I'm in a mood. I'm sorry I am.
If you've been here a while, you can probably guess what has me moody.
AI. Image generators and LLMs specifically.
Robot writing. Robot art.
Its coming at me from a lot of angles at the moment - work, friends, life. Its less the “existential threat of tomorrow" and very present in my every day. Maybe you're seeing it too.
A friend of mine did a demonstration, showing me a blog article chatGPT wrote in two seconds. A perfectly passable, coherent, blog article. And hey, I get it. I get why this is exciting for a lot of people. If I run anything from a local bakery or make my own jewelry to a banking app or charity - I've got content I need to put out on the soshe meeds. And its nice that here's a tool that can do that for me without my having to go get an MFA in writing or graphic design to get it done (putting aside the fact that the ‘tool’ is arguably a plagiarism machine stealing from the people who do know how to do these things well, but I digress).
Totally get it.
It wasn't that this particular AI demonstration could write an article that set me off - after all, we've known it can create blog articles for a while. It was how.....passable it was. It was good, in other words. Good enough, anyway, for the reader not to care if it was written by a person or a robot if they didn't want to. And it wasn't just that it was good enough. It was that it could be good enough at 1 millionth the speed of a human being. While stealing from human beings.
And that made me want to throw the computer.
Because I was suddenly very aware of the world we live in - a world of algorithms. Algorithms demand CONTENT, baby! An insatiable beast hungry for more more more, ranking everything not on its merit or quality but its immediacy, frequency and ugh, buzziest of buzz words. Optimize that search!
And all I could hear was Daenarys Stormborn's wheel speech in GoT: "They're all just spokes on a wheel - first this one's on top then that one's on top, and on and on it spins."
Indeed, Danny. A content wheel.
Before AI, if you were gonna play the game of art meets capitalism and the internet, you could - the fastest player wins, but you could at least try to be the fastest you possibly could. Now.... Well.
If everyone is churning out content at the speed of light thanks to computers...what hope does a luddite have to join the race?
So use the AI, Meaghan.
Sure. I could. Some writers are taking an optimistic approach to the age of AI, seeing programs like ChatGPT and the like as “tools” - they can help with plotting! They can write the summary! Its here to help!
I’m not so optimistic. I think the only people these programs were designed to help are the people who would rather not pay a writer or artist to do anything. Free content. And now they can have it. And where they can’t get it free, they want it cheaper - and if free is possible, then everything else in the writing and art space becomes cheaper as a result. And the human aspect becomes less
and less
and less.
Look at Amazon - it’s been inundated with AI copy cat books, not to mention products. Look at the Dreamworks founder, discussing the possibility that he won’t need animators to animate anymore. The rich will get richer off empty, hollow nonsense. And the creators will be buried by it. Which is why I don’t think the coming of AI is as simple as being open and optimistic and embracing these “tools" without question or pushback. I think, if we want art and creative industries to survive, pushback and moderation and regulation will be vital.
Personally, I have absolutely zero interest in LLMs. I'm a writer. The words themselves are my business, my craft. The joy of writing things to share with readers is IN THE WRITING. One letter in front of the other. Brick by brick. Remove that...and what's the point? Why bake if you aren't going to bake? Why paint if you aren't going to paint? Why sing if you aren't going to sing? If I'm going to write.....I'm going to WRITE.
And so here we are, in the cold dawn of 2024. And I've decided how I'm going to handle the AI writing world.
I'm channeling all my punk rock energy and saying EFF THAT NOISE.
If the internet is about to become a frothing, roiling, rising sea of AI gobbledy gook, listicles and farticles, then I want none of it. I don't need to compete. I'm just gonna be over here, in my leaky little rowboat. Writing what I wanna write.
Because I. Want. To. Write.
And I bet you do too. Or maybe you want to draw. Or paint. Or write a song. Silicon Valley is convinced you don't need to. Convinced the audience doesn't care where art comes from. What's behind the creation. That its a waste of time to do the actual work that defines ART. And they want to convince you too. I don't know about you, but I don’t buy it. Call me crazy, but the vision of art provided by corporations and tech bros feels very…not rock and roll to me. Art as defined by The Man? Eyebrow raise.
So maybe the art of tomorrow isn’t the “inevitable” art as prompted by CEOs that Silicon Valley wants us to accept. Maybe the creative revolution on the horizon isn't the towering tidal wave of robot content coming at us. Maybe the creative revolution is us - you and me. The artists and dreamers and story tellers, turning away from the capitalist machine and maintaining what art is - us. Who and what we are as human beings. That's the real crux of it, isn't it? Art is us. It’s an expression of humanity. Take away the human and it becomes just...content.
So I am going a little bit punk rock this year, and rebelling against the algorithms and LLMs that want to take our art for themselves, spitting it back out at us, chewed and pulped, and available to you for a subscription fee. I will embrace the hand crafted human touch.
I'm not a content creator. I'm a writer.
WHAT I’M WORKING ON
Just finishing the copy edits on my latest hi-lo novel with Orca Books. Guess what its about? haha I’m sorry, this book is the reason I have AI on the brain. Its been a wild ride, because the story I started telling was told in a world 8 months ago, which is very different world from the one we’re in now. And my feelings and thoughts keep evolving. It will be interesting to see where I am on the subject when the book finally gets into the hands of readers. Either way, its been a journey! Hoping to share the cover art with you as soon as I’m allowed!
Its that time of year again! I’ll be at the OLA Super Conference on January 26 and I will be there to sign copies of Countdown and The Bear House: Scales and Stardust! Very excited to brave the cold and head into the big city to nerd out about books with awesome teachers and librarians and some writerly friends!
WHAT I’M READING
Nettle and Bone by T Kingfisher. I’d seen so many of T Kingfisher titles on lists and even flagged a couple that I wanted to read but hadn’t gotten around to it until now. And I am so glad I did. Nettle and Bone is exactly the sort of fairy tale adventure to tuck into with a warm tea and cozy blanket on cold winter nights and its everything I was looking for. Right up there with Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik so far!
This article from
was all my feels on AI. It was a lovely and perfectly timed read for me.This article from
makes predictions for the publishing industry in 2024 and its got a lot of interesting things to consider - including AI stuff!If you haven’t read
yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough. So many great reads for writers, including this one about unlikable narrators - my fave kind.Drawing hands IS THE WORST! But
has us covered with some anatomy tips and practice.Paid Subscribers:
Punk rock princess phone wallpaper is coming your way! Watch your inbox :)
And that’s it!
Til next time!
There's always been a market and an audience for trashy, meaningless stuff. I think AI will entirely gobble that up.
For everyone else, I still optimistically think that AI will in fact result in people valuing *people* more than ever. That connection will become ever more important. The declaration 'human made' will be vital, like buying organic food, or choosing an independent cafe over Starbucks, or shopping in weird shops instead of the main chains.
For me, the process is as important as the finished thing. I'm fascinated by how artists create stuff. If the answer is 'waited 2 seconds for ChatGPT', then that makes the end product less interesting, even if it is technically and aesthetically very good on paper.
The other side to this that I still don't quite get is where the money is for those exploiting these tools and stealing from humans. Feels like a gold rush to me, in its current incarnation. Why would I buy an AI generated book from someone else/a company, rather than generate my OWN AI generated book? I can kinda see the appeal of wanting a new Harry Potter book and rolling my own in 5 seconds. But buying generated content from someone else? What's the point? Again, the process is important: there's a certain intrigue to generating your own stuff with AI, but consuming stuff generated by someone ELSE seems utterly redundant to me. If these systems become increasingly accessible, the market for actually selling generated works is going to evaporate, because anyone interested in that kind of material will simply make their own at home based on their mood. "I fancy an action movie with Bruce Willis tonight."
I'm slightly expecting the generative AI bubble to go pop in various ways, after which we can hopefully focus on useful applications of similar technologies. ie medical, or being used in clever ways by artists to enhance or do previously impossible things. etc.
All I can think of those MAH-velous AI-generated images?
"Oh, no, you di'n't..."