Nice narrative Lieven! I guess most of us are focus on the benefits of AI rather than the threats, the ethical debate will be driven by the real beneficiaries and that’s what we should be afraid of!
Hello Mario, great thought. Thank you for sharing. It reminds me of the people who used social media to influence elections. I hope AI will be used mainly for the benefit of our societies. 🌟🤖📚📖🌟
I played with ChatGPT, and asked it to write a short story in the style of Kurt Vonnegut. The first output was thin, but I could see flashes of Vonnegut. The 2nd and 3rd output were a little better, but still a tad weak. Using CharacterAI, I had brief conversations with Albert Einstein, and Richard Nixon. Einstein's reply to a question about WW3 was cryptic, and clever. "He" didn't offer an opinion about the probability of WW3, but he was confident WW4 would be fought with sticks, and stones. The exchange with Nixon was more characteristic of Nixon's style of communication, and seemed "informed" on questions about China, and Russia. Overall, I'm intrigued, but I prefer my own style of written communication. 😉
Hi Patrick... interesting experiments you did 😊 Thank you for sharing 🙏🏽. It is indeed intriguing and I'm curious what it will bring us... 🫤🤖 (I love "Albert Einstein's answer 😂
The last shot of the video was quite scary!!! Here’s another scary thought: if a corporation can be a moral person in the eyes of the law, could a self-created AI entity, not owned by anyone, have legal rights and responsibilities? In such a world, there will be two types of AI-generated content: 1) Content generated by bots owned by people or companies; and 2) Content generated by bots owned by AI itself. In all cases, perhaps we should shift the attention to accountability. Who can be sued when AI-generated content turns out to be erroneous or damaging? Can we sue AI itself in a society where AI can make its own money? We have so much damaging info flowing on social media because platforms haven’t been held accountable for the user content they publish. Responsibility and accountability could save the day.
Honestly as ai improves I think Roald Dahl had the right idea in a short story called the great automatic grammatizator. Basically dahl suggested that while authors will survive only those who adopt the machine will thrive. Great if dark short story btw.
Thanks for bringing us the story so far on ’bots & AI. I imagine that this will affect social media before reaching the publishing industry. Regarding non-fiction books and specialist articles (online or paper), people will certainly have to pay more attention to provenance and source notes. The case studies you presented suggest that at present AI texts use rather clichéd phrases that sound as if they’ve been borrowed - if not plagiarised - from elsewhere. This lack of originality and quirkiness is hardly surprisisng, of course, and I imagine that complex plotting, rounded characterisation and deep reflection and analysis are not on the menu yet. The great novel about Lieven and Bones is still some way off, I think - unless Lieven writes it himself! If publishers try to glut the market with AI imitations of the latest successful genres, they may well be shooting themselves in the foot. Nevertheless, this is a new tool that writers and publishers will want to use, one way or another, and I expect they will try it first on popular genre fiction and give it a kind of “literary Turing test” to see whether the results are publishable. The first AI novel will probably be a bestseller as it will have curiosity value.
Dear Jeremy, Thank you for sharing your original thoughts. As always they are very welcome. The “literary Turing Test” is a clever concept. Looking forward to your thoughts in the future. I wish you a wonderful day. Lieven
Worst case scenario: publishers will stop soliciting manuscripts from human authors, and will only publish books based on the most financially successful books of the past. There will be no new information for the AI Chatbot to draw on, so books that produce new ways of using literary forms will not be available for public consumption. Human authors will still feel the desire to write and experiment, so these books will still be written, but the authors will be afraid to release them through self-publishing or online for fear of AI plagiarism. So they will only share their work through small, in-person writer's groups with other writers who are also afraid to publish their work any place that an AI chatbot will have access to it. We will enter a literary dark age were every "new" published fiction book is blend of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and 50 Shades of Grey. There will be a small underground community where original stories and literary forms are being invented, but the public will have no access to it. It sounds like the premise of a dystopian fiction novel.
Hello Gail… thank you for your thoughtful response. You might be right and I hope you will not be right. I wish you a wonderful day. Please keep on sharing your valuable reflections!
Well done, its a great video! I'd be interested to know, if with the request for the love letter (case 3) included "not contrived or corny" and see if a non-contrived or "arty" poem could be produced.
This is a ‘tsunami-like’ development Lieven. Thank you for your clarifying cases. As a healthcare scientist and educator I am curious to see how AI will influence and possibly disrupts scientific publications such as literature reviews, meta analyses and critical analyses of scientific papers. In the part ‘discussion and conclusion’ of a paper the author can develop new and original insights. Hereby introducing fundamental changes in diagnostics and treatments. It is confusing to realize that in the future this could be the work of a machine. We will be forced to discover the unique mission of the human being in our creative processes… Peter
I have reflex reactions to ChatGPT (and what will surely follow), but I wish to collect my thoughts, and reply as intelligently as I can. This is a can of worms, if ever there was one.
ChatGPT interpreted your prompt as “Bold Books & Bones” being both something that you own and a partnership, like Sherlock & Watson. In its story, you’d be “Bold Books” and your sidekick would be “Bones”. Who know how entangled ChatGPT would get after 10 pages. If you asked it to write the whole story, would it begin knowing the end? Or would it figure out an ending as it writes? The only thing we know for sure is that, in the not so distant future, perhaps before the end of the year, a book written by ChatGPT will win the Pulitzer.
Indeed, you might be right. Bold Books and Bones was viewed in this way by the chatbot. Still scary what it does… and you are right it only will get better in what it does. Good or bad, we shall see.
In YOUR interactions, your input, your regenerating responses with ChatGPT you create original content, so you are the copyright owner, it seems to me. And publishers and booksellers just have to adjust to changing world. I have been experimenting a lot with ChatGPT and found it makes many mistakes, it can say one moment ‘yes’ and another ‘no’. This is an example of ChatGPT breaking down and cry: “I apologize for the confusion, you are correct that Malcolm Godwin did write a book called “The Holy Grail: Its Origins, Secrets, and Meaning Revealed” but the book doesn’t suggest connections between the Holy Grail and the Shroud of Turin. I apologize for any confusion caused by my previous responses. I apologize for any confusion my previous statement may have caused, my previous responses were incorrect and I regret any confusion caused.” I also found that it is impossible to make it write an essay of let say 5000 words. Only short pieces of text. But despite these shortcomings I enjoy discussing all sorts of subjects with ChatGPT. Thanks for your video.
