Friday Night A.I. Party!
Let's try this again...
Alright, so last week I posted a “Saturday Special Report”. It went fine, nothing to complain about…then I noticed I’d posted the wrong version! I had an updated version with some deeper explanations of my thinking and hit send on the WRONG DRAFT.
Ooops. It happens.
But, then I also noticed I had a few (not many) readers unsubscribe. A couple of the emails made me frown. I knew those emails. I also had a serious feeling that I knew why they unsubscribed. I wish they’d reached out to me through back channels, but oh well…
However, from bad (or confusing) comes good! I reread my post (which I took down) and realized it could easily have been interpreted as, well, tough love at best and hostile at worst. Wasn’t intended that way, but interpretation is in the mind of the reader, not the writer.
So, let me start this post off (too late!) by saying exactly what I mean by the rest of words that follow: I 100% support all creatives (not just writers) in navigating the struggles we find ourselves in today. And even though I am a proponent of the use of AI in creative endeavors, at no point am I advocating for the replacement of human beings.
My pro-AI stance is all about enhancement, not replacement. Also, and everyone needs to hear this, AI isn’t a fix, nor is it a danger, because the #1 underlying problem that creatives face today is one they have ALWAYS faced: exploitation by greedy mofos.
Whether those mofos are studios or publishers or retailers or agents or what have you, the gaslighting of a thousand generations of creatives has to stop. This is the 21st century and the entire world (not hyperbole) needs to understand that they need creatives just as much as creatives need an audience. The WGA strike was just an itty-bitty taste of this. But what the strike got wrong is those TV and movie writers didn’t actually win. They just stopped SOME of the exploitation. In the end, they are still dependent on a system that is flat out broken and will find other ways to exploit creatives.
Believe you me, they will 100% find other ways to exploit creatives. Things only shifted, they did not change.
But, before I dive into my take on AI and the future of creatives, how about I show y’all some fun I had with prompting ChatGPT to “write” a drabble?
Enjoy!
Jake:
write a 100 word story about a yeti and a princess.Must be exactly 100 words
ChatGPT:
Once upon a snowy mountaintop, a lonely yeti named Yuki discovered a weeping princess named Elara. Her golden hair shimmered like the sun, but her heart was heavy with sorrow. Yuki, misunderstood by the world, reached out with a furry hand, offering warmth amidst the chill.
Elara, surprised by the gentleness of this beast, wiped away her tears and smiled. Their unlikely friendship blossomed, their laughter echoing through the snow-covered peaks. Yuki's strength shielded her from harm, while Elara's kindness melted the ice around his heart.
In a kingdom that feared them both, they found solace in each other, proving that love knows no boundaries.
Jake:
shorten to 100 words
ChatGPT
Upon a snowy peak, a yeti, Yuki, met a weeping princess, Elara. Her golden hair masked sorrow. Yuki extended a furry hand, offering warmth. Surprised, Elara smiled. Their friendship blossomed, laughter echoing through the snow. Yuki protected her, while Elara's kindness thawed his heart.
In a kingdom that feared them, they found solace, proving love transcends.
Jake:
Do you know what a Drabble is?
ChatGPT:
Yes, I'm familiar with the term "Drabble." A Drabble is a very short piece of fiction, typically exactly 100 words in length, although some variations allow for a slightly different word count as long as it's very short. Drabbles are often used as a writing exercise to convey a complete story or idea within the strict constraint of word count. They require brevity and creativity to make every word count and create an impactful narrative. If you have any specific questions or need assistance with Drabbles or any other writing requests, feel free to ask!
Jake:
Drabbles are ALWAYS exactly 100 words
ChatGPT:
You are correct, and I apologize for any confusion in my previous responses. Drabbles are indeed always exactly 100 words in length. Thank you for the clarification. If you have any specific requests for a 100-word Drabble or any other writing task, please feel free to ask, and I'll be happy to assist you.
Jake:
Write a 100-word Drabble about a yeti and a princess
ChatGPT:
In a frozen realm, a yeti named Yuki roamed the snow-covered peaks, solitary and misunderstood. Far below, Princess Elara's heart ached within her gilded cage. One fateful winter's night, their worlds collided. Yuki's intimidating exterior concealed a gentle soul. Elara's eyes, like sapphires, held depths of compassion.
Their bond, forged in secrecy, defied convention. Yuki's strength shielded her from dangers unknown, while Elara's kindness warmed his icy heart. Amidst a kingdom that feared their union, they discovered love's enduring power. A yeti and a princess, an unlikely pair, taught their realm that love, in its purest form, knows no boundaries.
Well, that was interesting…
I’m not exactly worried I’ll lose my job writing drabbles. Granted, it’s not much of a job since I give them away for free, but still…
The conclusion I have come to is that AI can’t create jack. It just can’t. It’s a puke-spewing, content-churning, widget machine.
No soul, no heart. Two things required to make art.
AI will never replace humans (not until it gets the nuke codes, at least).
Which brings me to one of my points: stop fighting AI. Just stop. Instead, fight the greedy mofos. Or, better yet, disengage from the greedy mofos and figure out how to be a successful creative without them!
That last part is something I’m definitely working on. It’s in the embryonic stage of a ten thousand-stage plan. Give or take a thousand or so stages.
In other words, I don’t have the solution, but I sure as shit see the problem.
(Greedy mofos, in case I wasn’t clear before. They’re the problem.)
And these “lawsuits” by authors are a perfect example! They’re being run by greedy mofos! I don’t mean the writers suing because they believe their copyrights were infringed upon. No, the greedy mofos in this scenario are some of the worst: lawyers.
Why? Unless it can be proven that the companies training their AI models didn’t pay for the content they trained the models on then there’s no case. It sucks, but it’s true.
Because we are all products of our influences, just like AI. Granted, AI is training on a scale that has never been seen before. Still, it’s an apples to apples comparison.
There are no original stories. No original ideas. None. We are all products of our influences, like I said above. I just read a book that was so steeped in a specific Stephen King novel that I had to laugh. Written by a very good, very prominent author. Great book. Loved it. But the influences were dripping off the pages.
Did that author rip off Stephen King? No.
Like all writers, what they have read has influenced their work. I mean, come on, Hunter S. Thompson said he learned to write by reading The Great Gatsby out loud while typing the novel word for word.
That is what ChatGPT and the other AIs out there have done, just on a scale that boggles the human mind. Yet, it’s still the same process.
Am I worried that AI will replace writers? Flood the market with AI-drivel? Not really.
Why? Because the market is already flooded, y’all!
I have written a LOT of military scifi novels. I hit that ebook market at a prime time and made an okay living at it. Then other writers, LOTS of other writers, saw the market growing and jumped in. Pretty soon systems were created to maximize monetization of military scifi novels. So many systems…
Too much product meant my stuff got lost. Sales dwindled.
I watched it happen with the erotica market that built the Kindle (In Capitalist America, porn builds you!).
Major success.
Massive amount of copycats jumping into the gold rush.
Category gets gutted (mostly by Amazon killing their ranking algorithm for erotica/ebooks in general).
Lucrative living gone.
No AI was involved with either of the scenarios above, yet the same results were produced. We don’t need AIs to screw us over when we have ourselves and greedy mofos to do it for the AI. They already have been since the dawn of Art!
To sum up: Greedy mofos the problem; AI just a tool.
Oh, and I have a TON of other thoughts on AI!
How can it be truly helpful, not harmful, to the creative process?
When is it harmful, not helpful, to the creative process?
What markets could it open up for creatives?
What markets could it kill for creatives?
Who will lose jobs and who will see new jobs open up?
What are the nuke codes? (I promise not to share with the AIs. No, they didn’t make me say that…)
I’m gonna save all them thoughts and musings for another post (posts, to be honest).
In the meantime, feel free to comment on this post. If you need clarity on something, please ask. I’m happy to clarify my thoughts. It’s a BIG subject, an EMOTIONAL subject, so it will take some discussion to make sure we’re all on the same page. That doesn’t mean we will all agree, just that we aren’t misunderstanding each other while we navigate this seismic shift in artistic creation.
Until next post! Cheers!
Bonus content!
Here are four images I “made” by giving the Ideogram AI site this prompt: “a yeti and a princess falling in love, illustration, dark fantasy”
None of them quite work. And a couple, when you look closer, are downright disturbing!
For shits and giggles, tell me which one is your favorite in the comments!
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