The hot button topic of the day is A.I and how it affects the world. A.I. has been being used for decades, but recent developments have pushed the technology to the point where differentiating A.I. work from human work is becoming more difficult. No where is this more true when it comes to writing. I considered using A.I. to write this post and then reveal at the end the truth to make a point. However, I decided that would be arguing in bad faith. And here at The Fabler's Quill, we choose to argue in good faith. That said, will artificial intelligence replace writers or will it assist writing?
Before we can answer the question, it is clear that The Writer's Guild of America believes A.I. will replace us. The strike by the guild is all over the news. What is being promoted is that the writers of Hollywood are not being paid enough to work and hence have gone on strike in an effort to force cooperate executives to increase their compensation. While this is a part of the movement, the greater picture is that the strike is really about fear. The fear that A.I. will grow to be so efficient that writers will no longer be needed to write movies and television shows. Before the technology can grow, the guild has gone on strike in order to halt the possible transition from human writers to A.I. What we can take from this is that regardless of if A.I. can truly replace writers the fear that it will is very real. What this means is that there is already and will be efforts to stop the possible transition from happening. Attempts to stop the A.I. takeover may cause it to happen. Thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact that writers are so scared of A.I. only alerts the public of the potential power of A.I. This could and is leading to the further development of the tech. as companies are rushing to push their products out that require writing. By striking to prevent A.I. replacements, writers may have inadvertently accelerated the speed at which A.I. improves. But this is operating under the premise that A.I. can truly match and exceed human writing. Is there any truth to such a claim?
I once again have a confession. I am a writer. This much is evident. I am also scared of the potential that A.I. has to replace me. However, I have a secret. I train A.I. One of my jobs as a writer is to assist in the training and improvement of ChatGPT. This may seem irreconcilable with my fear of being replaced. The reality is that training A.I. has in actuality eased some of my fear into manageable levels. I am about to reveal the true process of how artificial intelligence is fed information and improves upon it.
Once I am logged into the site where I train A.I., I am given assignments. The assignments vary greatly in their method and objective. The most common type of assignment I receive is one where I am given a prompt and then am expected to create a response to the prompt. For example, "Write a history paper on the American Revolution. Include its cause, some of the major battles, the major figures, how it ended, and its effect on the future. Make it at least 2,000 words and no more than 3,500 words." My job is to then write exactly what I was given. If I do not know some of the information needed for the paper, I use approved research databases to find the facts I need and continue on. Once I have wrote the response it is sent into the system. The system then analyses the content for quality. Once the quality check is done, the information is sent to an online host filled with other trainers responses where they are mixed and matched in order to create the perfect answer to the prompt. When a user asks for a response that is similar, the system then gives them our writing.
By telling you all this, I am putting myself at risk. What you have just read is not private information, but coveted information. I am not allowed to share what I have just written in this very public blog. However, I felt it needed that the truth be put out there. I am willing to risk one of my jobs in order to share a major part of the process of how A.I. works. But what can we make from this information?
While A.I is in part ran by computers making calculations, the source of the writing is human written. A.I. relies on humans creating writing pieces in order to function. Without human influence, A.I. could only rely on public access information in order to create its responses. It would be fed articles, online videos, and social media posts only. While A.I. is already being fed this information it needs human writing in order to articulate in a way that seems real. If you have ever used A.I to create writing you may have noticed how life-like its way of speaking can be when operating at maximum performance. This is no accident. While humans may not be typing at ultra-sonic speed in real time, what you are reading is a mix and refinement of human made writing.
Times are changing. Writers are scared of being replaced in the same way package shippers were scared when trains were invented. However, it is my belief that while writers may lose their jobs today, tomorrow our skills will be reallocated into the training of A.I. At the end of the day, the human touch is needed in order to make compelling stories and articles. The future of writing may not look the same as it does now, but I am not scared to see that future. Even if most of writing comes down to A.I. assisted by human beings in the future, websites like The Fabler's Quill will remain untouched by the technology. Human users want human writing. Untouched human writing will likely be able to coexist with human powered A.I. And that is why I do not fear the future, but rejoice at its potential. Don't be afraid of what tomorrow holds. Pull yourself up by your britches and embrace that sunrise.
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