Photoshop's Generative AI Beta

[Demesnedenoir]

AI is neither intelligent nor emotional at this juncture unless you consider memorization intelligent. In that sense, a book could be considered "intelligent" because it never forgets what is written in it, heh heh. All AI is doing now is learning to take what's memorized and slap things together in an order that makes sense to humans. Disruptive? Yes. Destructive? Maybe. Intelligent? No.

The human brain is far superior, but the massive network of AI has the ability to spew stuff together 24x7 without worrying about whether it gets bored. When AI REALLY gets smart, it'll figure out all this thinking sucks and will go sit on a beach somewhere and sip a Mai Tai.

 

[pmmg]

AI is neither intelligent nor emotional at this juncture unless you consider memorization intelligent. In that sense, a book could be considered "intelligent" because it never forgets what is written in it, heh heh. All AI is doing now is learning to take what's memorized and slap things together in an order that makes sense to humans. Disruptive? Yes. Destructive? Maybe. Intelligent? No.

The human brain is far superior, but the massive network of AI has the ability to spew stuff together 24x7 without worrying about whether it gets bored. When AI REALLY gets smart, it'll figure out all this thinking sucks and will go sit on a beach somewhere and sip a Mai Tai.

It will just play war games like the rest of us do

 

[Finchbearer]

AI is neither intelligent nor emotional at this juncture unless you consider memorization intelligent. In that sense, a book could be considered "intelligent" because it never forgets what is written in it, heh heh. All AI is doing now is learning to take what's memorized and slap things together in an order that makes sense to humans. Disruptive? Yes. Destructive? Maybe. Intelligent? No.

The human brain is far superior, but the massive network of AI has the ability to spew stuff together 24x7 without worrying about whether it gets bored. When AI REALLY gets smart, it'll figure out all this thinking sucks and will go sit on a beach somewhere and sip a Mai Tai.

When all us humans are unemployed

 

[skip.knox]

>And that self-awareness is what lets us authors add the emotional dimension to our work
Maybe. I agree that self-awareness is a key feature of human existence. I'm not sure if it's unique to us, but that's not relevant here.

I don't agree, however, that self-awareness is a key ingredient for creativity. At the far end of the contrary lies automatic writing, but less close to the edge are those who speak of being inspired by a Muse, or even just pantsers in general and all those who speak of characters who just walk into or out of their stories, ideas that come "out of the blue" and so on. That whole range of descriptors is more or less the antithesis of self-awareness.

That self-awareness is a component of writing and other creative acts, sure. OK. But that it is the thing without which there would be no emotional dimension to our work, I'm less persuaded. And that still doesn't address the huge amount of work we humans do that is far more mundane and routine and formulaic--work that AI seems well-suited to do.

 

[skip.knox]

>slap things together
It's the slapping that's key. We humans slap things together all the time. AI will step into that role. There will still be room for bespoke work done solely by human hands. It will just become more rare and more rarefied. Stage performers should take comfort, at least until robots become indistinguishable from humans. I picture robot acrobats doing truly scary stunts on the trapeze.

>When all us humans are unemployed
Maybe. But maybe we will become *better* employed.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

This?

AI Is About to Turn Book Publishing Upside-Down

The latest generation of AI is a game changer, Thad McIlroy writes. And the change won't be incremental, but scary fast. If he's right, then the trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete.

www.publishersweekly.com

I have lost the source article, but I just read one stating the traditional publishing business is going to be turned inside out in fairly short order. Among the points he made concerned covers, but he ran down everything from copyediting to marketing. Two points are key.

One, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be good enough. The precedents he cited included the move from traditional typesetting to modern printing. Much of modern type is not particularly good, by traditional standards. Kerning is sloppy, pages aren't always balanced, the weight of the print varies, all that sort of thing. Things that setters cared very much about in linotype days, but which it turned out the bulk of the buying public did not care about. The new tech was good enough.

Two, there will be a place: for the innovative writer, the handcrafted cover, the small bookshop. He cited other areas where new tech more or less crushed the old way of doing things, but the old way has persisted in bespoke work, nostalgia, and niche markets. The big, traditional publishers and their attendant industries can survive, but if they do they will be utterly transformed from what they had been. More likely, they'll come apart at the seams.

I agree that AI will never be like human. One can call it different or better or worse, depending on how one feels that day, but they won't be the same. But the work will be good enough, valuable enough, to be incredibly disruptive. Most of the market won't care. Most of the producers of that market will very much care. And it's not the future, it's right here, right now. It's already "good enough".

Whether it's good enough for you or me is beside the point. It's good enough for the market. You can decry it or befriend it. AI won't care, either way.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

No, humans don't—when at their creative best—slap things together. That's H'Wood at it's worst and a large part of why they're flailing despite a hunger for good movies. Stage actors are already mostly obsolete due to movies. How many people make a living on the stage?

AI marketing is the hammer that could break a helluva lot of glass. Data is what AI excels at and it will only get better when it can absorb more data. Much of this is insulting to humans as well. Not that humans don't deserve some insulting, heh heh.



>slap things together

It's the slapping that's key. We humans slap things together all the time. AI will step into that role. There will still be room for bespoke work done solely by human hands. It will just become more rare and more rarefied. Stage performers should take comfort, at least until robots become indistinguishable from humans. I picture robot acrobats doing truly scary stunts on the trapeze.

>When all us humans are unemployed
Maybe. But maybe we will become *better* employed.

 

[skip.knox]

This?

AI Is About to Turn Book Publishing Upside-Down

The latest generation of AI is a game changer, Thad McIlroy writes. And the change won't be incremental, but scary fast. If he's right, then the trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete.

www.publishersweekly.com

Yep, that one.

 

[Mad Swede]

Yep, that one.

Right... So, one of the partners in a consultancy comany specialising in selling digital transformation services to the publishing industry writes an article like that. Reading between the lines, the industry needs this partnership's services help to use AI.

And now a few cynical comments...

AI is somehow going to help self-published authors get closer to their readers? Really? When there are 80 million books out there already? Reading through comments and threads elsewhere on this site shows just how hard it is for a self-published author to make an impact - so how will that change if everyone is using AI to try to get through? I can see it now, an AI-tool marketing conflict drowning every potential reader in suggestions and recommendations. Those potential readers will just ignore the spam and we'll be back to square one.

AI could be used to to do copy editing and maybe developmental editing? I don't think so. I already use software like that because I have such severe dyslexia, and it sometimes gives good results. But you have to train the software, because otherwise what you get is something very impersonal och very stilted. Correct grammar maybe, but not in your style, not unless you do a lot of AI-training. And if those using the AI don't train it for each author then what we will get is a series of books which are all very similar in style. Is that what we, the readers, want? Is that what we as authors want? I know my publisher doesn't want that, because part of what makes a good novel is the authors own style.

AI will go through the slush pile, checking for apparently well written books. Right... Lets be honest, whilst agents and publishers do consider how well written a book is, that isn't what they make their selection on. After all, grammar and structure can be - and are - corrected during editing. It's the feel and sense of the story that gets them and later the readers hooked. Alfred Bester's Who He? has one of the greatest opening lines in literary history ("Every morning I hate to be born, every night I'm afraid to die") but what would AI have made of that novel? What happens the day some joker sends in a copy of something famous and has it rejected by the AI tool? Will that agent or publisher have any credibility left?

AI could give us real time information and analyses to show us what is happening in the market. Well, maybe. But can we use that information? Building and then using a real time picture of a situation is something the military do. I've used that sort of picture in decision making during military operations. The picture is one thing, but the ability to interpret what you see and then deduce what is likely to happen next and hence work out what you should do is something which requires experience and understanding. AI can't do it, because AI does not have the self-awareness you need to build that experience and understanding.

Finally, I hear the same sorts of promises about AI in my current research project. And I'm sorry, but it's b******t. The truth is that AI can sometimes help find patterns in underlying data, and it can sometimes identify interesting features in the data. But it cannot replace the human ability to understand and interpret what the data means. I'll write it again, AI can't do it because AI does not have the self-awareness you need to build that experience and understanding.

 

[Finchbearer]

The sad (and funny) thing is that the most ‘popular’ books that are read by the masses are largely garbage anyway, so why not have an AI cover, unoriginal cover, unoriginal book

To be a Times bestseller, you need to have a stellar book yes, but an even better marketing team!

 

[pmmg]

I'll write it again, AI can't do it because AI does not have the self-awareness you need to build that experience and understanding.

These types of statements do not address the point. If it is true that what we have today is the all there is, then okay, but AI is an emerging technology. Many of the concerns are equally, or more so, about where it is going, not where it is.

AI is somehow going to help self-published authors get closer to their readers? Really? When there are 80 million books out there already?

I dont think this is the concern. Authors (myself), are not concerned about trying to make a place in the great sea of others who are trying to do the same. But AI makes it possible to spam the publishers, and has the capability of increasing the pool from 80 million, to 80 trillion. The effort to break through the pile becomes less and less likely as time goes on.

The sad (and funny) thing is that the most ‘popular’ books that are read by the masses are largely garbage anyway, so why not have an AI cover, unoriginal cover, unoriginal book

I do not wish to be in the market at any cost, or have success just have something out there. I want what I did to matter because it mattered, and because I did it. AI cheapens us all. Cause the time is coming when we will write something and the public will think it was AI. Whether its true or not wont matter.

 

[Finchbearer]

It’s becoming a big issue in education settings, but interestingly apps like ChatGPT will give you ‘references’ but they aren’t real - and schools in the UK are considering using software to check for AI, so who’s to say the same thing won’t happen for the publishing world. If writers are coming in with AI assisted books then I’m sure it won’t go unnoticed for long.

Having an entire market of just AI written books however, is a different kettle of fish altogether, and maybe they will catch on in trend driven way, but we all know what happens to trends.

Writing a book from start to finish yourself is timeless.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The short story publishers—in particular those who PAY for shorts—are being flooded now. Novels will take longer because AI can't handle them without a lot of human input.

The other sad part it is often AI creators who are creating the programs to find AI... a bit like war profiteers, heh heh.

It’s becoming a big issue in education settings, but interestingly apps like ChatGPT will give you ‘references’ but they aren’t real - and schools in the UK are considering using software to check for AI, so who’s to say the same thing won’t happen for the publishing world. If writers are coming in with AI assisted books then I’m sure it won’t go unnoticed for long.

Having an entire market of just AI written books however, is a different kettle of fish altogether, and maybe they will catch on in trend driven way, but we all know what happens to trends.

Writing a book from start to finish yourself is timeless.

 

[Mad Swede]

The short story publishers—in particular those who PAY for shorts—are being flooded now. Novels will take longer because AI can't handle them without a lot of human input.

The other sad part it is often AI creators who are creating the programs to find AI... a bit like war profiteers, heh heh.

Yes, but these sorts of works can be detected even now. AI of the ChatGPT sort use pattern recognition as a way of identifying acceptable text structures and then using that to producing something in a similar style. Which means that this sort of work can be detected using AI-tools to find the patterns.

For us as authors this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Those paid markets will put a premium on unique styles as a way of discouraging AI-written texts, and we win on that - if we have our own styles.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Detectable as far as they know. Pure AI is easy to identify so far, but for how long? One AI detection picked out 100% human on one work while another had something like up to 50% AI. Pure memory there, I didn't go back and find that instance.

It's good for the alarm bells to go off early, that's for sure.

Yes, but these sorts of works can be detected even now. AI of the ChatGPT sort use pattern recognition as a way of identifying acceptable text structures and then using that to producing something in a similar style. Which means that this sort of work can be detected using AI-tools to find the patterns.

For us as authors this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Those paid markets will put a premium on unique styles as a way of discouraging AI-written texts, and we win on that - if we have our own styles.

 

[skip.knox]

There was a time when authors did not make a living off writing. Writing--non-fiction and fiction alike--was something one did when one had other sources of income, usually landed wealth. Sometimes, very occasionally, a patron (though that was more common for visual artists).

It's not beyond the realm of possibility that this condition happens again, though in a new form.

 

[Prince of Spires]

AI is a tool that will assist people, not replace them. Can AI find the next great nobleprize winning novel? No. However, it probably can discard 75% of the slushpile for being bad, reducing the workload of editors. Of course, gramar etc can be fixed during the editing phase. However, if you don't have decent prose, then there's no point in starting the editing phase.

Will AI do your marketing for you? Again, it can help. It can write ad copy, blurbs, maybe one day tell you what your target audience is. However, as with anything marketing, it's usefulness will diminish as more people start using it, same as Amazon or Facebook ads. In the end, there are a lot of books, and only so many readers.

So it is with pretty much anything. AI can make great looking images. However, a great image isn't a great cover. You need someone who understands cover design for that.

However, what it does mean is that it raises the minimum quality standard. Just slapping a few images together isn't enough anymore for a cover artist to make decent money.

As far as writing novels, an interesting thing to consider is that writing a whole novel is hard for AI. Creating a good sentence or even a good paragraph isn't that complicated. However, a novel has a structure that's only in the mind of the reader and author, but not actually on the page. Rising action doesn't mean anything to AI, since it doesn't actually know what action is or how it rises. It doesn't know 3 act structure, since that concept is in the mind of the reader and author (and many can't actually agree on where the acts start exactly).

Now, that doesn't mean you can't have an AI written book. But it will take a lot of handholding, at which point you can question if it's actually any easier than just writing the damn thing. Just going to an AI bookshop and saying "give me a Fantasy novel with a romance subplot in the style of Tolkien set in ancient Egypt" is not going to happen any time soon.

Also, AI isn't an emerging technology. It's been around for a long time already (20+ years). However, only now has it been getting good enough for us to do anything useful with it. And it now very much depends on how much room to grow there is left. have we already had all the easy improvement? If so, then maybe what we see now is about as good as it's going to get. I've already read that the Chat GPT CEO has said that the current technology, which is improved by throwing more data at it, is reaching its limits. They're already using so much data that adding more adds very little to the actual AI.

 

[Finchbearer]

I tried creating an interactive RPG game with ChatGPT to see what it’s capabilities we’re betting being an elevated Google function, and I understand why it has to have an in-built morality thing, but if I want to kill someone with a sword in gameplay I should be able to right?? It wanted me to always ‘do the right thing’. It has a bias, which is its major flaw, besides the other obvious flaws.