SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
There is a really interesting discussion going on here about AI in writing. I am incredibly sympathetic to the writer's positions, because I am one in another industry. But for my job, I'm in tech, and I have to say that ... AI is going to be here, and people will eventually have to figure out how it integrates with the creative process.
I say it's "going to be here" because it's not here yet, and it really is years away from being what people expect it's going to be. Much like self driving cars, really: they're going to happen, but the technology is much more complicated than most people believe it is. If you're driving long-haul trucks, your job isn't going away anytime soon, but it will eventually. And that's such a strange thing because driving a truck and writing a screenplay would seem to have nothing in common, but when both of them can be done by a machine, they have a similarity.
So the WGA can say "no AI, period," but that's ultimately going to be a losing argument, just like it has been every other time a new technology comes along. I am reminded of the film "Other People's Money" which has the great speech given by Larry "the Liquidator": "at one time there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best buggy whip you ever saw."
Unfortunately, that's the future. It's still quite a ways off, but it's going to happen. I don't know what the future of screenwriting is, and I hope it stays human controlled, but AI is going to be a part of it sooner or later. And that makes me sad because at heart, I'm a creative person. I'm just working in an industry where chatbots take an ever-increasing percentage of issues that used to be handled by entry level staff.
I say it's "going to be here" because it's not here yet, and it really is years away from being what people expect it's going to be. Much like self driving cars, really: they're going to happen, but the technology is much more complicated than most people believe it is. If you're driving long-haul trucks, your job isn't going away anytime soon, but it will eventually. And that's such a strange thing because driving a truck and writing a screenplay would seem to have nothing in common, but when both of them can be done by a machine, they have a similarity.
So the WGA can say "no AI, period," but that's ultimately going to be a losing argument, just like it has been every other time a new technology comes along. I am reminded of the film "Other People's Money" which has the great speech given by Larry "the Liquidator": "at one time there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best buggy whip you ever saw."
Unfortunately, that's the future. It's still quite a ways off, but it's going to happen. I don't know what the future of screenwriting is, and I hope it stays human controlled, but AI is going to be a part of it sooner or later. And that makes me sad because at heart, I'm a creative person. I'm just working in an industry where chatbots take an ever-increasing percentage of issues that used to be handled by entry level staff.