A Guest Post defends using Artificial Intelligence

Tom Sancton's Guest Post described a ripoff. It looked to me like a theft of his work, a moral wrong. 

Today's Guest Post describes using AI in a way that strikes me as a positive good.

I refer readers back two days to a Guest Post that described an AI-generated "Summary of Tom Sanction's The Bettencourt Affair." That chapter-by-chapter 50-page booklet summarized Sancton's serious work of nonfiction, the product of five years of research, and it sells alongside Sancton's book. This seems wrong to me.

Ripoff

The real book, available at Amazon and bookstores

Today's Guest Post takes a lighthearted view of the use of Artificial Intelligence by content creators. Gerald Murphy does not describe AI as a threat. For him it is a tool, a labor saving device. I get his point. I don't use AI to write this blog, but I do use a computer with "spellcheck" built in. I can change fonts with a click and then change back. I have put professional proofreaders and hot-lead typesetters out of a job. 

Murphy joyfully calls his use of AI to generate images "theft." It isn't theft. He gave written instructions to an AI program and instructed it to make images. Three decades ago he might have needed to find an artist to sketch something by hand. Now Murphy can get something useful-enough for free. It isn't great art, but it didn't need to be. There are economic consequences. No artist was paid to do the work. In Murphy's case, doing semi-professional school and community theater, there was never the revenue that would have supported paying a skilled artist for professional work. 

The world has been here before with transformational tools: The steam engine, the railroad locomotive, anesthesia, antibiotics, the interstate highway system, air conditioning, the birth control pill, the internet. Artificial Intelligence is such a tool, consequential and unstoppable. Gerald Murphy shows why: It is enormously useful.

Murphy asked AI to write a short bio to use to introduce his post. Here is what it produced:

Gerald P. Murphy is a retired high school English teacher, a playwright, composer, songwriter, singer, banjo, guitar and mandolin player, and very poor actor who has the worst memory for lines in the galaxy. He has had more than thirty plays and musicals published and has had his shows performed in over twenty countries. 

Guest Post by Gerald Murphy

Another View of AI

Tom Sancton’s article on his problems with AI hit a sensitive nerve with me, since I found myself guilty of the same sort of thievery Sancton condemned.

As you know I’m a bit of a playwright. Strictly small town and small time. Most of my success (limited as it was) came after I retired from teaching. Most of my shows had their brief time of success and now sit unwanted and unnoticed in my publisher’s computer files.

My publisher recently contacted all the playwrights in his stable and informed us he was adding images to all the plays and musicals in his catalog. This would be a slow and tedious process, so he suggested we might help by providing our own images for our shows. This excited me because I thought this move might rekindle interest in some of my old shows.

It was then I discovered AI (which is currently free on many sites) and began to experiment. I found AI extremely user-friendly. Within an hour I had come up with twenty usable images to advertise my shows. Here is an example from a short musical I had written years ago:

AI generated

Here is an image from a ten-minute comedy called “A Meeting on a Train”:

AI generated

Now, I suppose I should have felt great remorse for using AI in this way, but I didn’t. Instead, I was delighted. Perhaps I have an underdeveloped sense of integrity and honor, but I asked myself, “who am I hurting?” Also, there is no way I could ever afford to pay someone for these images. An artist would demand a payment I do not have.

As a group, most writers make little money. Most writers are never published. If you are a popular published writer, your publisher will gladly put up the money for cover artwork. But Sally Anonymous and Billy Nobody get no such bonus. For these writers, AI can be seen as a step in the right direction. Finally, the playing field inches a bit toward level.

But of course, many, if not most, creative types abhor AI.

AI generated

I belong to several playwriting groups. I mentioned my feelings about AI and even posted some of my better examples. The comments I received were decidedly mixed. A few applauded my efforts, but the majority rushed to the defense of the art world, which would now be without the fees that impoverished writers were supposed to be paying painters and illustrators for their book covers.

I confess that I see AI as just another tool. I used to write plays by hand. Now I use a computer. I used to mow my lawn with a push mower. Then I bought a Toro. I know how angry the Luddites among us might be, but if your art can be so easily imitated, perhaps you should pursue a different career.

As for me, let the theft begin!

AI generated

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