The Generative-AI Risk: Making Us Less Human

[Louanne Learning]

In the creative process, the writer imagines, thinks, reasons, and makes decisions.

If a writer relies on generative-AI, giving over core human activities to machines, it’s going to generally atrophy those human skills.

The writer’s imagination no longer decides, but the algorithms. This interferes with both the writer’s independence and competency. It robs the writer of the opportunity to develop as an artist.

Below are some quotes from an Atlantic article entitled: The Big AI Risk Not Enough People Are Seeing (Beware technology that makes us less human) - that expands on these points:

Artificial intelligence could significantly diminish humanity, even if machines never ascend to superintelligence, by sapping the ability of human beings to do human things…

We’re seeing a general trend of selling AI as ‘empowering,’ a way to extend your ability to do something, whether that’s writing, making investments, or dating … But what really happens is that we become so reliant on algorithmic decisions that we lose oversight over our own thought processes and even social relationships…

What makes many applications of artificial intelligence so disturbing is that they don’t expand our mind’s capacity to think, but outsource it…

 

[Naomasa298]

It all depends how one uses AI.

Do not use it to think for you. Use it to make you think.

There is a difference.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Use it to make you think.

Do you mind elaborating here?

 

[Naomasa298]

Do you mind elaborating here?

For example, if you're using it to get feedback on a plot idea. You ask it (for example) "Does having Romeo be in love with Juliet work?".

The AI, unless you specifically tell it not to, will usually tell you what your previous conversations, or the text suggests you want. Instead, you would ask it "How does Romeo being in love with Juliet come across?"(or something like that)

Then, take its feedback, and - this is the important bit - EVALUATE IF YOU AGREE WITH IT. Do NOT just implement anything it suggests. It might say, for example, "If you don't want Romeo to come across as obsessed with Juliet, you could do this..."

But that advice, just like any workshop advice, must be taken simply as an imperfect suggestion. Your reaction might be:
* No, I don't agree with that, and reject the advice,
* Yes, I do agree, and change the plot.

Both of these are bad ways to go about it. Instead, firstly consider if you actually do want Romeo to come across as obsessed, whether you want him to actually be obsessed or not, and if you do or don't, whether what it's suggesting will achieve what it says it will. More often than not, in my case, its advice will spark an idea that will send me off in a completely different direction to what I originally had. Instead of making Romeo a mad stalker, maybe I'd think, well, what if I make him be sincere in his love instead, and how is Juliet going to react to it? She's only 14... maybe, instead of making him a creepy older guy, I'll make him a bit younger but have everyone else still oppose them being together. Now, that takes the plot in a completely different direction... I can cut out the scene where the cops turn up at his door.

It's a facetious example, but do you get where I'm going?

 

[Louanne Learning]

It's a facetious example, but do you get where I'm going?

Yes, I do understand, and thanks for taking the time to explain.

I think, however, that I would rely on my own judgement to answer the original question.

 

[Naomasa298]

I think, however, that I would rely on my own judgement to answer the original question.

It never hurts to get an alternative point of view. Even an AI's point of view is better than nothing - that's one of the reasons people workshop. And workshop responses can sometimes be lacking because responders don't always look that deeply into a story. It's a tool, like any other. And if you're struggling with writers' block, it can be useful for clearing it.

I'm not suggesting anyone must or should use it. I'm merely suggesting how it can be useful if you do use it.

 

[Louanne Learning]

It never hurts to get an alternative point of view.

Yes, and what you are describing is not generative-AI.

 

[Naomasa298]

Yes, and what you are describing is not generative-AI.

Well, it is. Generative AI is generating the response. I do not, and have never supported using AI to do any writing for you.

 

[Naomasa298]

And I do not, and never will, support any kind of notion that using AI somehow makes us more human, which you may have seen expressed elsewhere.

 

[Louanne Learning]

And I do not, and never will, support any kind of notion that using AI somehow makes us more human, which you may have seen expressed elsewhere.

I agree with you.

To claim that technology somehow makes us more human is to confuse cause and effect. Technology is not the cause and humans are not the effect. Humans are the cause and technology is the effect. There were humans long before there was any technology. All our special abilities and mental capacities that we use for story-telling evolved long before any technology. The creative mind came first.