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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Deschain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:04pm
Originally posted by copperdogma copperdogma wrote:

I know what you mean. I've been applying that same question to other things. What if I knew a video game I loved was mostly created by AI? What about a washing machine? An instruction manual? A piece of furniture? The answer changes in strange and subtle ways with each thing.

I feel like we're going to spend a LOT of time in the (near) future grappling with these questions on an ever-increasing cadence.

of course, we might also be looking at emerging artificial consciousness. so at some point this could go from stories written by advanced language models, to stories written by something that believes it's a sentient being. 

personally, I'm not that hung up on what created something, as long as I know what it is. this isn't a new issue, just the new iteration of an old issue. musicians had the same problem with synthesizers. painters had the same fears about cameras.

I'm sure somebody who doesn't understand how debate works might come along here and list differences between AI and cameras and synthesizers and try to argue that these are different scenarios. but the truth is writers are feeling threatened by a new technology, and i think their fears are understandable, but personally it doesn't affect my process and I'm open to the new possibilities it will open up for other people artistically. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote copperdogma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:14pm
Originally posted by Deschain Deschain wrote:

Originally posted by copperdogma copperdogma wrote:

I know what you mean. I've been applying that same question to other things. What if I knew a video game I loved was mostly created by AI? What about a washing machine? An instruction manual? A piece of furniture? The answer changes in strange and subtle ways with each thing.

I feel like we're going to spend a LOT of time in the (near) future grappling with these questions on an ever-increasing cadence.

of course, we might also be looking at emerging artificial consciousness. so at some point this could go from stories written by advanced language models, to stories written by something that believes it's a sentient being. 

personally, I'm not that hung up on what created something, as long as I know what it is. this isn't a new issue, just the new iteration of an old issue. musicians had the same problem with synthesizers. painters had the same fears about cameras.

I'm sure somebody who doesn't understand how debate works might come along here and list differences between AI and cameras and synthesizers and try to argue that these are different scenarios. but the truth is writers are feeling threatened by a new technology, and i think their fears are understandable, but personally it doesn't affect my process and I'm open to the new possibilities it will open up for other people artistically. 

This is a good point. And I like your analogies to past human vs machine advancements.

One thing I like about all of this is it makes us ask WHY we write in the first place. The answer, I think, informs a lot of how we react to it.

If writing is our livelihood then AI poses a fundamental risk to our existence.

If writing is our passion, maybe AI doesn't make any difference as we'd do it anyway.

If we're writing to improve, maybe AI doesn't make any difference.

If we're writing for external validation, AI poses competition.

I'm sure most people overlap somewhere in there and there are 1000 other variations on this.

Personally, I write here because I want to write a book and I want to be more skilled before I attempt it. Also I want to use any accolades from my stories here to try to get a publisher more interested. My end goal with the book I want to write it to help as many people as possible. If AI beats me to it and helps the world in my stead, I'll be sad I've lost a project that means a lot to me, but my goal has been met and the world is (hopefully) a better place because of it.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Deschain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:23pm
yeah I'm in the same boat with not aspiring to be a professional writer, but the professional writers are definitely feeling threatened right now and I understand why. in general, people are afraid of technology replacing them, but I think what really ends up happening is the technology opens up new possibilities for people artistically. there are still painters, but now there are movies thanks to cameras. 

but a big part is honesty. and when it comes to that I stand with my fellow artists in saying it really is absolutely wrong to deceive people with it. I don't want to read AI generated news articles, or things like that. 


Edited by Deschain - 15 Jan 2023 at 4:24pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote copperdogma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:33pm
Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

I cannot agree with the fundamental premise that I would ever like something written by an AI. Particularly creative writing. Unlike art, there are NO objective ratios or formulae by which to measure if something is "right" in creative writing. And even then, the art AIs are still trash compared to a competent artist. It's highly telling that ChatGPT can only semi-succesfully reproduce nonfiction text or code. Nonfiction is consistent, if you write like a dry piece of cardboard. It has a formula that can be derived from millions of similar content articles online.

Creative writing is fundamentally incomparable.

Originally posted by copperdogma copperdogma wrote:

Currently ChatGPT, from my experiments, writes terrible stories;) But this stuff if advancing rapidly, so not being worried yet would be like standing in the rain before an approaching hurricane and saying "it's no big deal -- just a drizzle."

This will be the future. I wanted to ask the question about ChatGPT to get people in a community I love thinking about it and the ramifications for the future.


Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

1) Of course I'm worried. Like many visual artists found after Midjourney AI went big, we are relying on the honor system of the people who built the bot and the people who trained it by uploading content. There are artists who never agreed to have their art included in the learning algorithm who have now been included. (I would not have used Midjourney if I knew that; I naively trusted their claim that all images it trained on were in the public domain.) I have 500k+ words available for free on my Reddit writing account. I have no doubt that my work will be stolen for this endeavor, to train robots to try to replace writers like me.

However, I am not worried about being outwritten by a robot. I am worried about how to protect my IP in this era without damaging my readers or my own success. It will be extremely hard to share writing for free on indexable searches in the next 10 years. I've already had my writing stolen over and over by TikTok or Youtube narrators. This is just the next iteration of lazy art thieves. f**k them all. No respect.

2) As long as quantum computing is only a pipedream, ChatGPT will never be as good as a human creative writer who's been writing for more than about five minutes. Full stop. The simple technical limits of the algorithm + the infinite capacity of the human mind make it no-contest.

I'm fascinated by your take on all of this.

Also, as a side note, I've read a few of your stories on here in the past. You're a brilliant writer! Thank you for sharing. You inspire me to be better.

You may be right with your assumption that an AI can never be better than a human at creative writing, but I'm not sure about that myself.

First, I'd say Midjourney can definitely outperform, both in terms of execution AND creativity, a lot of artists at this point. No the best artists. And it still, I think, it's main issue is that is has nothing to say.

Second, and this addresses the Midjourney issue itself, is that AI isn't done evolving. It's just barely begun. Tech tends to follow an S-curve of evolution, and AI is about to go vertical with its capabilities. It might be hubris to assume an AI can never outperform humans in every arena.

I don't see it being very hard to add something to an AI generation pipeline to ensure it has something to SAY with everything it creates. And it would be trivial to add something that ensures novelty. It's already ingested most of the internet. It can't be hard to tell it that when generating something, ensure it's sufficiently different from anything else it's ever seen.

Now you have an AI that has something fascinating to say and it's saying it in a compelling way that's gripping to read. I'd guess we're going to see that a year from now? Maybe two.

One of your main points seems to be the unfairness/illegality of repurposing others' work. I totally agree that plagiarism is a big issue here, and it's grossly unfair to take the work of someone else and use it as your own.

I think it's more tricky when it comes to AIs. As humans, we slowly absorb the collective works of everything we've ever experienced, and we synthesize something new from that. If we're bad at it, it's derivative. If we're good, it's insightful and novel. This is basically how these AIs work. They're trained on a massive body of work, but they synthesize their own new works from that, much as we do.

Yes, you can abuse it. But the AIs are inherently ammoral (although ChatGTP is putting in moral guardrails). It's no different than asking an unscrupulous writer to write a story in the exact style of Stephen King or a paining in the style of Van Gough. It's not original. It's essentially a form of theft. You can ask an AI to do that and it will comply. But if you ask it to create something novel, it will, and it does it much like we do: create something new from its vast experience of what is. Currently it's often bland cardboard and generically derivative from all previous works, but that's going to change quickly.

But maybe I'm not addressing your core points of humans vs. AI.

Personally I hope you're right. I hope AI can never replace what makes us fundamentally human. That there's something at our core that allows us to create at a level an AI can never match. Or maybe, like bespoke furniture, humans who can afford it will reject things not created by other human beings purely on aesthetic/spiritual grounds.







Edited by copperdogma - 15 Jan 2023 at 4:34pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote copperdogma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:41pm
Originally posted by Deschain Deschain wrote:

yeah I'm in the same boat with not aspiring to be a professional writer, but the professional writers are definitely feeling threatened right now and I understand why. in general, people are afraid of technology replacing them, but I think what really ends up happening is the technology opens up new possibilities for people artistically. there are still painters, but now there are movies thanks to cameras. 

but a big part is honesty. and when it comes to that I stand with my fellow artists in saying it really is absolutely wrong to deceive people with it. I don't want to read AI generated news articles, or things like that. 

I think they're right to fear it. I have a few writer friends who are pretty worried, and I know some people who manage writers who are considering getting rid of them or not hiring more.

What we do here as storytellers is, currently, an extraordinarily creative and human version of writing. Stories are meant to inspire, provoke thought, or bring someone to tears with emotion.

But 90% of human writing is.. vanilla. FAQs and CEO profiles and blog posts for SEO. It's not worth the expense to make it better. It's quantity over quality. These peoples' jobs are threatened today.

But that's often how technology works: it slowly eats away at the dull, dirty, dangerous jobs of the world. In the worst case, people lose their livelihoods. In the best case, they get far more rewarding jobs doing something that requires more of their unique humanity to accomplish.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote laleighda Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 4:54pm
Originally posted by copperdogma copperdogma wrote:

Originally posted by Deschain Deschain wrote:

yeah I'm in the same boat with not aspiring to be a professional writer, but the professional writers are definitely feeling threatened right now and I understand why. in general, people are afraid of technology replacing them, but I think what really ends up happening is the technology opens up new possibilities for people artistically. there are still painters, but now there are movies thanks to cameras. 

but a big part is honesty. and when it comes to that I stand with my fellow artists in saying it really is absolutely wrong to deceive people with it. I don't want to read AI generated news articles, or things like that. 

I think they're right to fear it. I have a few writer friends who are pretty worried, and I know some people who manage writers who are considering getting rid of them or not hiring more.

What we do here as storytellers is, currently, an extraordinarily creative and human version of writing. Stories are meant to inspire, provoke thought, or bring someone to tears with emotion.

But 90% of human writing is.. vanilla. FAQs and CEO profiles and blog posts for SEO. It's not worth the expense to make it better. It's quantity over quality. These peoples' jobs are threatened today.

But that's often how technology works: it slowly eats away at the dull, dirty, dangerous jobs of the world. In the worst case, people lose their livelihoods. In the best case, they get far more rewarding jobs doing something that requires more of their unique humanity to accomplish.

 

Very interesting take. I think all of us should be prepared for the role of automation and AI, including those in the creative field. It is coming, or is already here. It can be scary, but think of all the technical tools we do use - I am 100% reliant on spell check, and slightly less so on thesaurus. I am in a writing group, and someone was scolded for using a rhyme generator, but that is a technology that exists, and the person using it still wrote his poems, but was just helped a little bit by the tool. 

What's the line in the sand? Seems to be different for people.

Side note - @Deschain is your SN in reference to Roland Deschain? 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Deschain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 8:11pm
Originally posted by laleighda laleighda wrote:


Side note - @Deschain is your SN in reference to Roland Deschain? 

it is! reading the Dark Tower series throughout quarantine is what inspired me to start writing again. I don't actually like horror so I had never read King before, but that series was amazing and it really inspired me to write without imposing so many rules on myself as a storyteller. so the screen name is my reminder to write fearlessly...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote laleighda Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 8:33pm
Yesssss! Love seeing other Dark Tower fans. Write fearlessly - I love it! Solid advice that I try and heed as well :)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote Suave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jan 2023 at 9:23pm

I have always written because I want to create some of the stuff that
as a kid I read - and I read a lot. I have no doubt that AI will eventually
equal anything that a writer can produce - I say this because I can imagine
how I would tweak the AI as I kept improving the program. I can imagine 
telling my AI I want a story that uses different elements of a few authors
style, not content, pinpointing what I wanted incorporated - damn, I just
came up with a plot for a Sci-Fi. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done
in the ingestion of those authors writings into the AI. Training the AI to recognize:
style, plot development, word choices, thought process connecting all that.
If I can write a 400 page book incorporating all that, then I can make a AI that can
as well - well, cept I am not a programmer, but I can imagine it so it can be
done.


Edited by Suave - 16 Jan 2023 at 12:16am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (3) Thanks(3)   Quote countercheck Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jan 2023 at 9:12am
I think it's important to recognize that the AI ChatGPT is built on is probably a dead end. It's not an emerging consciousness. It has no awareness of what it writes. It doesn't understand the concept of truth, or logic, and what's more, can't meaningfully interact with those concepts. It's just amped up autocomplete. At best, it's going to become a module in a more capable network of systems.

This is part of what makes it so cool as a utility and so terrifying as a source of misinformation. It doesn't tell truth or lies, it just spews endless streams of bullsh*t on a theme.

If you want to create an endless stream of bullsh*t for generating SEO maximizing websites or flooding forums and twitter, then it's your thing. If you want to generate weird and wonderful combinations of things, it can also do that. 

The worryingly part of it, from a professional writing standpoint, if it has a large enough sample, it can do it in your voice.


Edited by countercheck - 16 Jan 2023 at 9:15am
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