I received an email today from a company called JasperAI. They say they have developed an AI to write articles, blog posts, advertising etc. I didn’t even having to think for ten seconds to realise they have just stuck an interface on one of the writing AIs.
So what does that mean for us? Here are my prediction.
1) AI polishes. Someone will feed your screenplay through their patented AI technology (cough cough bullshit). And it will give you an optimised version. They will say you can use this to make improvements to your work and break into the industry.
2) AI brainstorming. Put you logline into our patented AI and we will develop a synopsis at an industry standard that you can use for pitching and funding to create your next masterpiece and break into the industry.
3) AI Character development. You give us a name and fill out the form and we will give you a fully formed character with flaws and personality ready to take your writing to the next level so you can break into the industry.
In a nutshell AI takes everything that exists and makes something out of it. This may appear to be new(ish), but it cannot be truly new.
One thing it cannot do, and may never be able to do, is subtext. Subtext exists in the mind of the reader. If you have children you will remember the day they realised there was sarcasm. Before that everything in the world was literal.
I sent a reply to the emailer with a link to my video pointing out the flaws in AI for the screenwriting industry.
Here is my rule of thumb. If a service does not work on you. It is not worth anything. Education is valuable in the creative arts.
That's a great point I never thought about, Craig D Griffiths ("One thing it cannot do, and may never be able to do, is subtext"). No to AI scripts no matter what! To me, an AI writing a script feels like taking a shortcut, and shortcuts are disastrous in this industry.
This company ? Dont think this software is used for screenwriting/tv
https://www.jasper.ai/
The company raised $130M.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/jasper-da51/company_financials
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My post code begins with BS (for the Bristol area, just in case you were wondering) but I think it can be added at the end of these claims with a slightly different meaning!
I’m sure there be those that think there’s a future for non-human writers that will help boost their profit margins even more and not have to deal with those pesky writers anymore.
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I received 3 emails from different companies offering AL generated scripts from my initial input at a price OR teach me how to work AL to my best advantage. .......WTF? Why would I pay money to become a zombie who relied on a computer code?
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My two bobs worth on AI…what a total Crock of S%#T!
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Thanks for such an insightful post, Craig. I could not agree more. AI will find its place in some decision making and marketing but it will never replace human instinct, emotion and understanding on a deeper level. Subtext is a great example. And I agree completely that education is the key to everything.
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I've done couple past scripts/treatments, based on a semi-AI program which enables you to go through sort of first base synopsis by posting you simple QA's about the story...you go through this answering all questions, you're on a good road to have a solid concept for a script...let's face it guys, sooner or later AI gonna take over....why battle it when you can befriend it and benefit it...Of course I do expect a couple of hard core "unabomber" style screen writers running up the woods calling out for an rebellion...just don't forget ya typewriters ;)
@Kiril As with a lot of new technologies, it will be a process to adapt to it and find the best uses for it. I do think that it is more likely to prove useful for boilerplate writing than for writing novels and screenplays. But if it can be used for some of the more tedious writing tasks, I am in.
I could also see it used in a similar way to translation software. The translation ones are not machine translation exactly, but the software will remember terms and make suggestions based on your history. An AI assist in screenwriting software could prove useful perhaps.
In other words, I doubt AI can replace creative writers, but creative writers who learn to use AI may end up replacing those who don't.
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So Kiril, it doesn’t bother you that one day there maybe a possibility AI will replace you?
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I like your mention of subtext existing in the mind of the reader. You are right. AI can't go there.
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Yup it bothers me, but it'll probably will...until that day, I'll be using it
So, what is the scam?
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Thanks everyone, I hope everyone who had a break had a good one. We have so many leftovers I cannot see me shopping for sometime.
I was discussing this with a fellow data dude over the weekend and he (not being a writer) pointed something out. AI takes a vast amount of data to learn and refine. There is not a vast amount of great screenplays. Most screenplays are written by aspiring writers. The quality of this work is less than great.
So this is what it will be using to learn. The piles of crap that we, the learning, produce until we good. It will take all our practice runs as fact and produce nothing better than our first attempts. Because there are more first attempts than there are “Hell or High Waters” to learn from.
To Dan’s point. Yes a lot of people will make a lot of money before we realise this isn’t going to change the world.
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AIs are trained based on examples scenarios. That's whey an AI, when given examples of a specific artist can replicate that artist's style but it is only the form. The intent of the artist may not be captured by the AI.
Words would be understood literally and any symbiological meanings would probably be lost on the AI.
They might be able to clean up grammar but I don't think we will see good storytelling any time soon.
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Reading a script and flagging content is simpler than writing the script. Indicating which scripts contain the elements the AI has been trained to look for is a simpler task. That might very well work.
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It can produce a document that is correctly formatted and follows the rules of english. But that just produces a pile of crap that is well formatted and follows the rules of english.
I could ML or AI being used for a first pass through a huge pile of screenplays. But that is just because they don’t expect to find anything of use in that pile.
For those thy don’t know, I make money in data in the intelligence industry. Over the holiday period I am going to experiment using AI to develop a training dataset for some machine learning I have in place.
But for artistic endeavours, it is not a things and I doubt it ever will be.
This article has ten essays written by either AI or a child. My guess as to which was which was correct 8 out of 10 times. Pretty good. But not perfect! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/26/upshot/chatgpt-child-essa...
This reminds me of a conversation in which I was involved years back about the potential effects of the internet on teaching and learning. We failed to hypothesize social media but were right on the likelihood of the continued need for teachers. And maybe we will at some time have AI created members??? But a writer is a writer is a writer and no AI will be able to completely fill that need. That space. Ever.
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Roberta, I think you are correct. AI is limited by what it knows, through training and experience, since it is self modifying. I think at present it can perform highly detailed simple tasks.
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I believe one should be careful as a writer when it comes to AI. Yes, it is inevitable that it is here and is going to be around. However, I believe that AI is probably part of the reason why there are so many garbage films around out there. I mean, so much trash. But that is just my personal opinion about it.
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You could be right Pamela. I work at a multiplex and the quality of films being shown has been getting worse over the last few years.
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I doubt AI has come so far as David and Pamela hypothesize.
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David Kleve yes David, and as writers we incorporate years of experience in to our stories. AI, it has to be said, has no life-experience to offer a story.
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Geoff, Yes AI begins as a blank slate. I envision training an AI in a virtual world where it can be exposed to what it will encounter. The more complex the environment anticipated the longer the training scenarios would have to be. I can easily see an AI operating the real world with people, taking thousands of hours. The training of self driving cars is only a tiny fraction of what a more complex AI will require.
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All the recent “offers” for courses I received to learn AL I instantly deleted. I’d deeply resent the intellect button in my brain being turned off even voluntarily whilst telling my stories. Computer generated content representing my innermost echelon is a “fear” rather than a “luxury.” AL may work for broad spectrum non personalised targets EG marketing industries such as a hotel chains/stores sending out generalised bulletins based on client surveys but to me it’s a firm no for creative writing. I get cross if companies try to sucker me into the dead zone.
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I don’t know if I have said it here, but I have said this previously.
Look at the decision makers. What advantage do they get from AI?
No writers, means no agents. Some agencies are so big, they are listed on the stock exchange.
So no agents, no development executives. One layer gone, shrinking the studios.
No development executives, no layers justifying a huge salary.
So why would these people be interested?
Not to mention unions like the WGA. They may have something to say.
AI isn’t solving a script shortage, there are millions of specs scripts. I find it hard to find the compelling argument for its implementation.
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Craig D Griffiths in my mind this will just draw a sharper distinction between studio produced films and the indies.