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AI vs. Professional Authors Results

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Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#41

Post by kronatus »

d0100 wrote: post #35
thwarted wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. Reading this sentence reminded me of the classic HN position of "ideas are worthless, what matters is the execution", usually mentioned in the context of an "ideas person" looking for their "technical cofounder" and the ideas person thinking they…

> If your "vision" is only the "idea for a sci-fi story", is that really a vision? We have art, games and movie directors AI just enables anyone to be a "director", but most people can't direct anything worthwhile

I agree with your point that most of us probably couldn't direct much worthwhile, but surely art/game/movie directors have more than an "idea". Granted the only creative directors that I know of are the ones that did an exceptional job, so that might be a skewed perspective. I guess my objection is largely that the creative process is the fumbling around, treating LLMs as a shortcut to a creative product because you "haven't mastered the medium" is skipping the whole creative process; if you haven't bothered to fail at it, why should I be bothered to read it?

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#42

Post by voidhorse »

hyperadvanced wrote: post #28
thwarted wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. Reading this sentence reminded me of the classic HN position of "ideas are worthless, what matters is the execution", usually mentioned in the context of an "ideas person" looking for their "technical cofounder" and the ideas person thinking they…

I also think that just having “an idea” isn’t exactly the same as increasing net creativity. Oftentimes with art, the impact of something truly creative results in changing the parameters of the medium or genre itself, not merely sticking to the script and producing a new work in the style of X. If you take, for example, J Dilla and his impact on hip-hop, the fact that there’s an entire subgenre or two focused on som…

I completely agree. If nothing else, the discourse around LLM use in the creative space has just shown me that many people in technology simply have little to no comprehension of the arts and humanities and have no clue what it is that artists actually do, or even how to intelligently engage with artistic works. The 20th cen transformation of art into time-filling idle entertainment by way of mass media has been a great success. The internet helped reset some of that, but not by much. I guess that shouldn't necessarily be surprising, but I am always kind of astonished at the fact that our society has produced a large number of specialists who are profoundly good at what they do but who clearly lack exposure to other spheres of life.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#43

Post by perching_aix »

d0100 wrote: post #35
thwarted wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. Reading this sentence reminded me of the classic HN position of "ideas are worthless, what matters is the execution", usually mentioned in the context of an "ideas person" looking for their "technical cofounder" and the ideas person thinking they…

> If your "vision" is only the "idea for a sci-fi story", is that really a vision? We have art, games and movie directors AI just enables anyone to be a "director", but most people can't direct anything worthwhile

It's also not a static process. It is reasonable to expect that through interaction with AI, just like through the usage of any tool, people can get better at this. Especially since AI can explain people concepts about the thing they're trying to make, teaching them about it, even if it cannot apply them consistently at scale on its own.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#44

Post by thwarted »

vunderba wrote: post #26
thwarted wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. Reading this sentence reminded me of the classic HN position of "ideas are worthless, what matters is the execution", usually mentioned in the context of an "ideas person" looking for their "technical cofounder" and the ideas person thinking they…

Agreed. Have a read through the 10 dragon stories - the majority of them are rich in spices, but bereft otherwise. LLMs seem to revel in throwing layer after layer of decorative paint in the hope that people will fail to notice that they're not actually painting anything. As a writer, the best advice that I can give is to build your house upon the rock and not upon the sand.

> LLMs seem to revel in throwing layer after layer of decorative paint in the hope that people will fail to notice that they're not actually painting anything.

Length or duration is considered, erroneously IMO, to be a measure of completeness or thoroughness. Pithiness is valuable, and is a skill that can be honed. I guess padding out your writing using an LLM is equivalent to adjusting the font size and margins on a "three page essay" to meet the minimum requirements.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#45

Post by ordinaryradical »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #32

We're at a key milestone in the IP wars; IP was inducted into our civilization to protect the few who had the ability to create. This idea is well past it's due date. We should move to a liberal IP regime, with copyright strictly reduced to 7-10 years, with all works then entering public domain. Our society will universally thrive with the abundance that will come. I understand and empathize that a class of vocations…

There are hundreds of years of art already in the public domain and society is not “universally thriving?” Why would adding a couple more recent years change that?

Seems very utopian magic thinking to me.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#46

Post by andrewflnr »

xenotux wrote: post #12

I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. In that respect, it's cool: if you had a great idea for a sci-fi story but no talent for writing, and if an LLM let you realize your vision, that's neat. It has some negative externalities for the craftsmen, but overall, more creativity is hardly a…

> more creativity is hardly a bad thing.

Why, exactly, is creativity good? What is the benefit, and to whom? Does that benefit survive the interposition of genAI? I'm doubtful, either for the reader or the craftsmen.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#47

Post by thwarted »

voidhorse wrote: post #42
hyperadvanced wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think that just having “an idea” isn’t exactly the same as increasing net creativity. Oftentimes with art, the impact of something truly creative results in changing the parameters of the medium or genre itself, not merely sticking to the script and producing a new work in the style of X. If you take, for example, J Dilla and his impact on hip-hop, the fact that there’s an entire subgenre or two focused on som…

I completely agree. If nothing else, the discourse around LLM use in the creative space has just shown me that many people in technology simply have little to no comprehension of the arts and humanities and have no clue what it is that artists actually do, or even how to intelligently engage with artistic works. The 20th cen transformation of art into time-filling idle entertainment by way of mass media has been a gr…

> the discourse around LLM use in the creative space has just shown me that many people in technology simply have little to no comprehension of the arts and humanities and have no clue what it is that artists actually do, or even how to intelligently engage with artistic works

While shitting on "people in technology" is the pastime du jour, the technologists may be boosters, but non-technical, non-creative people also have "little to no comprehension of the arts and humanities and have no clue what it is that artists actually do, or even how to intelligently engage with artistic works". And that's because they are mainly consumers of the creative output.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#48

Post by waltbosz »

There is an Asimov story called "Someday" in which a toy computer called a Bard generates random fairy tales and reads them to children.

In the story two children try to hack their Bard, to make it tell more interesting modern stories, by feeding it a new vocabulary of modern words. In the end, it just generates the same old fairy tale plots using the new words it has learned.

I really feel like that story embodies today's AI generated stories. I've tried to get ChatGPT to generate original fairy tales and whatever plot prompt I give it, it spits out what is essentially the same dull story every time.

I always enjoy spotting a good anachronism in a sci-fi story (societies with space travel but still use typewriters), but this is a case of really spot on prediction.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#49

Post by xenotux »

thwarted wrote: post #23
xenotux wrote: post #12

I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. In that respect, it's cool: if you had a great idea for a sci-fi story but no talent for writing, and if an LLM let you realize your vision, that's neat. It has some negative externalities for the craftsmen, but overall, more creativity is hardly a…

> I think this is similar to AI generated images: it puts a new creative tool in the hands of people who might have had good ideas, but didn't have a mastery of the medium. Reading this sentence reminded me of the classic HN position of "ideas are worthless, what matters is the execution", usually mentioned in the context of an "ideas person" looking for their "technical cofounder" and the ideas person thinking they…

I think that's an odd way of viewing creativity: unless you can pull off the whole thing, you're not really creative/

What about people who are not native speakers? Who are dyslexic? Do we deny them the spark of creativity because they can't write perfect prose without help? Heck, what about most sci-fi writers? Their editors often do a lot of heavy lifting to make the final product good.

If you have a killer idea for a meme or a really clever concept of a four-panel comic strip, but don't know how to use Photoshop or can't draw very well, is it a sin to ask a machine to help? Is your idea somehow worthless just because you previously couldn't do that?

I'm not disputing that a lot of people don't use these tools this way. In fact, that was exactly my point. If your "idea" is to crank out deceptive drivel, I'm not defending that.

Re: AI vs. Professional Authors Results

#50

Post by dwd »

The best fantasy/sci-fi literature involves a lot of world building.

For some, the world building came first and the stories were an offshoot of that.

Tolkien needed a world and stories to bring life to the languages he was inventing.

Raymond E Feist's Midkemia was a massive collaborative effort for a RPG world. He has stated: "I don't write fantasy; I write historical novels about an imaginary place. At least that's how I look at it."

This is what you won't see AI doing...yet.

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