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AI generated manuscripts, anyone?
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- Written by: Ray Oltion
- Category: Writing
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Redshark News wrote a short article about this film, which uses AI via ChatGPT to generate an entire screenplay. A director and his movie producing team filmed it and it is available in full on the Internet. The trailer gives you an idea of how the movie works.
This seems incredible. At first I thought it was another AI science fiction film, but no, it actually was created by an AI. Ironically, the plot of the movie mirrors the director's prompt to the AI that actually created the screenplay. Arguably, the director's input is what made the film, not the screenplay. None of the scenes and dialog were changed from the AI script, though.
Of course, this makes me wonder if, for my Tennyson story, I could load all the characters, themes, plot, and scenes into an AI and have it do all the grunt work of writing. I doubt it would turn out like it would if I had written it myself, mainly because I would think of more nuances while writing which would direct the development. Still, when writing to an outline, it might be close. The AI would probably make choices similar to what I would during the writing process.
Then again, what is the purpose of writing? I am not interested in publishing, so why have an AI take my ideas and run with it? It seems lazy, and maybe if I don't like the writing part, I shouldn't be doing it at all. Still, it may be fascinating to see my ideas come to life, whether it is published or not.
Maybe it could be a co-writing relationship. One of the latest books I read on the subject, The new breed: what our history with animals reveals about our future with robots, by Kate Darling, suggested that all the fear about AI replacing human endeavor is misplaced. The author proposes that a more productive view is that AI will be similar to animal helpers we have used for ages. Their strong points augment our not so strong points, and together the combination is greater than the sum of the parts.
So imagine working with an AI to generate text and dialog, and reworking the rough draft to mold it to your own tastes. It could be an iterative process, one that capitalizes on the strengths of each participant. Call it an assistant, a super word processor, a ghost writer, whatever, but the point would be to enhance the writer's experience and remove some of the obstacles.
Of course, there has been a backlash from the creative community since the film was released on July 5th. People are concerned that ChatGPT may have trained the AI with copyrighted movies and scripts. While this doesn't seem like copyright infringement to me, many who feel threatened by this think otherwise.
After all, how does a writer educate him/herself? Reading tons of books and watching gobs of movies fills the writer's mind with examples and images. Is it copyright infringement if the writer produces something new from all that mashup of experience? Of course, the writer has injected his/her own experience and understanding into the process, so it is transmuted, digested, and reconstituted in a new form. You could argue that an AI cannot do that. Therefore, an AI generated manuscript is more like a chopped salad than a baked casserole.