Artificial Intelligence technology continues to advance and evolve. Since The Guardian published the first article written by GPT-3, the OpenAI text generator, multiple popular publications, like Lifehacker, have followed suit.
We’ve all heard the repeated warnings of A.I. coming for our jobs. This is somewhat a reality in factories and fulfillment centers already. But what about writers and artists? Will they be out of work once tech like GPT-3 understands all the nuances that goes into writing articles both humans and machines love?
A.I. Writing Is Getting Better
It has long been said that, even as robots become smarter, they won’t be able to craft anything creative without human input. Further, anything created by A.I. would simply lack the soul that’s the hallmark of human performance.
True, A.I. may still require some human input to deliver relevant copy. But look at what Sudowrite, a machine-learning platform, wrote:
Austin looked out across the infinite expanse of space, and thought to himself, “of all the things that could have happened, and of all the people it could have happened to, why me?”
To his surprise, he was looking at the face of the Evil Canadian Space-Ranger. Austin found it strange that he could remember the Evil Canadian Space-Ranger’s name. It was Terry, he recalled, and he worked for the Canadian Space Agency.
“Why are you here?” Austin asked.
“Well, we’ve been watching you.”
“Watching me?” Austin replied.
“Yes, we’ve been monitoring your progress. We’ve been observing your life for quite some time, and we’re surprised that you’ve gotten as far as you have. We’re very impressed.”
“You’ve been watching me? For how long?”
“For a while.”
“Why?”
“We just like to do that sometimes.”
“So, you’ve been watching me?”
“Yes.”
Now, this prose probably isn’t going to win any awards, and I wrote the first paragraph to get Sudowrite started, but it appears to have some potential as a Sci-Fi comedy, doesn’t it?
There’s A Huge Investment Behind A.I.
For better or for worse, it seems many of us are at the whims of elites and billionaire decisionmakers who are bent on steering the course of humanity. Be it Elon Musk or Microsoft, they and others have billions of dollars invested into furthering machine learning technology.
How far it will ultimately go, and what it will be able to do are still up for grabs. But if algorithms continue to develop as they have been, then it’s inevitable that writers, or at least large chunks of their work, will be replaced by A.I.
But GPT-3’s capabilities don’t stop there. It can even create stunning artwork and illustrations, and Seth Godin even said recently that GPT-3 will be able to clone voices, thereby replacing, or standing in for, podcasters and radio hosts.
Final Thoughts
A.I. may not replace writers. Yet. But the time is certainly coming when reports, blog posts, even novels, can largely be written by A.I., and later edited by humans if there is any need. The technologies are developing quickly, and it won’t be long before you’re reading an article and wonder to yourself whether it was written by a human or a machine (or both).