I received a message today inviting me to apply for a job helping teach an AI program how to write. It’s all very cutting edge and told of all the wonderful things they are going to do. The way I see it, it was an invitation to slit my own throat.
There is an upside. Thinking about teaching AI to write touched off a string of ideas, all headed in different directions, with something to say about the subject. At the time, I didn’t have much to write about. That sudden explosion of ideas is why the human brain is both better and worse than computers.
The first thought I captured from the fountain of ideas was of Phillip K. Dick’s title, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Hence by title parody. Do computers have imaginary friends to come to them at the strangest times to tell them stories of their adventures? If not, where will they ever get their ideas?
Mixed in with that thought was the theme from M.A.S.H. Suicide is Painless. The song was written to be the stupidest song ever. Which is like teaching AI to write. It’s a stupid idea meant to kill the humanity in the arts. However, there is money in stupidity, the songwriters made a fortune.
Now, I said human brains were both better and worse. So, an explanation is in order. Computers work in straight lines from data they are fed (sort of like people who watch the news two or three times a day). Brains fire off ideas globally linking random items from the warehouse. How else can I account for connecting a mobile army hospital in Korea with androids dreaming of sheep?
To write I think you need to do both. The story must progress from beginning to end in a line that is easily followed. But that straight line exists amid a swirling cloud of characters, conversations, and changing circumstances. Leave those out and you have how-to instructions or “Dick and Jane” (not the movie, look them up) primers.
The author must continually ask questions while writing. “What if this was to happen?” “What can I do to my character now?” “What year did How You Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm? debut and how did my character hear it within the time frame I have him in?” (Yes, I really asked that—and then chose a different song.)
And those questions and all the pesky ideas popping up all over are how a human brain can be worse. Ever try to write a book with thoughts springing up to distract you? I have, but I bet a computer doesn’t. A computer can’t walk down the street with earbuds in, hear a song, snatch a line from it, and come up with a major subplot for a book they are thinking about but haven’t started yet.
So where does the Kool-Aid come in? Let’s envision an AI writing teachers conference in tropical Guyana.
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