Musings Concerning AI
Hello, my lovelies! I did promise you some thoughts (and a few rants, of which this might be considered one, heh), so let’s dive in!
-----
Are you sick of hearing about AI?
Yeah, me too.
But later this month at Norwescon (https://norwescon.org), I’m going to be on a panel concerning AI.
(If you’re in Seattle the 28-31 March, check out Norwescon—it’s an amazing SFF convention. And come find me at a panel (schedule to be posted soon as I know it) or at the Forest Path Books table in the dealers’ room!)
So, about this panel. I’m trying to wrap my head around some thoughts so I can hopefully speak with some clarity—and I thought I’d share some with ya’ll as I try to sort it out.
(Just as a starting point, I call it Artificial Inanity, not Intelligence. So there.)
My starting point is somewhat different from the other panellists. I’m not some tech guru, though I’m fairly deedy with what tech I do use on a regular basis. I’m no legal expert, though I can understand the jargon (most times) and keep up with legalities in my sphere of operations. I’m no expert on AI.
But I have been a victim of the AI companies. My work has been scraped from the internet—without my permission—and used by unscrupulous companies to train their systems. I’m part of the lawsuit the Author’s Guild is assisting against those companies.
Yeah, I’m pissed. Despite what some morons on the internet seem to think, creatives do have a right to earn from their creations. It would be nice if it were otherwise, but like it or not, we live in a capitalistic society, where cash is king and we need that cash to survive. Or try to survive.
Now, I’m not some Luddite. (Well, there are days…) I benefit from technology daily. I also understand AI can be—and already has been—an amazing tool for science and medicine.
Unfortunately, as a creative, it looms over my present and future like an alien mothership—and more like the ones from War of the Worlds than any friendly Close Encounter.
To risk sounding like that old dude who doesn’t want kiddos on his lawn, when AI started creeping over the horizon, I confess to waving a grumpy-ass cane at it. Only ‘grumpy’ wasn’t quite what I was feeling. Dread, more like. I knew creatives were the first ones who’d be targeted for replacement. We’re "expendable", according to the bean counters—and this sort of technology means we're even moreso.
I mean, look at the SAG/AFTRA strike. All about corporations replacing creatives without their permission. Or paying them nothing for good work.
Does all of this sound overwrought? Maybe it does. But consider this before you judge:
It’s a helluva lot faster—and cheaper, let’s not forget that—for publishing houses to crank out their established formulas sans some pesky writer. It’s so much cheaper to grind out a cover composed of keywords and stolen art than actually pay an artist. It’s quite entertaining for people to put in a series of key words and—Presto!—they too can commit “art” or “writing”.
(Yes, those are very intentional quotes.)
See, we’ve all played with this new toy. I’ve tried the editing programs—
(And dumped them because they either don’t have a clue about grammar, or they try to wipe every bit of style from the prose. Writers, don’t use these. Please. You’re giving them text—and if you’re actually taking their corrections seriously, you’re also abandoning your unique writing voice.)
—and I've tried the 'character portrait' sites. (The pic on this email has definitely been played with in a manipulation program... though those aren't quite in the same league as AI.)
It’s easy, right? It’s fun!
Sure, it’s easy—easier to scrape words and images from the internet, use them to train your AI system, and get paid big bucks for releasing this Marvelous New Technology. It’s fun to pretend you’re an artist or writer without having to do the work or having any modicum of innate talent.
(Talent does exist, by the way. Those who tell you otherwise are selling something.)
It’s always cool to get something for nothing, right?
The fact that all this was made possible by scraping—stealing—those images and words without recompensing the original creators?
Oh, the internet says, get over it, writers and artists are overpaid as it is! Right?
Wrong.
A very tiny percentage belong to the ‘billionaire upper class’ of creatives—they got lucky, nothing more or less—while the creative majority can’t even make a living from their art.
We're "expendable", remember. Meanwhile, art is being devalued more and more.
While I don't believe that AI will ever replace the absolute diversity of expression that human creatives can express, it does seem inevitable that AI will replace more formulaic creations… hell, the Romance Writers of America already tried to fly a workshop on “writing” romance novels with AI! (They did take it down… showing a surprising perspicacity. RWA as an organization has for some time been a model of tone deaf-ness.)
It all sounds bleak, doesn't it? Like the situation with our environment—another can that the ones in power keep kicking down the road. But people can do things. People can think about consequences and cost--and AI definitely has a cost. Those who refuse to think about consequences, those who (mistakenly) insist that art should be for free, and those who crave formula-as-a-steady-diet? Well, they likely won’t care—for a while, anyway. It's the ones who enjoy emotive human art and complex human storytelling will end up paying it much sooner.
And creatives? We’re paying it now.
----
I ask all of ya'll: what is writing without the writing?
Maybe it's because so many people have "always wanted to be a writer”. Or, "I've a story in me!" Congrats, you, I've got so many stories in my head that I'll die before I get them all told. Or, "I've always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't have the time." To which I answer in my best Snarky Kate Hepburn: "Well, darlin', I've always wanted to be a brain surgeon, but I've just never managed to find the time." (Or the money for college, or the math grades... but I digress.)
See, "being a writer" isn't the point. It's about writing. I never "wanted to be a writer"; I’ve always written.
As to using AI to do the writing? The work?
Why would I? Why would anyone? The work is the point.
It's not about profiting from someone else’s effort, or pretending to some perceived 'status'. It's not about letting laziness win and skipping through hard patches. And it's certainly not about letting some Robot Overlord straight from WALL-E to do that work. I write, and I'm human. I’m glad I’m human, glad that my writing is work—hard, messy, involved, human effort. I want immersion, not only for readers but myself. I want to be challenged, both brain and heart, and not petulantly demand a safe predictability in everything that comes my way.
AI is predictable. Humans are not… or we’re not when we’re at our best.
So. How to thrive as a human when originality and creativity are discouraged?
Well, that’s a topic for another time.
But please, let me know your thoughts on this topic, eh? And thanks for helping me to get mine in order.
Peace,
Talu