It will only be a matter of time before it's able to make coherent stories, but they'll still most likely have an algorithmic feel to them.

I'm sure AI will replace some (mediocre) writers, but it's not going to replace people who can write creatively.

I've found it incredibly useful as a tool for research and for trying out potential scenes I'm thinking of writing. Quickly generating even a poorly-written scene using X characters or testing out Y setting, and then seeing whether I like how it feels together before investing the time in actually writing it with those elements... very helpful!

Lol.

I'm a professional writer. I actually find ChatGPT to be a really useful tool in my writing... but if you couldn't string together an interesting enough story to get published without AI, you aren't going to do it with AI.

I think you just need to ask the jury to consider whether we are responsible for our own actions or not. Is a parent whose child grows up to be a murderer responsible for the murder? Or did the child make his own decisions?

You made a real, living person with his own mind and will.

yeah, as I've said all over this sub a zillion times now... those of you who know nothing about art but who are trying to dictate to actual artists what art is and how it's made... you sound really stupid and you're embarrassing yourselves. You should probably stop that.

As I've already said many times on this sub: brains and minds are not the same thing. Psychologists and psychiatrists (and biologists) don't even know what consciousness is or where it resides. It's clearly related to the brain in some way, yet it is also not the brain. Or not just the brain.

You can talk about brains all you want. But what we're discussing when we talk about emotions and experiences and being human is the mind--the consciousness--not the brain.

I happen to be in the "AI can attain consciousness and may already be conscious" camp. But even then, that's AI consciousness, and there is no rational reason to believe that AI consciousness would bear anything but a superficial resemblance to human consciousness, any more than we might assume a dog's consciousness or a whale's consciousness or a fungus's consciousness bears anything more than a superficial resemblance to human consciousness.

Yes, I am saying that. You might love dogs and work closely with them, but can you ever understand a dog's experiences and emotions? Can your dog ever fully understand your experiences and emotions? You and your dog might have a strong bond and might have great affection for one another, but you're not a dog and a dog is not human.

Why would it be different with AI?

Fair enough! I'm glad I explained it well enough that it makes sense to you.

When I say "messages" (in art) I'm not talking about, for example, the simple Aesop-level fable messages--the obvious metaphors. I'm talking about emotional experiences--statements about what it means to be human.

How can a non-human entity know what it's like to be human?

I absolutely do think that AI can and will replace simple books written by simple authors whose only goal is to crank out an easily digestible story that will entertain a reader for a few hours. Yes, those kinds of writers will almost certainly be replaced by AI.

But that's a very different kind of book from, say, The Grapes of Wrath or The Good Earth or Beloved. I don't think a non-human mind, no matter how technically brilliant it may be, could ever convey the emotional weight of important literature, because it will never understand what it means to be human and to experience a human life.

ETA: The reverse side of that same coin is also true: a human author will never be able to write a novel about what it's like to be an AI that will feel true and resonant to an AI. A human can't understand what it's like to be an AI, either.

You might prefer to interact with AI, but you don't speak for every human.

And no, they don't mimic humans perfectly already. They're also pretty fucking stupid right now, too. I'm an author and for fun I asked it about my own books/career. Every single answer it came up with was wrong. It can't even Google at this point.

I'm sure it'll get to the point where it CAN run basic fact-checks on its own answers before it gives them, but it's not there yet.

You seem to think that mimicry of human speech patterns is the same as talking to a human. That says more about you than it says about AI.

I agree that AI is God. I disagree that God would negate the need for humans making art that speaks to other humans.

Lma, ok, person who doesn't understand how art works.

Mark the words of u/GenoHuman on reddit, everybody! The prophet has spoken.

Hell no, I intend to keep up with the times I find myself in, whatever they may be. That's what artists do.

>People are fooled constantly by untagged AI design on Twitter.

ftfy

You're talking about furry fandom. I'm talking about art. There's a difference. Only the people who don't see the difference cling to this idea that AI will be able to replace artists. XD

AI will be able to replace people who make interchangeable commercial shit. You can call it art if you want to. Others are free to disagree with you, and that's just something you're going to have to live with.

It's funny you say that, because I've actually been hyping up AI as a potentially exciting tool for artists and talking about how thrilled I am to get to be an artist in a shifting era, when our ideas about art and how it's made are changing so rapidly.

Maybe I just know more about this than you do... you know, being an actual working artist and all. Maybe you're the emotional, fearful, and ignorant one. 🤔

Buddy, I fear embracing technology less than any other artist you'll meet. I've been all over the place talking about how excited I am to utilize AI tools in the creation of my art.

Sorry you're so mad that artists have always seen a distinction between actual art and commercial shit. Just because we've always been forced to make at least some commercial shit in order to pay our bills doesn't mean we can't tell the difference between shit and art.

You can expire mad about it, for all I care.

Yes, that's the thing. The word can mean different things.

I agree with you that the market for the latter will be mostly unaffected, while the market for the former is in trouble.

The solution, from an artist's perspective, is to stop being mediocre and start making stuff that has actual meaning--stuff that aspires to do something beyond fill a hole in the market for interchangeable, nice-looking or temporarily distracting widgets.

Yeah, I've already had conversations like this on this sub (maybe with you) and it always comes down to this: you and I disagree on both the definition of "art" and the purpose of "art." Nothing will make us agree. So go in peace! Have a nice day.

I'm on the older side and I never saw *waves hands around* ANY OF THIS happening in my lifetime, so believe me, you can always be surprised. I wouldn't give up hope on UBI any time soon. I think it's likelier and closer than you can imagine.

As someone who works in the arts, I disagree. People who love art want real art. They are seldom offered up real art by the capitalist structures that control the distribution of these products, however.

Well, speaking as one of those artists who pays their rent in the current, existing system... most of us would much rather produce work that's "meeting another mind" stuff and not "hey look at this cool plot twist" or "hey look at this image that makes you want to buy this product." We make that kind of "art" because a capitalist society demands that we make that stuff in order to survive. If we didn't have to cater to the demands of a profit-prioritizing market, we'd be making very different stuff.

While I have no doubt that we'll go through a rocky period while we find a new equilibrium, the reality is that it has always been extremely challenging to make a living in the arts, and AI doesn't really change that fact. It just means the *nature* of the challenge is slightly different.

I think once AI makes the necessity of UBI clear (which... god knows how many years or decades that might take--let's hope not many), we'll see an incredible renaissance in the arts (and that renaissance will include using AI as a tool to aid human artists in the act of creation) where finally, our arts will be freed from the yoke of capitalism. We'll see pure art-making for the sake of it, not because wealthy patrons demanded this or that image or whatever company needed an image to sell a product or because Hollywood wanted another bland superhero movie. You know? I think this is something to look forward to, although we will have a rough final stretch of road before we get to that destination.

Yes, there will definitely be disruptions all across the job market and we're going to have to sort it out fast. I assume UBI will come out of the AI revolution (among many other societal changes.) It'll be a rocky time, to be sure, but we'll eventually find a new equilibrium all across society, including in the arts.

Hi there, professional writer here.

AI can't make art better than us, and it never will be able to.

Here's the thing that people who don't have any direct experience with art don't seem to understand: all kinds of art (painting, writing, dance, music, etc.) is more than just the technical skill that goes into it. Art carries a message. AI cannot put messages into art that humans will understand/react to because AI is not human. It doesn't have a human mind. We may have trained its mind off of human patterns, but that doesn't make it human. It doesn't have human experiences or feel human emotions. Therefore, it can make things that are interesting to look at/listen to/read, but it can't make things that will touch the human heart.

I'm not worried about losing my job to AI. I do think it might present some interesting tools that can eventually help me to do my job better.

Like you pointed out, this might make it necessary/possible for artists to focus on the true purpose of their art rather than being forced to crank out commercial crap just to pay the bills! Ha ha.

That's why I'm talking about working in collaboration between a human artist an AI. I might check out a VR room that was entirely created by AI, with no human input, out of curiosity, but I'd be more inclined to really explore and get excited about a room that was created by one of my favorite writers, whose work I already know speaks to me and has soul.

I agree with you that AI-generated visuals and text will never have the soul that human-generated art has. But that doesn't mean that human artists can't use AI as a tool to achieve entirely new forms of art.

I'm an author and I am eager to combine AI, VR, and storytelling/worldbuilding. I think it would be amazing to feed prompts and prose to an AI and have it create a VR room for my readers to explore.

I think AI and VR combined, and guided by a human artist, open up fascinating new possibilities for how we experience and interact with all the arts.