Good Enough AI: Decimating Bit-Blasted Wretches
May 9, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I think the writers’ strike will make it possible for certain Hollywood producer types to cozy up with smart software. What works in the cinema wasteland are sequels and remakes of what has sold. My hunch is that purpose-built smart software will be able to output good enough scripts quickly. A few humanoids, maybe even on set actors, can add touches which elevate good enough to pretty good.
There are other humanoid writers now at risk from good-enough outputs. At a Derby Party on May 6, 2023, I whipped out my mobile and illustrated how You.com can crank out a short essay good enough to get an A or a B in a sophomore English class. One person who made a bundle of money selling automobiles said immediately, “I could have used this instead of that PR company and the part-timers who used to drive me crazy with questions.”
This person understood, and he was in his late 70s but still able to remember PR and marketing experts who were supposed to write presentations, ads, and marketing letters.
If a biz whiz heading to the old-age home grasp the concept, imagine what a rotund, confident MBA will do with good enough smart software.
What’s interesting to me is that the Washington Post, under the control of the original bulldozer driver Jeff Bezos, seems to understand what’s going to happen to many scribes, columnists, littérateurs, and scribblers. The ink stained wretches are going to become bit-blasted wretches. “He Wrote a Book on a Rare Subject. Then a ChatGPT Replica Appeared on Amazon” includes a quote from a human involved in smart software created content:
“We published a celebrity profile a month. Now we can do 10,000 a month.”
Net net: Smart software will create many opportunities for “writers” to find their future elsewhere. Fixer uppers of machine generated content may become a hot new gig along with TikTok maker of van life videos, creators of text based wall graffiti, and signs with messages such as “Will edit for food.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2023
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