Genre Grapevine's collected 2023 AI Coverage
Download a free copy of Genre Grapevine’s 2023 AI Coverage: Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning:
2023 was the year artificial intelligence supposedly learned to be creative.
The key word here is “supposedly” because as detailed in the pages of Genre Grapevine’s 2023 AI Coverage: Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning, there’s no actual intelligence behind AI. Instead, these programs are more accurately called machine learning, using algorithms trained on actual human creations to calculate what word or pixel should came after the next. In short, the programs train on and then generate new versions of what people have already created before.
Machine learning programs are a tool like countless other tools used by humanity across a million years of history. By themselves, these programs are neutral. They can even be a useful tool to aid writers and artists in the creative process.
That said, how AI is used in our world is anything but neutral. Machine learning is being created, trained, and run by people who have definite visions of where they want this world to go in the future. And these people don’t have the best interest of writers and artists – or perhaps humanity as a whole – at heart.
The reports in Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning were originally published in my Genre Grapevine column during 2023. Written from the point of view of a science fiction author dealing with and covering how machine learning might impact human creativity, these reports range from excitement at this new technology to trepidation at how machine learning will impact my beloved field.
The important thing to keep in mind with creativity in the age of machine learning is that our future is never set. We as writers and as artists can choose how we allow machine learning to exist in our creative world. For an example of this, look at how the Writers Guild of America won an influential 2023 strike on pay and creative issues, including stopping large Hollywood studios from forcing writers to use or possibly be replaced by machine learning programs.
While this win should be celebrated, we shouldn't forget these major studios hurt many people by refusing to deal fairly in the first place with their writers. Sadly, the attitudes that these studios had toward their writers are similar to the attitudes of the companies leading the charge to create machine learning programs.
The important thing to remember is that creativity has the power to change our world for the better. Because of this, creativity scares those who want to control our lives and our world. While machine learning is unlikely to replace true human creativity, there are definitely powerful and wealthy people in our world who’d love to have an AI tool so they wouldn’t have to deal with all those pesky writers and artists who traffic in uncommon ideas and dreams. While writers and artists are frequently underpaid and are rarely recognized for their true worth in society, these are also the people who create new ways to see our world. Their imaginations help build better futures that eventually benefit all of humanity instead of only a select few.
Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning covers how machine learning programs might affect writers and artists in the coming years along with ways to deal with these systems. In addition, these reports delve into the linguistic manipulation used to describe these systems, the reactions from writers and artists to these systems, and examine the motivations of the people in charge of implementing these systems. The book also dives into the day-by-day news across 2023 on all these issues.
Also included with Creativity in the Age of Machine Learning is an updated version of my essay “No One Creates Alone,” which explores the overall human creative process. Because in the end, what we create with our lives determines the shape of this world long after we are dead and gone. And no amount of machine learning will ever change that.
I hope this book helps writers and artists navigate the coming years.
Sincerely,
Jason Sanford
December 31, 2023