The issue with AI

There is a lot of debate and controversy over the use of AI as we get more electronically dependent and skillful. We think of AI like in the movie Terminator, taking over the world. We were surprised to learn that social media knows thousands of data points about us that we don't even know about ourselves. We were shocked to know that Google was able to accurately predict most election outcomes based on search trends. That gave rise to social media influencers, political activists, and the influx of fake groups designed to inflame and steer public opinion away or more galvanized to a particular position. This is nothing new in the political arena where all gloves are off, it has just become greater as a mass communicator. While AI has become a powerful tool, it like anything, is in the hands of the orchestrator. Even if it operates on its own methods and even can learn and adapt to become better and faster than any human, it still is set in the direction of the person who created it. We may not know to what end that direction will end up. Will it be like the movie War Games where the computer realizes the folly of human paranoia? Or will it be like Terminator where humans are decidedly unneeded in the world and exterminated like a plague?

Now the issue in movies and TV is that computer graphics have become so advanced that you can't tell the difference between the real actor and the CGI or computer-created one. Back in the mid-nineties I was taped for a TV documentary that was being sent to HBO. Unfortunately for me, the documentary never aired. However, after the taping, the producer/documentarian and I went out to eat. I told him my day job was working in computers and I see a lot of changes coming for the film industry. I stated that games had people-looking avatars even then that were very realistic and that it was just going to get perfected as time went on. Eventually, we will see actors that have grown old or long and dead live again as computer-generated avatars on the screen. He strongly disagreed that any computer image could replicate the real thing. Now we are seeing that become a reality. The producer Bob Zemeckis of Back To The Future fame made a short film with Humphrey Bogart as a detective solving a case before Forrest Gump visual affects. We saw it even more in the Star Wars movie Rouge One. This is an inevitable evolution of computer advancement in technique but creates huge problems for the acting community. While actors and their families are entitled to money and rights to real people's images used on screen, the issue is it takes a job away from an actor. That is the big issue at the moment. Now when Rogue One was made, they used actors but superimposed CGI over them to appear as the original characters. So, a live actor was hired in that process. Now though, that is not needed. A completely artificial person can be created with no actor hired. While refacing has been done even before computers were used on screen, having no real actor at all takes away a job. The fear is that there will be no need for real live actors anymore. Completely created AI avatars that represent no one real will be used taking away the jobs of actors completely and no need for safety concerns in action scenes, no flying actors around to sets, and the expense of movies are reduced dramatically. You can see the problem in the acting world. Like a double-edged sword, the software will be so sophisticated and available, that even kids in their bedrooms will be able eventually to produce an entire movie as real-looking as any movie today. So, the movie industry will collapse under its desire to create artificial means to automate production as anyone will be able to make a movie eventually.

You say though; "What about story and ideas, not just anyone can make a good story." Not anymore, because AI can do that now. Automated writing is already out there. The indie movie producer in his bedroom will simply call up another AI app to write him a screenplay that follows certain plots and parameters. He plugs in the variables and outpours a well-written story with plot ideas as suggestions pooling from the works of millions of people hours of work in the past manipulated by super-fast algorithms. Even novels will fall victim to this as books will be written and published at lightning speed based on an idea someone dreamed or just thought up on a whim and threw into the AI story generator to pump out a story. The person then sends it through the publishing wizard and within minutes a new novel has hit the virtual bookstores. It will be that easy or will be soon. So let me make another prediction when it comes to books. Not only will anyone be able to use an app to create a book with ease, but they will also be able to read books in the style of their favorite writers. Someone, someday will be able to take one of my books and decide they would rather read my book in the style of other writers. AI will filter my book as if Stephen King wrote it. Readers will get to read their favorite books rewritten in the style of other writers to experience them differently. Does this make me happy as a writer, no. Does this present a legal and financial problem for writers, yes. Unfortunately, it will happen no matter what.

What is the solution to this? Sue everyone that uses AI to develop or revamp already created works? Try to stay ahead of the fast-moving AI wave by creating more old-school books, movies, and shows? Or create laws that govern the flow of technology in its use in a fair marketplace? You tell me what the solution is. I am afraid it is a dam that is going to break no matter how many fingers are plugged into the leaking holes. I just hope that my works will influence and help someone no matter what form some digital brain manipulates it.

Mike Sims

Author of the Vickie series of books and #1 sci-fi book Southern Cross

@authorm