Artificial Intelligence is Coming for Me

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A couple of years ago, a writer friend told me that soon artificial intelligence will be writing better fiction than we can. I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but I didn’t forget his words. On the bright side, it prompted me to write two new novels: The Culling and In Flight. Perhaps I was trying to get something accomplished before I became obsolete.

That day might be approaching. Generative AI tools are coming for me. They’re coming for all authors.

Today, I got a request from the Authors Guild—the oldest and largest professional organization for published writers— to sign an “Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders.” The letter calls on the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, and IBM to obtain consent, credit, and fairly compensate writers for the use of copyrighted materials in training AI.

By now, anyone who does any serious writing has taken a ride on the artificial intelligence express. I hitched onto ChatGPT, from OpenAI. I use it for conducting research, which is obviously a key component of writing. It serves as kind of a supercharged search engine. But I don’t use ChatGPT for composition. Its prose tends to be flat, monotone, and repetitive—three descriptors I’d hate for anyone to apply to my own writing, and if they do I’d rather not know about it. Plus what’s the point of being a writer if all you’re going to do is write prompts for AI tools?

I didn’t immediately sign the Authors Guild letter. First, I had to perform background checks.

The Authors Guild letter claims that AI tools “mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill. You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited.”

[AI tools] mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill. You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited.

Is this true? Could AI tools be gobbling up my copyrighted works? I decided to go directly to the source and ask ChatGPT how Generative AI tools learn to write fiction. Answer:

[Generative AI tools] “have been trained on a diverse range of texts, including fiction stories, so they can understand and emulate the structure, style, and content found in various types of narratives . . . With the help of prompts and creative input, generative AI can generate short stories, dialogues, character interactions, and even entire novels.”

[Generative AI tools] have been trained on a diverse range of texts, including fiction stories, so they can understand and emulate the structure, style, and content found in various types of narratives . . . With the help of prompts and creative input, generative AI can generate short stories, dialogues, character interactions, and even entire novels.

Their training includes a “process called unsupervised learning on a large dataset of diverse texts from the internet.” Love that word “unsupervised.” Being unsupervised never leads to trouble, does it?

ChatGPT did offer this caveat about its fictional talents:

“AI-generated fiction can be entertaining and interesting, but it may not have the same depth and emotional resonance as the works of talented human authors.”

No, not yet. Wait six months or a year and I’m afraid we’ll start seeing the “depth and emotional resonance.”

I signed the letter. I realize it’s not much more than a symbolic gesture. Once Pandora’s Box has been opened, there’s no getting it closed again.

By David Klein

David Klein

Published novelist, creative writer, journalist, avid reader, discriminating screen watcher.

Novels

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