Behold! The future, for some.
‘Some’ being ‘the lowest tier of competent prose generators,’ which is a harsh thing to say. Then again, I was never going to work for sites like the AV Club in the first place, which is why the news that they’re going full speed ahead on automating clickbait isn’t an intimate horror to me. At some point we might get a legitimately creative AI, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. The aforementioned lowest tier, on the other hand, should start looking for new jobs posthaste.
I’d say more, except that pride goeth before a fall.
I believe it was Roald Dahl (Or maybe Gahan Wilson? It’s been a while) who wrote a story covering this scenario in the early 1950s. Eventually the inventor went around getting best selling authors to lend their names to novels written by his AI and not write again in return for half the royalties. His big breakthrough came when a female romance novelist at the height of her career decided that the AI wrote in her style better than she did.
Eventually it got to the point where writers who weren’t signing were under siege. I can’t remember the name of the short story (And I wish I could) but the horrible last line will stick with me to the end of my days, “Give us the strength, O Lord, to let our children starve!”. Didn’t think I’d see the day where this story had the possibility of seeming prescient but I suppose I should have. 😓
I can understand why the Writers strike is objecting to this, but at the same time I wonder why they didn’t think to object BEFORE the AI big business hit. People have been talking about AI for years, you’d think writers would pick up on that.
That’s the nature of technological advance, to eliminate menial jobs. Of course, it can be a bit of a start for someone to realize their job is menial.
But, as Frank Herbert observed, we do not often feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.