LogFAQs > #979373916

Yellow posted...

but at least most people would refuse to read a book written by AI (who would do that)

Hard disagree.

People now get pissy over AI art in general, but that's because the controversy is fresh, there's a concerted push, and the tech is still in its infancy. Most people wouldn't read an AI-written book just because an AI-written book would be awkward and poorly written.

But AI in general has make qualitative leaps over the last 5 years, to the point where the AI we have today is starting to border on science fiction compared to the AI we had in 2014. Now imagine where AI will be in 2034, now that there is a strong impetus to fund its development, and people are more able to see what might be possible. Then imagine what it will be in 2044. 2054. And so on.

That's the reason why the Writers' Guild and Actors' Guild went on strike and demanded a ban on AI - they're fully aware that AI can't realistically replace them now, but they're also very much aware that it might easily be able to do so in the very near future. So they're forced to try and take a stand on the issue now while they're still have leverage... because once they can be easily replaced, they have no leverage.

Most people wouldn't read an AI-written novel now (other than for the novelty) because AI isn't advanced enough to write something worth reading. But give it 10 years, 20 - and AI may be able to write novels better than most humans can. And at that point, plenty of people would be more than willing to read AI-written books (assuming people are reading at all by then). There isn't going to be a strong moral stance against it if the content is worthwhile.

There are already people who have a very "ehh" attitude towards AI art. The strong "NOT EVEN ONCE!" backlash against it is coming from a very vocal minority in the midst of a very apathetic majority. If we ever get to the point where AI art is relatively indistinguishable from human art, plenty of people will be more than happy to accept it. Especially as people's resistance is worn down over time, and most people feel like it's just not worth caring about all that much anymore.

It's like how in the 60s and 70s there was a major pushback against synthesizers. Music fans would say "No real band uses them!" or "Electronic music isn't real music!" Now you'd be hard-pressed to find any modern artist who can produce a song without synthesizers (or computers). Bands like Nine Inch Nails and Erasure pretty much only exist because of them. Not to mention things like autotune. You can complain about computers making music, but computers have been making most of our music (albeit with human guidance) for decades now.

We've long since accepted that we can produce art with more and more advanced tools - AI is basically the culmination of that trend. When I was a kid most people would likely have argued that art "drawn on a computer" isn't real art, but most illustration and animation is done via computer now. And most people don't care, if they even think about it at all.

A few decades ago people would have laughed at the idea of people using video games to tell stories, but then machinima became a thing, stuff like Red Versus Blue became popular, and most younger people today wouldn't even bat an eye about people using Minecraft to tell elaborate stories. Art evolves as the tools evolve.

Factory workers in the past complained about how no robot would be able to do their job as well as they did, how "the craft of making things" was an inherently human act and how products (especially things like furniture and musical instruments) made by machine would never be as good as the "real thing". And today no one really gives a shit.

That's the inevitable future. People who think that "the nobility of the human spirit" or "the irreplaceable creativity of the human soul" actually matter are going to be seriously disillusioned when reality comes along to kick them in the teeth. If a thing can be done, it almost certainly will be done.

As a species we've reached the point where we've started to go from "tool-users" to people who have created tools that use themselves. The same impulse that led us to build a Roomba that will vacuum your floors for you is going to push towards computers that can write books, compose music, or draw vast open vistas. And future humans will be moved by those things in exactly the same way they were moved by everything beforehand. Possibly even moreso, if computers reach a point where they can far more easily predict and manipulate how humans respond to things.

Especially when most modern human "art" is barely "art" as is, but is "entertainment" or barely "content". AI will probably be able to reproduce those things just fine.