Your dad cheats on your mom with A.I.

Lost some people this week.

Do I offend?

Was the DC Comics thing a bridge too far?

Probably haven’t complained about A.I. enough.

WELL, ROLL UP THEM SLEEVES, PARDNER, CUZ…

… well, I don’t actually have much new to say about it.

Except that it delights me to watch A.I. haters growl and snarl, and A.I. apologists do their darnedest to convince people it’s the best hotness.

The former, because their venom tends to be really funny (usually on purpose), the latter, because they unfailingly invoke horseless carriages and luddites to scare people into gulping down the thick A.I. hog.1

Chuck Wendig had a funny takedown of an A.I. defender getting unleashed in the HWA2 newsletter. For one.

But the big deal around these parts is the whole A.I. “detection” thing, and suddenly, people far and wide are being accused of using A.I. for their writing. Authors are losing six- and seven-figure book deals because of it.

Several of them.

And of course, because it’s A.I. doing the detecting, there’s no way to know for sure if it’s correct.3

The antis are highly amused to provoke the A.I., deliberately writing stuff that gets “100% human” tags, then changing a single word in their compositions to try and get the “100% A.I.” tag to prove the whole thing is a farce.

The latest in a long line of stuff A.I. is useless at, spotting its own fingerprints.

Goody.

I’ve written ad nauseam that I think generative A.I. will one day create a masterpiece, whether on purpose, or accident, with help (more likely) or without. It feels inevitable to me.

J. Michael Straczynski, a writer of some reputation, argues that A.I. will never do any such thing, never rise above the mediocre.

He might be right.

For one thing, he points out, we haven’t seen it yet, the “masterpiece” produced by A.I., and we should have by now, given the mass numbers things are being generated in. Or at least a hint of it.

The apologists would probably say that’s because no human-aided A.I. thing has yet been allowed to become a masterpiece, that these hybrid products are being socially cut off at the knees before anyone can judge for themselves.

Maybe.

Maybe one day, these abortions will be dragged out of the rotpiles, and put on pedestals by more open-minded future folk.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure, the Mona Lisa was forgotten until it got stolen, Salieri was more popular than Mozart, etc. etc.

Except even proponents seem cautious to declare any of these A.I. works a “masterpiece.” Cuz they know they could get laughed outta the building if they back a loser.

Darren Aronofsky’s A.I. American Revolution show came and went, didn’t make a dent. Most people don’t know it exists. The highest-clicked episode has 250K views as of this writing.

There’s videos of peoples getting whacked in the nuts that get four times that.

Despite Elon claiming there will be an A.I.-generated Odyssey by the end of the year to rival Nolan’s, even the deepest A.I. lover doesn’t buy that.

(I notice he hasn’t made the same claim about Spider-Man, which would probably be way easier to accomplish. Almost like there was a racial motivation for his nonsense.

I said it.)

Nevertheless, unless A.I. gets better at recognizing its own work, it feels to me like somebody’s gonna get away with it someday, and make an amazing work, that’ll be loved and acclaimed, and won’t get revealed until much later.4

(I mean, chances are good it might’ve already happened, and we’re just waiting for the big reveal.)

And hey, by that point, having to work hard enough to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes for an extended period, maybe that’ll constitute enough blood, sweat and tears for everyone to say, “FINE. It’s great. Yay. Good for you.”

But most people don’t use A.I. to create art, they do it to try and make a buck. And if they can’t get it pretty quick, they move to the next quick-buck thing, angry that the A.I. thing didn’t make them rich and instantly acclaimed as artists.

That part I agree with Straczynski on. Lots of people seem to think they should get to be called “artists,” even with A.I. doing almost all the work, and are furious that they aren’t.

I don’t know. I’m not full-on anti-A.I. I’ve played with generative A.I. a few times, so I can’t claim virgin status.

(In fairness, I didn’t know I was going to hell for doing so before I did it.)

I don’t write with it, because I don’t feel like it. I don’t claim superiority on this. I just want my shit to be my shit. In that arena, A.I. can suck it. I can make up my own wiener metaphors.

I also forget most of the time to add “-ai” in my web searches, so I get A.I. results.

Incorrect about half the time, btw. Not helpful.

I also use A.I. in my video editing work for production companies, some because it’s already embedded in the software and I don’t even know it’s there, or stuff that I have to let A.I. do or I don’t get paid, like generate transcripts.

(No, I’m not going to spend an unpaid six hours transcribing this shit myself. If that makes me a betrayer of mankind, guess it is what it is.)

I haven’t tried any of the software that “edits” for you, so I have no idea how well that shit works. Figure it’ll be replacing me soon enough, so I’ll get my chance.

I also laugh at some of the dumb A.I. songs that pop up on social feeds. I admit it. I feel guilty, but God help me, “I Glued My Balls to My Butthole Again” is funny.

I’ve gotten some weird heat on both sides, people angry with me for not offering up my sweet alabaster asshole to be used and abused by A.I., got others mad at me because six years ago, I used one of those photo apps to make funny versions of my own face, and dared use them on this site early on.

Again, before I knew I was offending God.

Can’t win for losing, ‘twould seem.

But I’ve never claimed it was my own work. Or that it made me an artist.5

I’m not convinced that using A.I. to “help” somebody write their novel, or paint their painting, or whatever, makes an artist. At least, not yet.

Hey, I’m having a hard enough time reconciling the fact that Robert Towne had a writing partner/ghostwriter his whole career, and let the world think it was all his solo work. And Edward Taylor was a living, breathing human.

When all other arguments fail, A.I. proponents usually get to, “But if the end product is amazing, WHO CARES how it was made?”

At the moment, the answer seems to be, lots of people. Not even necessarily me.

I suppose if we had tons of amazing end product fashioned by A.I., this would be more of a debate. But so far, it’s mostly a “what if?”

“Marvel Comics Presents… WHAT IF… Something A.I. Made Was Amazing?”

Click the titles to get at muh stories:

Four Walls

Good Manners

Whiskey Dick

Blowtorch Blues

Mob Dick

Chilton’s Hands

Bastards of a Lesser God

or you c’n find alla this right chere:

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