Writers, Hacks, And Aithers (Part 1 of 5)

In which Ye Olde Pharte goes off on yet another Quixotic quest against inappropriate AI usage.

Recently I’ve seen quite a few folks crowing about how they use AI for the bulk of their…well, for the purposes of this discussion we’ll say “creative” work.

“Get used to it, grandpa/ma,” is their general tone and tenor.  “I let AI do all the heavy lifting so I can slap my name on it and reap all the rewards and readership with none of the effort.”

Now, it should go without saying that there are varying degrees of incorporating AI input in any creative field.

The bulk of my fictoids are prompted by sentences generated by the old Magic Realism Bot back when Twitter was Twitter.  These were random oddball sentences and phrases like “A Russian cook bakes a birthday cake for good luck” that I would then try to base a short-short story on.

The wilder the prompt, the wilder the story.

I enjoy writing them.  They’re the equivalent of finger-warming exercises on a piano.  Sometimes I subvert the apparent meaning of the prompt, sometimes I use variant definitions of words in them to change their meaning. 

It’s all in fun.

But it gives me a chance to warm up my imagination, to get my creative juices flowing, to experiment and try out different things and judge their success.

Past the initial prompt idea, they are 100% organic.

The concept of practice seems to elude many aithers (i.e., authors who rely mainly or wholly on AI). 

There’s a reason we don’t hear of anyone using AI to dance or to do stand-up comedy or to sing.  Those are artistic expressions that must be done in person, and the only way to do them well is to take the time and make the bloody effort to acquire the experience and skill sets necessary.

Yes, AI could create a choreography using Labanonation, and yes, it could create what passes for music to accompany it, and yes, also create a video of photorealistic AI generated dancers performing the routine…

…but that’s not the same as a real person performing in front of a real audience, is it?

Don McMillan, America’s Number one Nerdy Comedian, performs a routine where he compares AI generated jokes with jokes he wrote and is honest enough to acknowledge when AI occasionally creates a better set-up and punchline than him.

But what AI can’t do is connect with a live audience the way Don does.  Don’s stage act includes power point displays and Venn diagrams and down-the-rabbit-hole forays after obscure knowledge and facts and his audience is with him every step of the way because Don knows how to read a room and can connect emotionally with everyone in it.

Seriously (humorously?), go watch some of his videos on YouTube.  See how he does it.

And as for singing?  I created a meme for my youngest granddaughter once:  “Just because I can’t sing doesn’t mean I won’t sing.”

AI can’t give you voice.  You need to learn and hone that for yourself.

And that requires time, effort, and practice.

© Buzz Dixon