Will writers ever be replaced by machines?

I don't know...but it would make an interesting short story, wouldn't it?

Plot Device said:

Twenty-dollar accounting software programs came along and replaced bookkeepers and accountants.
...Are we replaceable?

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My accountant uses the accountant software. I don't want to learn it, buy it or update it every year when the tax laws change.
Are we replaceable? To some extent and no. I don't worry aboudit, at least not until the machines become self-aware and send an android back in time to terminate the leader of the human resistance.... or stick us in little pods so that our energy can fuel their hard drives while we are mentally stuck in a computer program believing we are existing in the real world, Neo.
Cheese. What ever happened to being paranoid about alien invasion?

I think actors should worry about being replaced before writers do. All of these prior "replacements" are for menial work -- from stuffing letters to counting numbers. Writing, on the other hand, is work of the mind and heart. Until a machine can replace the brain (computers are still WAY off) and have a soul, it won't happen.

Granted, some of the more menial work has been and can be replaced -- writing "stock" material such as court reports, legal documents, etc., what with templates and database driven document generators... But as far as creative writing is concerned, I wouldn't worry one bit. Not in my lifetime anyway.

I've recently read a short story, "The Story of His Life" in which machines write the script and people live them. It was interesting, and in the end, a human intervention was necessary.


I think we'll be safe for centuries; AIs of that order are far in the future.

No. At least not in any foreseeable future. I cite the continuing inability of translation programs to produce anything but misleading gibberish. The number of variables are so incredibly vast it is virtually impossible to get them all in. I've been watching these babies for the last ten years and more and they haven't improved a whit. I've used the online translators to read my own web pages and they couldn't even get the basic subject matter right. When I was offering a service, foreign readers relying on translation software would not even have known what field my services were in, let alone what they actually were. (So, as an aside, never use them if for any purposes other than entertainment.)

Producing original material would be even more daunting.

Musical composition has already happened though and apparently the results are quite impressive. But music, much as I love it, is essentially audible mathematics, so it was a natural for programming. Words are infinitely more complex.

We're talking the difference between menial tasks and art. Someone still has to design the patterns for those massive machines. Someone has to create and manipulate the "actor". It's just a new kind of art and artist.

Well, I'll look around. If they've managed a quantum leap, I was unaware. And if improved dramatically means they've gone from 1 to 2 on a scale of 1-100, it might be a dramatic improvement, but it just doesn't matter.

OK, I went a checked a French language daily in translation. Opening paragraph of one of the articles:

Clean youth with the wearing of Montreal

The government Stephen Harper wants to give again with the wearing of Montreal its gloss of antan: after having announced Tuesday of the investments in the Company of the Old man-Port, the public Minister for Labour and governmental Service, Michael Fortier, will state this midday in company of his/her colleague with…

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It does appear that we are still safe. Machines are still waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind.

Others were a little more comprehensible, but still highly amusing about once a sentence. I can't see a quantum leap.

ETA: The article was really about a rejuvenation of the Old Port area of Montreal. Port can mean a nautical port, or the wearing of something. Having seen the word "youth" which was being used metaphorically, the program must have decided that "wearing" fit the theme better. Too many variables in the space of five words. I rest my case.

no.

It already happened, starting with Gutenberg. Writers as artisans are all but gone. However, writers as CONTENT-creators will probably never be replaced. Nothing original will ever come from a computer as we know them.

However, with sufficiently advanced algorithms that took into account thousands of factors, I'm sure that a computer could churn out pulp. But even that would be more of rearranging a finite number of elements which would have to be programmed in first.

Seems fairly simple. Program in plot A, B...XYYZ, et al. Within plot, there are three acts, a certain number of twists, whatever. Each can be broken down into predictable scene (the attempt on protagonist's life, protagonist meets love interest, protagonist uncovers clue, etc.) The characters are created and put together randomly, and then paired with motivations. Interactions would be based on the attributes and goals of different characters in any given scene.

Basically it would be like a combination of modern video games and a horribly complex Choose Your Own Adventure novel, to the nth degree. The computer would "publish" the choices it made.

But, there will be no originality or art to it. Unless programmed, the prose would be purely descriptive, the conversations logical and boring, etc etc. Any flair in the writing would be a result of the programmer.

The fact that we are industrialized no more means that a machine will replace a writer anymore than the industrialization of the textile industry replaced Donna Versace and Ralph Lauren.

Of course, even as I saw this I am sure that an AI is hidden away in a little corner of the Internet, reading these boards and coming up with ideas for the next Da Vinci Code.

Plot Device said:

Could they EVER produce a machine capable of writing a story? An original, heart-felt, deeply moving, well-crafted story?

A machine programmed with a complete mastery of "the hero's journey" and the fundamentals of story arc and the dynamics of character arc?

A machine that never gets writer's block?

A machine that can fashion a story in a matter of hours instead of a year?

A machine that doesn't require a half-million dollar advance and to whom no royalties would ever be owed?

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Other than the royalties, I think you just described Stephen King. But someone is going to get royalties, even if it's whoever owns the machine.

If the "transhumanists" are to be believed (and I lean towards them being right), it (the "Singularity" when machines reach and exceed human intellectual capacity) is only 10 to 30 years away. You'll be able to tell a machine from a human posting on AW because the machine will be more creative and it will respond faster.

You can go here and click on CyberArt and get a program that writes poetry. No, I haven't tried it, and wouldn't know if it actually wrote good poetry anyway:
http://kurzweiltech.com

Plot Device said:

It started with the Industrial Revolution: huge machines with giant looms cranking out massive bolts of cloth, replacing the milenium-old cottage industry of weaving at home on a hand-loom.

Later, knitting machines replaced hand-knitting.

Then the automobile industry introduced stationary robotic arms on their assembly lines.

Twenty-dollar accounting software programs came along and replaced bookkeepers and accountants.

A few years back, a movie called "Sim One" debuted. It was about a computer generated actress named Simone and the story suggested that maybe through digital technology, there will one day be no need for high-priced actors. Instead Hollywood producers would be able to fabricate a virtual celebrity for a few thousand dollars in a compuer, and then produce blockbuster films with that non-person, and pay him/her/it no salary and no residuals (and not have to cater to "celebrity demands" like double-wide trailers, a personal chef for the cocker spaniel, and endless bowls full of Skittles always on hand).



As for us writers ....



Could they EVER produce a machine capable of writing a story? An original, heart-felt, deeply moving, well-crafted story?

A machine programmed with a complete mastery of "the hero's journey" and the fundamentals of story arc and the dynamics of character arc?

A machine that never gets writer's block?

A machine that can fashion a story in a matter of hours instead of a year?

A machine that doesn't require a half-million dollar advance and to whom no royalties would ever be owed?

Are we replaceable?





This thread was inspired by another thread in the Scriptwriter's forum by the boardmember named McDuff:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62291



And here's my response to him:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1285865&posted=1#post1285865

Click to expand...

As my Comp Sci prof told my programming class many years ago, there will be no "true" AI until the computer can understand the following:

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

So we are still safe.

benbradley said:

If the "transhumanists" are to be believed (and I lean towards them being right), it (the "Singularity" when machines reach and exceed human intellectual capacity) is only 10 to 30 years away. You'll be able to tell a machine from a human posting on AW because the machine will be more creative and it will respond faster.

You can go here and click on CyberArt and get a program that writes poetry. No, I haven't tried it, and wouldn't know if it actually wrote good poetry anyway:
http://kurzweiltech.com

Click to expand...

The singularity has always been ten to thirty years away, and the true experts in the field say it seems further away now than ever. So far, computers not only lack the intellect of a human, they lack any intellect at all. What passes for intellect in a computer is the human behind the computer. There is zero evidence that this is going to change in the foreseeable future.

Much as I occasionally enjoy Star Trek, I have a great deal of difficulty believing that it is possible to create a sentient machine. I may yet be proved wrong, but I'll almost certainly be too dead to notice.

Celia Cyanide said:

I don't know...but it would make an interesting short story, wouldn't it?

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A.E. van Vogt wrote a novel in the 1940's called The World of [Null] A, in which a machine, (called simply 'The Machine') had been built as a semi-sentient being. From what I remember of the book, The Machine did have the ability to create and make sense.

But that was far-off-into-the-distant-future SF. I personally do not see such a thing as a machine replacing human writers in the foreseeable future. Such a thing would require more intelligence than a computer as we know it today could possess.

Writers have already been replaced by machines: it's called a printer. Or, should I say, scribes have been replaced by machines--the task of trandscribing every book by hand has been replaced by machine mass production. But, the original book has to have still been written by a person--just as, even with a factory loom, the original weave design was created by a person. And the original knitting pattern was created by a person; and the original car was invented by a person. The industrial revolution hasn't really removed the human element from creation; it has simply removed the human element from production. One can argue that certain crafts, like weaving, are now less widely practiced because they're so easily available in stores that few people go to the trouble of making them on their own, but someone, somewhere, is still doing the creating.

Tallymark said:

Writers have already been replaced by machines: it's called a printer. Or, should I say, scribes have been replaced by machines--the task of trandscribing every book by hand has been replaced by machine mass production. But, the original book has to have still been written by a person--just as, even with a factory loom, the original weave design was created by a person. And the original knitting pattern was created by a person; and the original car was invented by a person. The industrial revolution hasn't really removed the human element from creation; it has simply removed the human element from production. One can argue that certain crafts, like weaving, are now less widely practiced because they're so easily available in stores that few people go to the trouble of making them on their own, but someone, somewhere, is still doing the creating.

Click to expand...

sounds logical

Plot Device said:

It started with the Industrial Revolution: huge machines with giant looms cranking out massive bolts of cloth, replacing the milenium-old cottage industry of weaving at home on a hand-loom.

Later, knitting machines replaced hand-knitting.

Then the automobile industry introduced stationary robotic arms on their assembly lines.

Twenty-dollar accounting software programs came along and replaced bookkeepers and accountants.

A few years back, a movie called "Sim One" debuted. It was about a computer generated actress named Simone and the story suggested that maybe through digital technology, there will one day be no need for high-priced actors. Instead Hollywood producers would be able to fabricate a virtual celebrity for a few thousand dollars in a compuer, and then produce blockbuster films with that non-person, and pay him/her/it no salary and no residuals (and not have to cater to "celebrity demands" like double-wide trailers, a personal chef for the cocker spaniel, and endless bowls full of Skittles always on hand).



As for us writers ....



Could they EVER produce a machine capable of writing a story? An original, heart-felt, deeply moving, well-crafted story?

A machine programmed with a complete mastery of "the hero's journey" and the fundamentals of story arc and the dynamics of character arc?

A machine that never gets writer's block?

A machine that can fashion a story in a matter of hours instead of a year?

A machine that doesn't require a half-million dollar advance and to whom no royalties would ever be owed?

Are we replaceable?





This thread was inspired by another thread in the Scriptwriter's forum by the boardmember named McDuff:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62291



And here's my response to him:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1285865&posted=1#post1285865

Click to expand...

They already are

truelyana said:

They already are

Click to expand...

I have to see it to believe it.

I love the machines - without them, I wouldn't be able to write. I look forward to the day when I can be *more* machine than I am now, so that my non-functioning parts will work (especially my hand) I would like to be that writing machine...

Love my DH's new titanium hip - he's back to doing the chores! Yippee!

I think there is presently ample evidence of the sophistication of the machine - translation machines (and my ex-friend the gifted polyglot and working translator said that the very expensive top-of-the-shelf machines are good to an accuracy of 75%+), the robot (eg. the Japanese invented robot dogs, and human exercise companions), and the AI work being conducted for the US military (which most of we civilians never get to hear about) as well as that in places like MIT. In keeping, there are the automoted 'mental health counsellors'.

As to whether novelists will be replaced by these machines? How about dramatists, poets, and yes, even trade journalists like myself? Do not kid yourself - it could happen sooner than you think. Maybe even within this lifetime, given the pace of development of AI, for example.

Well, when it comes to being replaced by a machine, I know that trade journalists will be given their pink slip later than the poets, dramaturges and novelists...

Wouldn't the result be something close to MadLibs?