Sonya Bright

The future’s all just infinite content.

By John Gorman

What’s the tweet? Something like “AI was supposed to tackle our mundane unpleasant tasks so we would all be free to paint, write, and make music or films. Instead, it’s doing those things for us?” You can see the irony: when allowed to train generative AI to do anything, Silicon Valley VCs and tech overlords started by taking dead aim at creativity...

...There was once a time when kids grew up dreaming of dazzling careers in the arts, media, entrepreneurship, or entertainment. You know the gigs. We used to call them DJs, hosts, poets, artists, actors, writers, editors, models, dancers, painters, bloggers, designers, musicians, journalists, presenters, reporters, comedians, influencers, entertainers, videographers, photographers, media planners, brand strategists, and business owners. These are things that require practice and training. (Sometimes formal, sometimes self-directed.) Experience. Hell, maybe even a degree...

...Why do tech bros want to deploy AI to do artistic work? Simply put: they don’t want to pay for the work, and they don’t want to wait for the work. And [*whispers*] they secretly resent and envy the people who do it. They still want to be DJs, hosts, poets, artists, actors, writers, editors, models, dancers, painters, bloggers, designers, musicians, journalists, presenters, reporters, comedians, influencers, entertainers, videographers, photographers, media planners, brand strategists, and business owners. That’s why streaming pays artists pittances. That’s why Hollywood workers strike.

Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary in Canberra, Australia.

Scarlet Robin on a winter morning in Canberra, Australia.

Ioan Marc Jones

AI writing is God-awful. It appears intelligent at first glance, empty at second. It possesses the insufferable buoyancy of a holiday rep. It offers little by way of humour, nothing by way of originality. But its fatal flaw is the absence of vulnerability. A writer is a person and a person is a mess and, as readers, as people, as messes, we identify with the mess.

Despite its flaws, AI writing is spreading. Literary agents, drowning in submissions, have resorted to disclaimers discouraging AI writing. Literary magazines have done the same. Amazon, meanwhile, has struggled to stem the tide of AI-generated books.

Authors are finding that, soon after their work hits the shelves, sloppy imitations emerge. Fake books do real harm. On a small scale, uninformed readers might avoid real authors in the future...

...

Publishing houses need to fight back. Stamps should not declare what is human-created; they should expose the machine-made. Litigation disincentivises lying. Publishers could include clauses in contracts prohibiting the use of AI, with appropriate use defined in absolute terms. These clauses should dictate that AI was not used for generating, editing or rewriting any part of the text, providing consumers with legally backed guarantees.

Such absolutism might seem extreme. Writers, however, are unlikely to push back, considering that 10,000 of them protested against AI in a so-called ’empty book’ distributed at the London Book Fair in March. And, if writers do not sign such clauses, their books should advertise their AI credentials. Publishing houses should be happy to draw the distinction. It is the human, after all, that provides a competitive advantage. If AI writing improves and saturates the industry, publishers will suffer. Why buy a book when you can write a prompt?

"You Auto Have a Happy Hallowe'en." (Jack-O-Lantern driving a car).

1908 postcard.

Horse-chestnut avenue in the City Park of Putbus, Germany.

Flora of Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.