I was thinking about starting a new creative project recently. But then I thought - with how quickly AI is advancing, in just a few years an AI will probably be able to do this in just minutes. So it made me feel kind of apathetic and think, “Why should I bother starting this big project now if an AI could do it for me in a few years?”
I’m curious if others feel this way or if the advancement of AI is making people less motivated to start big, creative projects since the work could just be automated by an AI soon anyways. It could increase apathy and make people feel like “why bother?” Am I overthinking this? Does the possibility of AI taking over certain tasks in the future make you less motivated to start projects and learn new skills? Would love to hear others’ thoughts on this!
I understand that AI is a complex program and not just pressing buttons. That’s not the issue I have with it. My issue is, what happens when the technology improves significantly? It’s my understanding that LLMs keep improving themselves by continuing to train on (often unethically) acquired data. In its present form, sure, maybe we don’t have to worry. But give it 10 years or so, how much more competent will it be?
Let’s look at just the film industry for a second. We already have a huge problem with Hollywood churning out franchise films at the expense of everything else. But even these cash cows are made via the vision of someone whose name is attached to it. Somebody got paid to write Halloween 36: The Final Halloween for Real This Time. That person may or may not have gave a shit about writing a good story, or they may have just wanted a paycheck. Either way, that paycheck could be used to fund something they care about much more. Once AI reaches the point where it could spit out a passable script, what incentive does Mr. Bigshot the Hollywood producer have to involve a writer at all? And because no writer is receiving a paycheck, less risks are taken in general, because risks don’t guarantee profit
I might just be letting my anxieties get the better of me, and I really hope I am. I just can’t seem to move past the bad feeling I’m getting from this.
I think your right that corporate stuff (including mass market blockbuster stuff) will increasingly be done by AI. But given a lot of it is currently “written by committee” it’s not really that different. The writer of Halloween 47: The Last Killening might have been an indvidual, but it probably got redrafted by another bunch of writers at different times, and studio execs made changes, etc. It’s unlikely the work of a single visionary.
But I believe that parralel is with industrial food. Living through the mid twentieth century, watching people go from cooking at home to buying frozen, freeze-dried and other processed meals. Or eating in fast food chains where all the food is packed full of additives in some factory a thousand miles away. Some of it was good (being able to get certain ingredients year round, or easy access to food from far away) but a lot was pretty depressing, and easy to imagine a time where we forget how to cook and eat real food entirely.
But that’s not what happened. Sure, some people only eat processed crap, but also people have become more and more obsessed with local, handmade stuff, or authentic or fusion recipes from around the globe. In the 80s/90s it felt inevitable that there would end up being basically 3 beers to pick from. Now there’s an endless wave of craft beers, etc, etc.
So with AI. It will take us a while to get used to. Corporations will use it to make money and make our lives worse. But it will also be a useful tool for help actual people be creative and make things for other humans. And in the end, there will always be a demand for the best, or unique, innovative stuff, and that will probably mean human created, not AI.
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