself, nor did he use the skills of a human illustrator. Clearly, this saved him money, and this can be a helpful choice for anyone who simply wants to create a book for themselves and/or family/friends.
Now, for the flip side that caused so much agitation in the writing and illustrating world; what about those who are planning on selling their AI created book as Reshi did, and continues to do. For more reading, I have two links; one here and one here.
Note that Reshi is cited as saying, “I think there’s real concern and I actually do hear out those artists. It’s really important that the tech industry that’s working on these tools involves them in the process of creation.” It is also mentioned that he responded by “calling on the creators of the AI tools at OpenAI and Midjourney to ensure protections for artists and authors whose work may be used in artificial intelligence algorithms.” Yet, the book is still for sale on Amazon. Is he still profiting from this?
It is also stated, “He plans to donate additional copies to his local library.” What is the follow-up on this? Did he donate books? There is another, more important question. Does his donating the book make the situation better? The last information I can find is dated in February 2023. If anyone knows any follow up on this situation, please share with me and my readers.
If AI can create illustrations, human illustrators are out of a job. If AI can help someone write a book when all they have is an idea, then where does that place us authors who come up with our ideas put them together with scenes, plot, characters, and must write it out from start to finish with, preferably, good sentence structure and grammar, as well as flow?
If people, who don’t care to put time and effort into learning the skills of illustration and writing, can create a book (or any creative art) in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost, then human creativity and artistic skill becomes obsolete. How can those who put time and effort into human-created art hope to make a living? It gives new meaning to the concept of a starving artist. Check out my post, Netflix: Starving the Artist.
Now, am I saying that AI is all bad? I really don’t know all the ramifications. I use a grammar check on a regular basis to help me make sure I didn’t miss anything in my self-editing. Is my preferred grammar check AI? I suppose it’s possible. Am I letting the computer take the job of a professional editor? I’m not sure. What I did with my children’s book ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ was to not only send it through a grammar check that comes standard with word processors such as WordPerfect or MS Word plus, one online, (which I link to in my post “5 Reasons I Love Being a Self-Published Author”), I also had several other people read over it, some of whom I knew to be good with grammar and punctuation.
Is this whole AI question more a discussion of degrees, something about the general term AI vs. generative AI? It sounds like a good thing for computers/machines to take on the grunt jobs, leaving humans more time for creative and personally fulfilling pursuits. There are utopian stories about such concepts. However, this does not seem to be the trend our world has followed.
Instead of machines taking the hard workload and freeing up precious time for humanity, what has happened is the removal of jobs from the human species. These companies that give the jobs to the machines for cost efficiency, do not lower the cost of their services and products, in fact, the opposite is true. The result is a higher cost of living and fewer jobs to go around. With this extra ‘free time’ comes poverty. Creativity is difficult to pursue when you have to fight to have your basic needs met. There is also the consideration that many creative outlets require supplies, which in turn cost money. To top it off, now we have AI starting to take the creative work from humans as well.
I’m sure each of my readers has an opinion on this subject. Feel free to leave a comment below. Is AI leading us to Utopia or Dystopia? There have been many novels, short stories, movies, and TV shows written on both sides. Do any of my readers see a middle ground?
There is another concept to consider about AI taking on these artistic roles like writing and illustration. When AI crates an illustration or work of writing, it finds other works of art to take parts from. There was a news article about content written by AI and the content was the same content from another site only reworded. The same is true about AI generated illustrations. This has many creatives angry and worried because the AI is essentially stealing their creations. Below are the links to two sources for you.
https://nofilmschool.com/zoom-artificial-intelligence
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66200334
What can we do about AI taking away our creative joy as well as our jobs? Is there a way to stop this creative theft? Is there a way to reach the Utopia and avoid Dystopia, or is AI a ticking time bomb set for the subservience or destruction of the human species? Feel free to leave comments, but as you do, please remember to keep discussions clean and respectful. The comments on my site are for opening communications, not for building walls of hostility. I will delete hateful, demeaning, or vicious comments and replies.
So, while the AI drama unfolds, let us make use of our creativity, spread ideas, create hope, and remember to enjoy the wonder.
P.S. as NaNoWriMo approaches, I would like to propose a challenge. Make your NaNoWriMo writing revolve around AI. How do you see this whole thing playing out? Is it utopia, dystopia, or somewhere in between?
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