I definitely think the TV industry sees opportunities to use AI to generate the satisfictory(?) script, and then hire a writer to punch it up - much cheaper than asking a team of writers to spend weeks generating the original ideas. Netflix has built its business model on producing a quantity of satisficing programming, with occasionally great series mixed in, and lots of that wouldn't be much worse with punched-up AI. I imagine AI being most useful for writing for genre where the writing is meant to be more instrumental than artful: kids' shows, cooking shows, reality TV, home improvement, etc. - and most of all, advertising copy.
Supporting the WGA is a great way to constrict monetization!
I made a living writing for TV and print. Cliches are useful, because you can bend them. A cliche, slightly altered, can jump, leveraging the assumptions built into the reader's mind and adding to them. Nothing wrong with a cliche, as raw material. Or as a joke.
"it's best to understand Generative AI tools as cliche generators" is such an elegant thrust that it's basically got me staring , mouth agape, at an entire chunk of my reality that has been deconstructed. I'm going to have to set aside some time to re-comprehend the role and function of cliche in my own life. I still need to read the rest of your essay, but I'm so shook I had to stop and say thanks for this succinct insight.
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
"The general purpose computer is freer than the trained brain."
I would very much like this to be true. However a couple of points occured to me. First ;domains were AIs are older and more developed they have produced beyond human brilliancies. Famously move 37 in game 2 of alphago vs Lee Sedol. More recently we have seen image generation tools winning art competitions. Second; while LLMs do usually respond with bland output to intial prompts these outputs can be further crafted by skillful users. The question isn't: 'can chatGPT write a script?', it is 'what can a skilled script writer produce with chatGPT?', it seems to me that in is the latter that the promise or threat of a productivity revolution lies.
May 11, 2023·edited May 11, 2023Liked by Dave Karpf
Very useful insight, again. It prompted me to create a post for my own circle advising them to read three articles, of which this is one. My post doing that: https://ea.rna.nl/2023/05/11/where-are-gpt-and-friends-going/ One thing I added there is an explanation of the biggest misunderstanding about Generative AIs, namely that they contain information. Nope. Generative AI’s are hallucinating, *even* when they are producing correct replies.
Thank you for this perspective, it was less 'sky is falling' than a lot of thinkpieces I've seen lately.
The focus of your post seemed to be more on the written AI, but what are your thoughts on AI imagery? There's a lot of fears in the photography community about being replaced, when someone can upload a few selfies and get pro-style headshots for the corporate website, or an algorithm can generate images that look like photos of products being sold. Of course, that's the more commercial side. On the creative side, an AI generated image already won the Sony Photo Awards last month, which was controversial. There seem to be some similar anxieties in other visual arts mediums. Why paint when you can tell DALL-E what you want the canvas to look like? There's still some limitations to how real or accurate-seeming these images are now, but they're developing at breakneck pace and, for a lot of people, they'll probably be "satisificing" enough. Or at least that's the current anxiety. I brought all this up because I was curious about where you stand on the visual side of AI platforms.
Stupid article written by someone who doesnt understand the potential of generative AI.
Firstly, 10 people asking for a Disney World itinerary won't get the exactly the same reply, because there normally a degree of randomness built in. But more importantly, its possible to personalise the itinerary by including more information. For example you could tell it that you like helter-skelters, splashing boats and scary rides
Great piece. The last line is a real lightbulb moment. Constricting monetization opportunities is a clever regulatory route.
And I love the connect to satisficing. The perfect explanation of LLM as tool.
I definitely think the TV industry sees opportunities to use AI to generate the satisfictory(?) script, and then hire a writer to punch it up - much cheaper than asking a team of writers to spend weeks generating the original ideas. Netflix has built its business model on producing a quantity of satisficing programming, with occasionally great series mixed in, and lots of that wouldn't be much worse with punched-up AI. I imagine AI being most useful for writing for genre where the writing is meant to be more instrumental than artful: kids' shows, cooking shows, reality TV, home improvement, etc. - and most of all, advertising copy.
Supporting the WGA is a great way to constrict monetization!
I made a living writing for TV and print. Cliches are useful, because you can bend them. A cliche, slightly altered, can jump, leveraging the assumptions built into the reader's mind and adding to them. Nothing wrong with a cliche, as raw material. Or as a joke.
"it's best to understand Generative AI tools as cliche generators" is such an elegant thrust that it's basically got me staring , mouth agape, at an entire chunk of my reality that has been deconstructed. I'm going to have to set aside some time to re-comprehend the role and function of cliche in my own life. I still need to read the rest of your essay, but I'm so shook I had to stop and say thanks for this succinct insight.
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
"The general purpose computer is freer than the trained brain."
— W. Ross Ashby (1903-1972)
I would very much like this to be true. However a couple of points occured to me. First ;domains were AIs are older and more developed they have produced beyond human brilliancies. Famously move 37 in game 2 of alphago vs Lee Sedol. More recently we have seen image generation tools winning art competitions. Second; while LLMs do usually respond with bland output to intial prompts these outputs can be further crafted by skillful users. The question isn't: 'can chatGPT write a script?', it is 'what can a skilled script writer produce with chatGPT?', it seems to me that in is the latter that the promise or threat of a productivity revolution lies.
Very useful insight, again. It prompted me to create a post for my own circle advising them to read three articles, of which this is one. My post doing that: https://ea.rna.nl/2023/05/11/where-are-gpt-and-friends-going/ One thing I added there is an explanation of the biggest misunderstanding about Generative AIs, namely that they contain information. Nope. Generative AI’s are hallucinating, *even* when they are producing correct replies.
Thank you for this perspective, it was less 'sky is falling' than a lot of thinkpieces I've seen lately.
The focus of your post seemed to be more on the written AI, but what are your thoughts on AI imagery? There's a lot of fears in the photography community about being replaced, when someone can upload a few selfies and get pro-style headshots for the corporate website, or an algorithm can generate images that look like photos of products being sold. Of course, that's the more commercial side. On the creative side, an AI generated image already won the Sony Photo Awards last month, which was controversial. There seem to be some similar anxieties in other visual arts mediums. Why paint when you can tell DALL-E what you want the canvas to look like? There's still some limitations to how real or accurate-seeming these images are now, but they're developing at breakneck pace and, for a lot of people, they'll probably be "satisificing" enough. Or at least that's the current anxiety. I brought all this up because I was curious about where you stand on the visual side of AI platforms.
Stupid article written by someone who doesnt understand the potential of generative AI.
Firstly, 10 people asking for a Disney World itinerary won't get the exactly the same reply, because there normally a degree of randomness built in. But more importantly, its possible to personalise the itinerary by including more information. For example you could tell it that you like helter-skelters, splashing boats and scary rides