Artificial intelligence doesn’t just incrementally erode the rights of authors and other creators. These technologies are designed to replace creati

AI isn’t about unleashing our imaginations, it’s about outsourcing them. The real purpose is profit

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2024-11-16 21:00:04

Artificial intelligence doesn’t just incrementally erode the rights of authors and other creators. These technologies are designed to replace creative workers altogether

B ack in 2022, when ChatGPT arrived, I was part of the first wave of users. Delighted but also a little uncertain what to do with it, I asked the system to generate all kinds of random things. A song about George Floyd in the style of Bob Dylan. A menu for a vegetarian dinner party. A briefing paper about alternative shipping technologies.

The quality of what it produced was variable, but it made clear something that is even more apparent now than it was then. That this technology wasn’t just a toy. Instead its arrival is an inflection point in human history. Over coming years and decades, AI will transform every aspect of our lives.

But we are also at an inflection point for those of us who make our living with words, and indeed anybody in the creative arts. Whether you’re a writer, an actor, a singer, a film-maker, a painter or a photographer, a machine can now do what you do, instantly and for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps it can’t do it quite as well as you can just yet, but like the Tyrannosaurus rex in the rear vision mirror in the original Jurassic Park, it’s gaining on you, and fast.

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