Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Me – Part 3 - Drawbacks, and Dangers

 

I intended to talk about some of the negative and positive aspects of Artificial Intelligence in this post. However, I decided that the positives and opportunities of AI deserved a more thorough examination. I will do a separate post on those later.

The focus of my post will be on the use of AI in creative work. There are issues in other areas of AI application that I won’t get into.

AI Has No Emotion or Motivation

“Well, he acts like he has genuine emotions. Um, of course he's programmed that way to make it easier for us to talk to him. But as to whether he has real feelings is something I don't think anyone can truthfully answer.” Dave Bowman talking about HAL 9000 in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Having watched the movie about 30 or 40 times, I think it is meant to be a question that is asked but not answered, but one that the audience is meant to ponder. Does HAL really have emotion, or are his actions just a flaw in his programming?

We have the same question about the real-world AIs we have today. Based on my reading and experience so far, I don’t think current AIs have either emotions or motivation. Maybe someday they will.

In many applications of AI, emotions and motivations are not important. But, when we call on AIs to be creative, emotions and motivations are critical.

In my own experience, and in the opinions I’ve heard from other people, stories written by AIs tend to be bland. They tend toward clichés and lack emotion. That sort of thing is OK in some contexts, like business or technical writing, but it just doesn’t work in creative writing.

Writers, and other creative people are driven to create. No one needs to prompt them. They pour their emotions into their work. That is what makes the art they create interesting to other people.

None of the existing AIs can be described as self-starters. They only react when prompted. They are not motivated to do anything. Left to themselves, they would do nothing. AIs do not want anything. They have no desires.

Homogenization of Content

I came across this idea several times. AIs that generate writing are based on the likelihood that a given word would be followed by another word. This results in writing that hews toward the most common expression. As noted by some, AIs are cliché machines. They don’t go for the unusual, they go for the common.

The trend for the future is toward more homogenized writing. As more of the writing available for training AIs is created by other AIs, less common expressions will be driven out of use. Bland writing from AIs will become blander.

False Hopes for an Easy Writing Career

I’ve seen several articles and YouTube videos claiming that you can be a successful writer using AIs.

I suspect that is unrealistic.

Mostly it is because few writers are successful. The average traditionally published book may only have 3,000 in total sales. With some books selling millions, that means that most books will sell much less than 3,000 copies. Self-published books average only 250 in total sales. (see: https://scribemedia.com/book-sales/)

In my own case, the book I published sold three copies and I made $2.87. It is still for sale if you’d like to bump up my sales to four copies. https://www.lulu.com/shop/james-morison/walk-in-the-snow-a-collection-of-stories-and-articles/ebook/product-1m4ermrp.html

Aside from the low returns on publishing in general, I doubt that many people would want to buy an AI generated book. Nowadays, anyone who wants to, can generate their own AI story, so why pay for someone else’s AI story.

I think that people may well want to generate AI stories, not to sell, but to read themselves. It is already possible to have AI generate a story to your personal specification. You can have a novel where you are the hero.

I haven’t gone to that extent myself, but I have used ChatGPT to create short stories for my own entertainment. I expect that I am not the only one who has done this. While I did get some enjoyment from this, the experience didn’t give me much encouragement about the future of creative writing with AI.

Wrestling with AI

When I experimented with systems like ChatGPT, I find myself fighting with the system to get it to write what I want. In the end, I go back to just writing it myself. If you have something you want to say, or want to say something in a specific way, working with large language models can be very frustrating.

I’m not sure that this limitation will go away any time soon. It may not be a problem if you do not care what is generated, but that isn’t something that happens often.

AI Generated Voices

Many text to voice systems have been used to create audiobooks and YouTube videos. These have the same problem of blandness and lack of emotion as AI writing systems. The reaction to these is often quite negative.

I have used text to voice systems myself in some of my projects. While I have tried some tricks to give the voices a little more character, I still had negative feedback from people. While these voices have improved, they still have that same lack of emotion and blandness that pales compared to the humanity of real actors.

If You Want to be a Writer, Why Would You Use AI?

“I write for the same reason I breathe … because if I didn’t, I would die.” - Isaac Asimov

I read another comment from Isaac Asimov that if you want to be a writer you must enjoy the act of writing. He went on to emphasis that he meant sitting at the keyboard and bleeding your ideas onto paper. (note: this was from the pre home computer days).

I write, and do the other creative activities I do, because I want to do them. Using AI to write stories for me would be like sending an AI assistant to watch a movie I want to see.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

ChatGPT Test

There has been a lot of discussion of how Artificial Intelligence systems, like ChatGPT, will change the world. After prompting from several people, I decided to try ChatGPT.

What I wanted to test was whether an AI system, like ChapGPT, could be a useful tool in my writing and movie making. I’m looking at ChatGPT as something that might help me write. I am not looking at it as something that would create stories I want to read.

I’ve been doing a series of writing exercises based on a random title prompt. My plan was to give ChatGPT one of the prompts I had used recently. I chose “The Old House and the Desperate Baroness.” I’d posted a new recording of it last week: https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/the-old-house-and-the-desperate-baroness-1

I gave ChatGPT the prompt:

Write a 500-word story with the title "The Old House and the Desperate Baroness.”

It took about a minute to produce the short story, which ended up being 561 words long. I turned it into a recording using a computer-generated voice. I thought that would appropriate. "The Old House and the Desperate Baroness” by ChatGPT

I was impressed that the story was coherent and an easy read. It wasn’t the kind of story that I would have written. I like my story better. My story had a bit of a sad end for the baroness, while ChatGPT gave her a happy ending. I wanted a story with some dialogue, but this story had none.

I decided to ask ChatGPT to write a script, so I gave it the prompt:

Write a 5-page film script with the title "The Old House and the Desperate Baroness.”

It refused. This was its response:

I'm sorry, I am not able to write a 5-page film script at this time. My capabilities are better suited for providing concise and accurate information or answering questions. If you need assistance in creating a script, I recommend consulting a professional screenwriter or utilizing script-writing software.

I think there is more to learn about how to use ChatGPT. I suspect that the creativity in the stories it writes must come from the prompt you give it.

I would like to try giving it an outline for a story. I have several projects where I am stuck at the outline stage and need to do some more research before I can write the stories. I wonder if ChatGPT can do that for me. I would expect that all I would get would be a first draft that I would need to rewrite.

More generally, I think that the limitation of artificial intelligence systems is that unlike people, they don’t want anything. They can only react to a prompt or command.

I talked about Artificial Intelligence in some previous blog posts.

·         http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/joi-and-virtual-john/

·         https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/setting-priorities-for-2020/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Joi and Virtual John

I saw "Blade Runner: 2049" last week. The character Joi reminded me of a story idea I had many years ago that I called "Virtual John". It was a story about the virtual resurrection of John Lennon.

Joi

In "Blade Runner: 2049", Joi is a holographic artificial intelligence who acts as the protagonist's girlfriend. While she acts like she has emotions, and shows some evidence of thought, some people have suggested that the film later tries to call into question the reality of her personality.

I didn't see it that way when I watched the movie. I felt that, like the replicants in the first "Blade Runner", she is there to raise the question of what it means to be human. She is to the replicants what the replicants are to humans. They don't accept her as an equal.

Nevertheless, her character reminded me of a story idea I had years ago.

Origin

I don't remember exactly when I had the idea. I know it came to me as I woke up one morning while visiting my parents. I believe it was some time in the early 1980s. It would have been after John Lennon died and before I got my first home computer.

Basic Idea

The basic idea is that some one has a created a virtual/holographic reproduction of John Lennon. I think I must have come across the idea that the technology to do this would some day become available. In the story I would have whoever created it use film, video, and audio of Lennon to build up the simulation. The virtual John would be capable of behaving like the real John, not just as a musician but as a person.

Major Limitation

What I saw as the main limitation of Virtual John would be that he could only do and say things that the original John had done and said. The result would be that Virtual John would not have the ability to create anything new. For example: Virtual John could write songs, but only songs the original John had already written.

More recently I've read that researchers have been able to create computer systems that appear to develop new creative ideas, so maybe this might not be a real limitation. It does need to be a limitation for the purposes of the story.

Other People's Reactions

Most of the story would have dwelt on how other people reacted to Virtual John. In my imagination, the other Beatles, his friends, and his fans would be very enthusiastic at first. They would welcome Virtual John with open arms.

Over time, they would come to realize that a Virtual John would couldn't create anything new was not like the real John. They would drift away from him or reject him outright.

Virtual John's Reactions

Although Virtual John has no ability to create anything new, he does have feelings. I think the core of the story would be about how he would feel. I think this gives the story the opportunity to explore many different issues related to creativity and what it means to be human.

I think that he would be very hurt by the rejection of his friends and colleagues. No man is an island, and this would also be true of a virtual man.

I think that he would be angry that he is unable to create anything new. A John Lennon who could not create would feel constraints that he could not accept, but could not over come.

I never came up with an ending for the story. Maybe he gets someone to turn him off. Maybe in the depth of his despair he builds a new self and develops the ability to create.

Why Haven't I Done Anything With This Idea

I like this idea, but I have never made a serious attempt to develop it further. I doubt that I ever will.

The primary barrier is that it would require the approval of John's family and the other Beatles. I didn't think they would be interested. I rather doubt that I'd ever have the stature to get them to pay any attention to me or my ideas. In any event, as time passed, reality made the story less viable.

I gave some thought to adapting the idea to a fictional person. This would  be something I could actually do. However, a virtual reproduction of a fictional person would not have the same impact.

I felt that I just don't have the ability to fully realize the potential of the idea. A poor execution would be worse than not doing it at all.

The idea that you could resurrect a loved one with AI technology resonates with me because of the recent death of my wife. While I would like my wife back, I feel it is morbid to even consider AI resurrection, even if it were possible.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 8

In this post, I will talk about the most difficult part of making a film: the creative side. I had intended this to be the last post in this series, but I think I will need to revisit the issue in more detail later.

Constraints

The first step is to consider the constraints on what you can do. I talked about some of these in Part 7. Consider how much you can afford to spend, how much time do you have and whom can you rely on for help. Your film will need to be doable within those constraints.

To start, look at how long your film will be. You will likely have an upper limit of three to four minutes for the final film. While it is surprising how much you can get into such a short time period, there is a limit. If you have too many ideas, you will not get them all in.

Your film should have one central idea, with three or four ideas that support it. When you develop the film, it is best to come up with far more ideas. Try to get thirty or forty ideas. Before you start to make the film, you will need to trim those ideas down drastically. This approach worked well for me with Who Shot the President. See Part 3 for details.

Barriers

With the new technology available now it is much easier to make and distribute a film. Making a good film is still just as hard though.

One of the barriers that I’ve struggled with is self-doubt. Just the other day I came across a blog post with some good advice on how to deal with self-doubt.

What do you care about?

You need to care about the film in order to make a good film, so a good place to start to look for ideas is to think about what you care about. Some of my better ideas developed when I came up with examples to help me explain something that was important to me and not while I worked on a film.

Recognize good ideas

When I wrote the previous posts about the films I have done, what struck me was how so much of the “good stuff” was the result of chance. Accidents, adlibs and luck all generated ideas and opportunities. It is a little misleading to say that, because it was the recognition that these random results would help that was important. You can’t just hope for a lucky break. These random events will always come up, but you won’t always recognize them as opportunities.

Whenever something unexpected happens, pause before you reject it, consider if you can use it. Suppress the reaction to think it is wrong. I have tried to adopt the attitude that nothing is wrong until the editor decides they can’t use the shot. A quick, thoughtless, rejection can discourage creative input.

Bounce your ideas off other people

I know many people reject this approach, but I feel that it has been valuable in my own work. As a filmmaker, you are usually disconnected from your audience. The direct response you get will tell you what works and what doesn’t.

Take your time

Many of my films have developed over a long period of time. As you work on a film, new ideas always come along. You will come up with ways around problems.

In the end, you will need to find your own way to create. Everyone one works in different ways. Nevertheless, I hope my advice will get you started on your journey.

Links to other posts on How to Make a Hundred Dollar Film Festival Film

Part 1: Can You Still Make a Hundred Dollar Film Festival Film?

Part 2: How I Made Weekend in Calgary

Part 3: How I Made Who Shot the President

Part 4: How I Made The Fence

Part 5: How I Made My Next Film

Part 6: How I Made If I knew . . .

Part 7: The Technical Side of Making a Hundred Dollar Film Festival Film

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog