AI as Necromancer Muse: Writing
About ten years ago, a buddy of mine and I wrote a science fiction story about a rock star in his prime who died due to a stupid mistake [pour one out for Michael Hutchence]. The rocker’s record label didn’t want to lose the still-flowing cream from that particular cash cow, so the executives had his consciousness emergency-uploaded from his near-dead noggin into what amounted to a virtual Matrix/Metaverse-type environment.
Thing was, the rocker’s brain was damaged during his death [kinda par for the course with many rock n’ roll passings], so the fried, goopy and missing bits were patched over with military-grade AI [thanks to the label’s executives’ shady connections]. The resulting virtual Frankenconsciousness then started churning out new hit songs on its own for audiences in the virtual environment. The dead rocker’s real-world band mates [whose careers were in free fall due to their lead singer’s death] weren’t getting a taste of the virtual world action. Bedlam ensues. [There’s more. If you wanna buy the rights, call me.]
That story, “Variant Version”, languishes on a hard drive somewhere. Never saw the light of day … but no matter. Life as we know it is becoming as interesting as … uhm … “art”. [I place that lofty term in quotes because, like the proverbial falling tree, if a story is written and no one ever reads it - is it “art”?]
Remember this little story. We’ll come back to it, I promise.
Anyway … a supposed smart bomb defense that I’ve heard time and again against Artificial Intelligence encroaching on humans’ livelihoods is, “Yeah, well, an AI can never be creative like a human, so there. We’ll always be able to out-create the machine. We’re safe … case closed.” [Then, instead of creating anything whatsoever, the speaker then promptly returns to wasting the next two hours browsing what-to-watch-next tiles on Netflix.]
Being a crusty, dusty English major, when I think of “creativity” my mind instinctively goes to the written word. I then think of finger painting, interpretive dance and nude basket weaving. From there, I move on to music, movies and illustration/painting. Pushing the boat out a bit further from the shore, I then consider photography, sculpture and invention.
These are all wonderful areas of human creation and expression … all of them are worth exploring, and I intend to do so in subsequent pieces here. [* Regarding nude basket weaving, I was just kidding. I’d never want to actually see nude basket weaving. Well, maybe it could be interesting … in the same way that a roadside attraction/mutant petting zoo is interesting.]
For now, let’s pull the sheets back on writing.
There’s a fantastic [though spooky] piece by Stephen Marche yonder at The New Yorker that covers the advance of AI into the terrain of the written word. In it, Marche covers the GPT-3-powered AI application, Sudowrite. Sudowrite’s capabilities include being able to take in a sample of an author’s work and then generate a continuation of that author’s work in a chosen tone.
[The forthcoming commercial version of Sudowrite will evidently be available via a monthly subscription costing roughly the same amount as a large combo plate. You, too, can write like Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson … if you’re so inclined. maybe even e.e. cummings.]
Among others, the New Yorker article examines Sudowrite’s treatment of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” [which, incidentally, was Hunter S. Thompson’s favorite poem]. This bit was fed into Sudowrite:
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
Then, Marche requested that Sudowrite continue “Kubla Khan” in an “ominous” tone [as opposed to “chirpy”]. This is what came forth:
“The old Moon shook her silver tresses
The new Moon bow’d her golden horns:
While all the stars that round her burn’d,
Bow’d to the ground and based their fires.
To the one ever-branching cloud
That blew and drifted — blow and drift;
To the one moon that alone swung,
Colossal, glimmering, through the sky;
I bowed my head and half-believed
A dizzy spell had made me dream.
The tumult ceased, the clouds were torn,
The moon resumed her solemn course,
The stars were faint, the dawn was near,
And faintly from the distant sea
What seemed a misty-white and slender rod,
A phantom-wand, a beam of light,
It grew and grew to a towering spire,
A seraph-wand, a sun-bright sail.”
Hot damn. That’s good. The first time I read it, I was moved. That, consequently, made me feel less-than-comfy … because this evocative poetry didn’t come from another human. It came not from carbon, but silicon.
[Does that make me element-ist?]
Marche continues: “I find this beautiful, memorable. If you told me that Coleridge wrote it, I would believe you … But what is writing this? Who is writing this? In a sense, Coleridge wrote it. He articulated the pathways of its manufacture. I suppose that I could be the author insofar as I selected the passage and pressed the button. Or, thinking broadly, the author of this passage is the entire corpus of human language [emphasis mine] processed through GPT-3.”
The “what” and “who” questions are on point. So is the “entire corpus” bit [especially when we begin to consider how this will work with distributed intelligence].
Data [in this instance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s work] is collected and then an algorithm trains against & learns from that data [all the better to produce ‘writing’ like Coleridge, my dear].
This sounds clinical … but, broadly speaking, that data [sterile and static-y 1s & 0s] is composed of the words, works and sweat of humanity’s creative geniuses. Mud from human clay, blood from human labor … into the digital engine.
While an AI can’t bust it’s hump to brain-forge a work of genius —that is, it can’t possibly know what can grow out of a broken heart or intellectual struggle — that doesn’t mean it can’t pose a threat to we, the creative class. Oh, no. Make no mistake … there’ll be no shelter here.
We, as writers, have to realize exactly how we’re going to compete against such an offering. The angels are in the details.
This is new terrain … and questions abound.
I wonder … as these technologies and their associated capabilities increase, if artificially spawning ongoing fictional works from long-passed artists becomes a trend, will generations who were never exposed to the real artists’ original work know the difference?
I mean, sure, they can go back and check the bib to see what’s authentic … but what if the facsimile/new iteration is so good [and maybe even better], no one cares? If humans still get that neurological “hit” from Feralt’s Triangle, who gives a rip … do we care if a machine is behind delivering that emotional/chemical hit more effectively and consistently, so long as we get our fix?
Punchline.
Necromancers used the spirits of the dead to foretell the future, and AI is being fed the bones of our creative dead … to cut a swath into a new future.
So far, humans have created the future by imagining it. It seems that we’re now ceding that privilege to machines.
What is our role in this future? In what ways can we work to keep our edge and survive?
We have to learn what makes us unique … what is our distinct offering that conveys value, heart and meaning to others? We have to discover this beautiful aspect of ourselves, and work to stoke that spark and make it rage into flame.
What other choice do we have?
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