Late to the party. A great post and fascinating comments. I attend a Burns Night party each year where everybody brings a poem, and the adventurous pen their own. This year one of my friends who normally picks a great poem brought along an original - Thoughts on the Ukraine war. It was okay. There was applause and more wine for the nascent poet. Five minutes later he revealed it ChatGPT generated (prompt ... poem about the Ukraine war in the style of Rupert Brooke). Would Faber publish it? No. Would I have guessed he didn’t write it? No. What do feel about AI? I really don’t know.
Whoa. Yes, I guess there's going to be more and more of that... it's down to the people themselves to be honest about it. And people aren't always honest.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. The buzz is so noisy now, this was a nice and friendly part of the debate. And yet still thought provoking as allways.
Just thought I’d share one of my favourite people’s arty attempts with midjourney. I think his account is worth visiting not only for the art, but for the innovativeness of the keywords too https://instagram.com/aikistix?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Michael I think you have highlighted the meaning of the ghost in the shell. Is the essence of you and other hugely talented people was/ever will be a protected intelletual property. we all sit on the shoulders of former giants in some respects. I hate the idea of AI preventing any form of human artistry and just hope that it delivers what it promised with is a beyond human insight based on essences of say hawkin/einstein/darwin/Jesus??/cats! and not just cheap quick knock offs of the genine article. ie you. thank you for your thoughts and no AI is ever gonna write Hannah Green. kind regards Dai . an actual welsh bloke in an actual village Penderyn) our walls are wonky though.
Ha - so the wonky walls are actually right! Thank you for your kind comments... and I do think that a place will remain for people who come up with new things, on the basis of their experience in the world, rather than just mimicking what others have done. It'll be confusing for a while, and then settle into a new normal.
“...being Michael Marshall Smith is my preserve. It may not be fun all the time, but I’ve worked at it. I’ve earned it.”
Would that we all had insight into the potential loss of something way beyond mere livelihood. Something uniquely human. “Look, I made this” is very different from “This thing I’ve made represents an actual lifetime of experiences which shaped me and in turn shapes what I create.”
This post helped me understand a lot more of ai’s impact on creatives, thanks Michael!
Amanpour had google ceo Eric Schmidt talk (a couple of days ago) about the unknown consequences of AI , (18 min YouTube) that stretched my mind & got the hair on my arms to stand up!
It’s become quite challenging to breathe on this razor edge of change that’s accelerating like Japanese trains 😳... (rockets have space to contain their speed/trains r on the ground). Culturally, truth is imploding and we have no idea of the outcome on our society’s ability to structure itself...
Meanwhile... I plan to meditate (recognize the source), cherish beauty, and value life’s existence, & every particle with curiosity !
To add to the topic of 'truth' with AI, I've been seeing the odd discussion around blockchain based digital IDs, which have the potential to confirm (via metadata or a comment below the image) the originality of the image & track any variations made to it etc.
This would allow the authenticity (or AI creation confirmation) of a piece of work to be 'locked in stone'. Similarly for personal ID, so you can confirm if say, Michael is Michael as opposed to 'book in Michael's style' or 'bot Michael'.
Still super early, but is clearly one of the more urgent actions to implements (either technology or some form of legislation). Probably be messy for a few years, though.
That does sound like a potential solution... but as you say, will take a while: and blockchain tech is another thing that's inexplicable to a lot of people (including me).
I honestly don't know how I feel about the whole concept. I'm amazed by it, and also worried about its implications.
I recently came across a small press who are refusing submissions unless the author was recommended, solely because they couldn't differentiate AI from human submissions, which is mind-blowing.
At the same time, there are a couple of stories I have that would be better served by self-publishing. As a creator I feel like I should pay fellow creators for their cover art. But what if I find an AI version that is, to my eye, perfect?
I've yet to enter prompts for prose because, and I'm not even going to pretend it's otherwise, I'm living in hope that it's terrible (though I suspect it's not). Anyhoo, that's my non-commital view on the whirlwind that is AI. Granted, it's micro rather than macro, but I'm not quite ready to delve into "Skynet" just yet. There are enough pseudo-humans in power at the moment that my AI overlords aren't quite the burgeoning threat they could be.
That's true :-) And I suspect in time one of the defining factors of creativity will be whether you're drawn to do it YOURSELF, rather than having a machine do it for you.
OOOh, love AI, both images and chat. I think of it more like a smart google: it returns an answer to the Q all mashed up, and looking good. Plagerisation happens constantly with or without AI. I reckon, generative AI will raise the value of being human exponentially. Original creative thought and ideas becoming important and so much more valuable. Well I hope so. AI is only as good as what it is fed. Even if GPT could somehow write a MMS equivalent piece, it is hallucinating it from the past. Can not be original??? This website Futurepedia, has a daily updated AI list w links: www.futurepedia.io
Excellent article. As a retired software engineer, I’m not quite as fearful as many others, but that’s not to imply that your observations and apprehensions are unwarranted. There are obviously many areas of concern.
I’m not a neural AI expert, and my opinions could obviously be wrong, but I’ll offer them anyway.
The neural AI is an impressive mimic, but not actually creative. It is creative only to the extent it can copy something creative and make minor non-disruptive changes.
Some art forms are more susceptible to being mimicked than others. Painting/photo styles for example. Certainly legal documents, non-fiction, and scientific papers.
Creative works like novels would be a derivative mix & match of plots and character behaviors it has assimilated. You won’t see cognitive leaps of intuition or new concepts presented, or deep innovative conclusions reached, or a new revealing aspect of the human condition revealed.
The AI does not think. It mimics & alters.
An interesting experiment to test: I don’t think an AI would be very good at creating valid, sensible unique new metaphors, a device authors use to both describe something and evoke a desired ambience.
So, while it could maybe create a convincing episode of a “CSI Miami” show, it would fail on “The Last of Us”. The former being largely formulaic, the latter, evoking insights into human emotions & connections.
Very interesting — and I think you're right: both about the inability to construct metaphors, and also that when it gets into TV (which it will) then while it may be very good at coming up with what "happens", it'll be far less good at knowing what "it's about".
I also don’t think comedy writers have much to be concerned about. Much like constructing metaphors, creating a unique joke takes a cognitive leap, a bit of human intuition.
I would likely spend my time at an AI prompt devising ways to confound it.
The images you elicited from the AI were fascinating. I can easily see how one could go down the rabbit hole there!
I'm equally torn. As a bit of a jack of all trades, I've always been interested enough in a variety of things to become reasonably proficient at many, yet have never sufficiently dedicated myself to any one thing to reach a significant level of expertise. I'm fascinated by Midjourney and excited about all the possibilities it unlocks but I can appreciate how terrifying and disheartening it must be for many artists. My hope is that it becomes one more tool that a great artist will be able to put to use more effectively than us non-artists, so that while the average person will be able to use it to manifest amazing things, artists will use it to take art to a whole new spectacular level.
Yes, I think that's quite likely — just as the "desktop publishing revolution" fairly rapidly proved that just because everybody can do it, doesn't mean they should... or that they'll produce acceptable results.
Certainly a messy subject. I would boil it down to how the product is "sold". Either as a new truth or a new spot of art. This is the province of copywrite, or the right to be able to profit from your creations. Provenance and scarcity seem to be key to "value". So that needs regulation and an opportunity for policing/recompense, which always lags behind the advancements in technology.
So there are several new careers out there protecting artists right to an income, following on from the careers already out there. But wen will AI be more reliable than humans at determining if an object sold is a "fake"...but that will need AI shepherds.
The key discussion I want people to get an inkling about is "Basis Sets". The set of information that is used for the AI generated object. This produces a bias, a "recognizable style", something that is desirable in your example when it come to the flavour of the image.
In scientific modelling and prediction we have been including references to the "Basis set" when we publish. In principle to allow repeatability although that is in itself a huge discussion.
But the "Basis Set" is a core idea behind our "Social Media Bubble". We are a saleable commodity, if we can be influenced to exchange money for product, then the basis set of what is most likely to influence us to part with cash has value. At the moment, we all give up that basis set for the convenience of google/apple/facebook/social media platform of choice. They all track us and sell the information.
This in turn, influences our perception of truth and our social values, consequently how we are governed in a capitalist democracy.
With too much information accessible to us, the nature of who we are is limited to the information we do access. Some of which we can chose, some not so much.
Maybe someone in the comments already mentioned this but I think that we’ll be able to copyright styles in the future. There is nothing more annoying IMO than people posting pictures made by an AI and claiming they made them. There is SO much behind this. The artists whose styles the AI has been fed, the programmers who made the AI (what an incredible work!) and so forth. So we’ll have to be able to copyright “styles” and I am guessing somewhere down the line when we’ve gone through the apocalypse and annihilation of creatives there will be some regulation forcing some kind of method.
What I want to see is where this will take artists. How will this push the art? What will people come up with to still be creative and not having to compete with an AI?
I do too... still playing with it this morning! Interesting thought about copyrighting styles — that hadn't occurred to me. Probably going to be hard to define what a "style" is... though perhaps that's something that (ironically) AIs will be able to do better than we can!
Late to the party. A great post and fascinating comments. I attend a Burns Night party each year where everybody brings a poem, and the adventurous pen their own. This year one of my friends who normally picks a great poem brought along an original - Thoughts on the Ukraine war. It was okay. There was applause and more wine for the nascent poet. Five minutes later he revealed it ChatGPT generated (prompt ... poem about the Ukraine war in the style of Rupert Brooke). Would Faber publish it? No. Would I have guessed he didn’t write it? No. What do feel about AI? I really don’t know.
Whoa. Yes, I guess there's going to be more and more of that... it's down to the people themselves to be honest about it. And people aren't always honest.
Great piece. Thanks for this insight, which I am sure will help as I start my own journey.
I have to admit I've fallen into a deep Midjourney rabbit hole now...
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. The buzz is so noisy now, this was a nice and friendly part of the debate. And yet still thought provoking as allways.
Just thought I’d share one of my favourite people’s arty attempts with midjourney. I think his account is worth visiting not only for the art, but for the innovativeness of the keywords too https://instagram.com/aikistix?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Wow, some nice stuff there... thank you for the steer!
Michael I think you have highlighted the meaning of the ghost in the shell. Is the essence of you and other hugely talented people was/ever will be a protected intelletual property. we all sit on the shoulders of former giants in some respects. I hate the idea of AI preventing any form of human artistry and just hope that it delivers what it promised with is a beyond human insight based on essences of say hawkin/einstein/darwin/Jesus??/cats! and not just cheap quick knock offs of the genine article. ie you. thank you for your thoughts and no AI is ever gonna write Hannah Green. kind regards Dai . an actual welsh bloke in an actual village Penderyn) our walls are wonky though.
Ha - so the wonky walls are actually right! Thank you for your kind comments... and I do think that a place will remain for people who come up with new things, on the basis of their experience in the world, rather than just mimicking what others have done. It'll be confusing for a while, and then settle into a new normal.
“...being Michael Marshall Smith is my preserve. It may not be fun all the time, but I’ve worked at it. I’ve earned it.”
Would that we all had insight into the potential loss of something way beyond mere livelihood. Something uniquely human. “Look, I made this” is very different from “This thing I’ve made represents an actual lifetime of experiences which shaped me and in turn shapes what I create.”
That's very true, and strikes at the heart of it...
This post helped me understand a lot more of ai’s impact on creatives, thanks Michael!
Amanpour had google ceo Eric Schmidt talk (a couple of days ago) about the unknown consequences of AI , (18 min YouTube) that stretched my mind & got the hair on my arms to stand up!
It’s become quite challenging to breathe on this razor edge of change that’s accelerating like Japanese trains 😳... (rockets have space to contain their speed/trains r on the ground). Culturally, truth is imploding and we have no idea of the outcome on our society’s ability to structure itself...
Meanwhile... I plan to meditate (recognize the source), cherish beauty, and value life’s existence, & every particle with curiosity !
That sounds like a very wise course of action — and one we should all try to follow!
On which note... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/26/could-a-chatbot-write-my-restaurant-reviews-jay-rayner
Wow - that's very interesting...
Crush it now before its too late
Sadly, there's money in it...
To add to the topic of 'truth' with AI, I've been seeing the odd discussion around blockchain based digital IDs, which have the potential to confirm (via metadata or a comment below the image) the originality of the image & track any variations made to it etc.
This would allow the authenticity (or AI creation confirmation) of a piece of work to be 'locked in stone'. Similarly for personal ID, so you can confirm if say, Michael is Michael as opposed to 'book in Michael's style' or 'bot Michael'.
Still super early, but is clearly one of the more urgent actions to implements (either technology or some form of legislation). Probably be messy for a few years, though.
That does sound like a potential solution... but as you say, will take a while: and blockchain tech is another thing that's inexplicable to a lot of people (including me).
I honestly don't know how I feel about the whole concept. I'm amazed by it, and also worried about its implications.
I recently came across a small press who are refusing submissions unless the author was recommended, solely because they couldn't differentiate AI from human submissions, which is mind-blowing.
At the same time, there are a couple of stories I have that would be better served by self-publishing. As a creator I feel like I should pay fellow creators for their cover art. But what if I find an AI version that is, to my eye, perfect?
I've yet to enter prompts for prose because, and I'm not even going to pretend it's otherwise, I'm living in hope that it's terrible (though I suspect it's not). Anyhoo, that's my non-commital view on the whirlwind that is AI. Granted, it's micro rather than macro, but I'm not quite ready to delve into "Skynet" just yet. There are enough pseudo-humans in power at the moment that my AI overlords aren't quite the burgeoning threat they could be.
That's true :-) And I suspect in time one of the defining factors of creativity will be whether you're drawn to do it YOURSELF, rather than having a machine do it for you.
OOOh, love AI, both images and chat. I think of it more like a smart google: it returns an answer to the Q all mashed up, and looking good. Plagerisation happens constantly with or without AI. I reckon, generative AI will raise the value of being human exponentially. Original creative thought and ideas becoming important and so much more valuable. Well I hope so. AI is only as good as what it is fed. Even if GPT could somehow write a MMS equivalent piece, it is hallucinating it from the past. Can not be original??? This website Futurepedia, has a daily updated AI list w links: www.futurepedia.io
Ooh, thank you... I'll go take a look. And I admire your upbeat attitude to the whole subject — it's pretty rare!
Excellent article. As a retired software engineer, I’m not quite as fearful as many others, but that’s not to imply that your observations and apprehensions are unwarranted. There are obviously many areas of concern.
I’m not a neural AI expert, and my opinions could obviously be wrong, but I’ll offer them anyway.
The neural AI is an impressive mimic, but not actually creative. It is creative only to the extent it can copy something creative and make minor non-disruptive changes.
Some art forms are more susceptible to being mimicked than others. Painting/photo styles for example. Certainly legal documents, non-fiction, and scientific papers.
Creative works like novels would be a derivative mix & match of plots and character behaviors it has assimilated. You won’t see cognitive leaps of intuition or new concepts presented, or deep innovative conclusions reached, or a new revealing aspect of the human condition revealed.
The AI does not think. It mimics & alters.
An interesting experiment to test: I don’t think an AI would be very good at creating valid, sensible unique new metaphors, a device authors use to both describe something and evoke a desired ambience.
So, while it could maybe create a convincing episode of a “CSI Miami” show, it would fail on “The Last of Us”. The former being largely formulaic, the latter, evoking insights into human emotions & connections.
Very interesting — and I think you're right: both about the inability to construct metaphors, and also that when it gets into TV (which it will) then while it may be very good at coming up with what "happens", it'll be far less good at knowing what "it's about".
I also don’t think comedy writers have much to be concerned about. Much like constructing metaphors, creating a unique joke takes a cognitive leap, a bit of human intuition.
I would likely spend my time at an AI prompt devising ways to confound it.
The images you elicited from the AI were fascinating. I can easily see how one could go down the rabbit hole there!
I'm equally torn. As a bit of a jack of all trades, I've always been interested enough in a variety of things to become reasonably proficient at many, yet have never sufficiently dedicated myself to any one thing to reach a significant level of expertise. I'm fascinated by Midjourney and excited about all the possibilities it unlocks but I can appreciate how terrifying and disheartening it must be for many artists. My hope is that it becomes one more tool that a great artist will be able to put to use more effectively than us non-artists, so that while the average person will be able to use it to manifest amazing things, artists will use it to take art to a whole new spectacular level.
Yes, I think that's quite likely — just as the "desktop publishing revolution" fairly rapidly proved that just because everybody can do it, doesn't mean they should... or that they'll produce acceptable results.
All finshed!
I need a lie down now.
What were we talking about?
I have no idea at this point.
Certainly a messy subject. I would boil it down to how the product is "sold". Either as a new truth or a new spot of art. This is the province of copywrite, or the right to be able to profit from your creations. Provenance and scarcity seem to be key to "value". So that needs regulation and an opportunity for policing/recompense, which always lags behind the advancements in technology.
So there are several new careers out there protecting artists right to an income, following on from the careers already out there. But wen will AI be more reliable than humans at determining if an object sold is a "fake"...but that will need AI shepherds.
The key discussion I want people to get an inkling about is "Basis Sets". The set of information that is used for the AI generated object. This produces a bias, a "recognizable style", something that is desirable in your example when it come to the flavour of the image.
In scientific modelling and prediction we have been including references to the "Basis set" when we publish. In principle to allow repeatability although that is in itself a huge discussion.
But the "Basis Set" is a core idea behind our "Social Media Bubble". We are a saleable commodity, if we can be influenced to exchange money for product, then the basis set of what is most likely to influence us to part with cash has value. At the moment, we all give up that basis set for the convenience of google/apple/facebook/social media platform of choice. They all track us and sell the information.
This in turn, influences our perception of truth and our social values, consequently how we are governed in a capitalist democracy.
That's a really interesting observation — it hadn't occurred to me how much is the era of basis sets, throughout all politics and culture.
With too much information accessible to us, the nature of who we are is limited to the information we do access. Some of which we can chose, some not so much.
"Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death"
Indeed.
Maybe someone in the comments already mentioned this but I think that we’ll be able to copyright styles in the future. There is nothing more annoying IMO than people posting pictures made by an AI and claiming they made them. There is SO much behind this. The artists whose styles the AI has been fed, the programmers who made the AI (what an incredible work!) and so forth. So we’ll have to be able to copyright “styles” and I am guessing somewhere down the line when we’ve gone through the apocalypse and annihilation of creatives there will be some regulation forcing some kind of method.
What I want to see is where this will take artists. How will this push the art? What will people come up with to still be creative and not having to compete with an AI?
Very interesting read. I love midjourneys style!
I do too... still playing with it this morning! Interesting thought about copyrighting styles — that hadn't occurred to me. Probably going to be hard to define what a "style" is... though perhaps that's something that (ironically) AIs will be able to do better than we can!