A Twist Of Lymon

Nnnnnnext… Why the AI-obsessed seek to devalue art with conveyor belt creativity.

Like most kids, I never liked doing homework. Or tidying my bedroom. Especially when I knew my mates were playing outside.

But a chore is a chore, and when I was told I couldn’t go out and do what I really wanted to do until the tasks were done, I rushed to get them done. I put in the bare minimum of effort to get my homework finished fast to an acceptable but not great standard because I wanted to go and do something I was more interested in doing. The bedroom tidy was hurried too, involving stuffing things under my bed and into drawers and cupboards, so it looked tidy on the surface, but any closer inspection would reveal the poor quality of work.

Which links nicely to the work of AI developers and the bots they’re inflicting on the world that try to replace human writers and artists.

None of the people developing and using this tech are interested in real creativity. They’ve got better things to do with their time, things that interest them more, like inventing more tech that steals more people’s jobs.

For these people, writing and drawing is something they want to get done quickly and easily. And they know it’s something they can’t do themselves to a good standard. So it’s small wonder they all go ‘wow’ and ‘amazing’ every time they see a new, soulless AI toy in action. They bow down before machines that bestow upon them the ability to create something they’re simply not prepared to devote the time to learn how to do themselves.

But look closely at what their lack of time and effort, and their oh so easy prompts produce and it’s clear to see the work is substandard at best. Take this pic that I’ve had the misfortune of seeing numerous times on my feed in an unsolicited ad for an instantly forgettable AI business:

A perfectly acceptable style of drawing on the surface, but a closer look reveals appalling quality. What game are the bot and its human opponent playing? It certainly isn’t chess as both are sat further up the table from the board. And even if they were sat at the board, they’d struggle to get a decent game in as the pieces on both sides are virtually the same shape and colour, and as for the squares on the board, well….

It’s just one example of the consistently poor quality, lack of detail and dereliction of accuracy that affects AI output. But the inferior quality was obviously good enough for the people running this AI-driven business as they used it in their ad. And like them, many clients will opt to use AI ahead of human talent because they’d rather take a hit on the quality of their output than a hit financially by paying a proper artist to take time to do a proper job.

The AI-obsessed are only interested in peddling tech that offers cheap shortcuts to anyone who’s willing to buy substandard quality. Many now see AI as a way of turning creativity into a conveyor belt, churning out one-dimensional content in seconds without a second thought for its quality, or for the loss of income this will cause a human professional, someone whom they would have had no choice but to employ to create what they needed before the advent of job-stealing AI.

There’s no way a human artist would have produced such poor quality art as the chess picture shown above. But of course, the AI-obsessed don’t care, and certainly wouldn’t dream of paying a genuine human artist who has taken time to learn their craft and develop their talent to produce quality artwork.

They don’t rate creativity. They’re not interested in art or artists. They’ve got better things to spend their time and money on. Like developing more anti-humanity, job stealing tech that will prevent people who’ve dedicated time to learning a craft from feeding their kids and putting a roof over their heads.

To end on a positive note, there are still thankfully many clients who value the best quality and who employ human writers and artists, respecting their craft and superiority to AI. Respect to them and here’s hoping they’re never lured by a cheaper, low grade alternative and continue to #HireHuman

The battle against job stealing artificial intelligence: JOINED

In my new book LAST WRITER SITTING, an unemployed copywriter is asked to write a speech and deliver it at The March For Humanity - mankind's last chance to express its disgust at how many livelihoods artificial intelligence is destroying. Here's a transcript of that speech:

Discrimination.

It’s illegal to discriminate against someone in terms of their age, skin colour, sex, sexual preferences, and ability. And yet, here we have no action being taken at all by governments across the globe against perhaps the biggest example of ability discrimination the world has ever seen.

Every single human being on this planet is being discriminated against by Ai. We are being discriminated against for being human.

Robots, machines, call them what you like, they are taking people’s jobs purely because humans cannot work as fast or for as long or for as cheaply as these inhuman forms of artificial intelligence.

We humans have brains and bodies that naturally fade with age and we are being discriminated against because of this. Machines, with no brain or body to worry about and with the capacity to learn and learn and learn are taking our jobs.

And because us humans need to be paid for the work we do, we are being discriminated against and losing out to machines who don’t have families to support or houses to buy.

And what do governments do about this discrimination? You’d expect them to take swift and decisive action, right? But with Ai, where is the action to stop this anti-humanity discrimination? Those in power are watching from the sidelines because they have invested billions of our money in developing this anti-humanity technology without a second thought for how it discriminates against every human being on this planet.

They are basically saying it’s OK for the whole of humanity to be discriminated against for not having the same abilities as Ai. For not being as quick or as clever or as cheap as machines.

That cannot be right.

No such blatant discrimination can be allowed to stand.

The current unregulated use of job stealing Ai cannot continue unopposed.

Let’s march today to end this discrimination.

Let’s march to end all job-stealing Ai now and re-assert our right to be human, to have faults, limitations, wants and needs.

To have jobs and feel that it’s OK to be human while we work a limited number of hours a day for decent pay, taking breaks to do human things like eat snacks and breathe fresh air and yes, go for a shit.

We have a right to earn a living based on human standards of working, and a right not to be compared to machines who have unfair advantages over us because they are not human and we are.

Let’s make today a line in the sand day.

Let’s march for humanity.

>Find out more about Last Writer Sitting

Human Author vs Chat GPT

This Chat GPT sounds a bit challenging/worrying for us authors. But is it any good? I decided to put it to the test by getting it to write some flash fiction based on the theme of one of my short stories.

Both are included below. Can you spot the prose that took hours and days for a human brain and hand to craft, and the one that was zipped out in a nanosecond by a machine in the ether, the cloud or wherever?

The challenge I posed ChatGPT was:

Write a short story about a fight in a bar.

STORY A

The atmosphere in the bar was tense. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol. The patrons were a mix of regulars and newcomers, all gathered to drink away their troubles. It was a Friday night and the bar was packed.

At a table in the corner, two men were arguing. They had been drinking heavily for hours and their tempers had flared. The argument quickly turned into a shouting match, and before anyone could intervene, one of the men threw a punch. It landed squarely on the other man's jaw and he stumbled backwards, knocking over his chair.

The other patrons of the bar jumped to their feet, trying to separate the two men before things got out of hand. But it was too late. The man who had been punched retaliated with a wild swing, connecting with his opponent's nose.

Blood splattered across the table and the floor as the injured man clutched his face and howled in pain. The other patrons shouted and tried to pull the two men apart, but they were too drunk and too angry to listen.

Suddenly, a burly bouncer appeared at the scene. He grabbed both men by the scruff of their necks and threw them outside. They stumbled into the streets still shouting and flailing at each other.

The other patrons shook their heads and went back to their drinks, knowing that it was just another night at the bar. As for the two men, they eventually tired themselves out and staggered off in opposite directions, nursing their wounds and nursing their grudges.

The bar returned to its usual buzz, but the fight had left a mark. The tension was still palpable, and everyone knew it could erupt again at any moment. But for now, at least, the bar was quiet.

STORY B

He who cast the first bottle was soon forgotten in the tussle that followed. Knees were introduced to groins. Shaved heads decorated red. Most brawlers thought my ashtray frisbee a tad excessive, but this was the heat of battle.
           I lassooed a chair above my head and let fly, missing everyone, save the pinball machine whose lights I knocked out. The landlord cursed. Bodies continued to land before, on and beyond his bar. He repelled all advances on his till with a snarl, an upturned, half-empty bottle of rum and genuine threats of legal action.
           No one saw who called the ceasefire, but it was universally observed. Brawlers froze like a Christmas Day in the trenches, perhaps. A casualty cut her way through the crowd, small hand held to small forehead. Blood trickling through slender many-ringed fingers. Men with bruised eyes followed her all the way into the ladies, violence no longer the object of their desire.
           The respite was short-lived. The tap shut of the toilet door was the battle cry. Hostilities resumed.
           Pool cues were snapped in two over knees and employed as anorexic baseball bats, if you please. A red raw hand paid a pound for a game, but used the triangle as a grenade, the chalk as shrapnel, the balls as cannon fodder.
           Flashing blue ended the performance. The law came to restore and order us all to spread ‘em and introduce hands to walls. The landlord surveyed the scene with distaste. There were superficial injuries to pub and punter alike. Thoughts returned to the girl. A WPC was dispatched to the WC but returned empty-handed.
           But when cautions had been grudgingly accepted, shards of glass swept from sight and blood wiped from walls, those who were there were scarred and sore but not without satisfaction. Because on that day as we’d tried to kill each other, we’d stopped to smell a rose.