John Vorhaus, Author/Speaker/Artist/Screenwriter: I think AI will be as much of a game changer as
the internet was the thing that I read that scares me the most is
if I'm a young writer now today, I'm leaning heavily on tools and templates. You know what
else I'm doing? Start going back to AI, I'm using AI to generate outlines, I'm using AI to generate
beat sheets, I'm using AI to check whether my story structure is sound and I'm not threatened
by this. I'm not afraid that AI is going to put me out of work or maybe I am but at least
I recognize that AI is definably three things: a tool, a partner, a competitor. It's not always all
those things but we can count on it being one or another of those things pretty much all the time
and it's not totally accurate yet from no but it's still in its infancy but it's not
yeah it's going interesting places it sure is it has it has solved a big problem in my art
because all of my work is digital I don't draw by hand and so the question is always
in my mind where does the base image come from and I'm very I'm careful about what I take I'm
careful about how I create my images I don't want to borrow pieces that look like borrowed pieces
but I can say to the AI give me a a collection of stick figures in blue and green and it'll
create an image that I've never seen before and never imagined I might not want that image
but I might see it as the start of something interesting and then it's where my piece begins
it it's not stolen from anybody because it was generated according to some words that I made up
so the genesis of the idea is the words I made up the the words I put into the search prompt
what comes out of that if it's true AI is something that we'll never have existed
in any form before not just a scraped image. The problem with AI right now is that it's borrowing
too liberally from what's out there and passing it off as original content that's not what it
is and that's copyright violation, that's a lot of problems but true AI will respond to
a sophisticated set of search terms. Tell me a story about an astronaut stranded on the moon
whose wife is running the mission from mission control on Houston and AI will give me story
beats that are very conventional according to its understanding of what it means to be stranded and
what it means to be separated from spouse but it's going to give me a pretty solid platform for a
story that I just thought up in the moment. That's an example of using it as a partner and a tool.
On the other hand if my producer can get the script without bothering to engage me because
AI is doing that good a job then it's competitor, this is me in my tranquility and my objectivity
saying Hey everybody, it's not a good thing, not a bad thing, it's just a thing that's happening
and if you want to have a good relationship with AI whatever it becomes or anything you can
think of for that matter. Don't apprehend it as a threat, don't apprehend it as an opportunity, just
apprehend it as exactly what it is. Experience it without laying your own judgments on top of it.
Film Courage: Interesting. Nanotechnology was thought of in the same way as something to be
feared and something to be embraced, the Y2K bug we thought it was going to end everything,
people took precautions, they got ahead of it, some of it worked some of it didn’t.
John: I think AI will be as much of a game changer as the internet was
that the thing that I read that scares me the most is we are currently capable of
building with AI we're capable of building network platforms, global network platforms like Google,
Yahoo, any Global platform you can think of that are so complex and sophisticated that we
can't control them only AI can control them yeah not a good thing, it's not a bad thing,
it's just something that's coming let's find out sure or the bad actor that created it
well bad actors have used the internet and and my career has prospered because of the internet
so right so the good and the bad the Yin and the Yang it has no it has no
intrinsic value in and of itself it's only how we use it and we can say that that's true for
writing comedy as well as mentioned earlier comedy can lift up or it can break break down it's up to
you to decide how you want to use it be a lifter upper or knock or downer either choice is fine
it's a choice you get to make all of creative enterprise is making choices anything you can
think of writing a joke telling a story painting a picture writing a song dancing and dance it's all
choice everything boils down to I choose to make it blue instead of green or red instead of yellow
or use the word what instead of why and when you understand that creativity is just making choices
and you understand that those choices can be changed later and that your job as a creator
is just to make as many choices as you can as thoughtfully and effectively as you can
then you're free then you're not afraid of bad outcomes because you know much of systemic choices
not even good choices not even right choices just choices so that's where I live I live in choice.