Last year, ‘Writers Guild of America’ (representing 11,500 Hollywood screenwriters) went on strike for better pay. But it’s AI anxiety that underpinned their movement.
The writers feared GenAI (like ChatGPT) could be used to undercut their pay and leverage.
How?
- GenAI can be used to spit out the first draft of a movie script, which would later be refined by human writers.
- AI’s ability to mimic an artist’s work can be used to simulate new work without compensating the artist.
- Imagine a tool with the ability to mimic your writing style, to imitate your voice modulation (for dubbing artists), and to even reproduce your persona (for actors).
If this is made legal (it’s already possible to a large extent), studios/production companies can produce personalized work without paying the artists.
But it’s not just the Hollywood writers whose livelihoods are at risk.
An entrepreneur I recently met boasted: “Earlier, I had a requirement of 5 content writers. Now, all I need is one writer and a ChatGPT subscription.”
It will require a holistic vision and humanity to navigate the challenges AI is throwing at us.
There are legal concerns too. The US Copyrights Office clarified only human work can be copyrighted. But what about a script developed from an AI-generated first draft? To the extent a human is shaping the content, that human element alone is eligible for copyright. So the legal landscape is in flux too.
But aside from the commercial considerations, what else do artists have against AI?
I read somewhere: ChatGPT can never write deep literature, because it never had a troubled childhood.
It’s more profound than funny.
Every artist needs a tragedy!
No artist can truly blossom to his fullest potential without:
- facing the lowest ebbs of human emotions
- experiencing the joy of struggle
- embracing the satisfaction of striving
Nick Cave, the Australian musician and writer, was asked by his fans, Leon and Charlie, about ChatGPT’s impact. The fans mentioned a songwriter who was using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier’.
In response, Cave wrote an emotional letter that deserves to be read by everyone, not just artists.
Cave reprimands the referred songwriter in harsh terms:
“ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That ‘songwriter ‘you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier ,’is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put it politely, should fucking desist if he wants to continue calling himself a songwriter.”
I strongly recommend you to read the thought-provoking letter in full. If listening is your thing, watch Stephen Fry read out the letter and mesmerize his live and YouTube audience alike.
As they say: A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Musings by Madhav 
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