But at the time of writing, almost all the conversation surrounding generative AI is imaginary, rooted not in the use of the tool but in extrapolated visions. Like the camera, the full consequences of this technology will be worked out over a great deal of time by a great number of talents responding to a great number of developments. Almost every essay or op-ed you read follows the same trajectory: I used ChatGPT to do a thing, and from that thing, I can predict catastrophic X or industry-altering Y. So little of how we talk about AI actually comes from the experience of using it. “Plagiarism is a feature of the AI process.” The AMPTP, for its part, has offered “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology.” Neither side knows exactly what it’s talking about, but they feel they have to fight about it anyway. It generates a regurgitation of what it’s fed,” the WGA has claimed. “It’s important to note that AI software does not create anything. The writers are on strike, arguing, among other things, that studios should not be able to use AI tools to replace their labor. AI is the bogeyman in the shadows: The obscurity, more than anything the monster has actually perpetrated, is the source of loathing and despair.Ĭonsider the ongoing feud between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. People say things such as “AI art is garbage” and “It’s plagiarism,” but also “AI art is going to destroy creativity itself.” These reactions are contradictory, but nobody seems to notice.

Creative artificial intelligence provokes a strange mixture of contempt and dread.

The machine stops novel