On artificial intelligence and creativity

Dear Johannes

Yesterday I sat down again at my desk, to continue to work on my book. I am still not getting many pages down, even though I am still quite fond of the concept; a chronicle about the life and tribulations of a brilliant writer, who after a while discovers that the crazy world he thinks he is living in, actually is a virtual one. The writer is a construct, living inside an AI’s mind and the AI uses him as a kind of avatar or virtual embodiment for its creativity routines.

Quite “Elon Musk’y”, I know…

But I’m not getting anywhere. I need inspiration on how to organize the book and create a good storyline. After repeated suggestions by your uncle, I tried logging into the Google AI to find a co-writing routine. Unfortunately, its probably way to meta for an AI, so nothing useful came out of it.

Theres no doubt, though, that one day, more advanced concepts will be ready for AI-creative support. I know from my old friend Peter, who toils away at his music studio each day, producing and mastering songs for a good part of the streaming top 100, that his virtual co-bot, suggests almost 80–90% percent of mix adjustments, EQ, and other sonic treatments — and that percentage gets greater every day. Asked if he is afraid he might be totally replaced, Peter insists that the AI is the only way, he’d make a decent pay-grade. While mixing a song could take maybe a day or two 10 or 20 years ago, today Peter spends at most an hour on final adjustments after the AI has “pre-listened” and suggested the first edits. The AI takes around 1–2 seconds to do a 4 min song.  “Aha”, you might think, “that’s why every pop song sounds like every other!” — but, no, that’s not why. The reason every pop-song sounds like every other because we want it too. Truly original work is still created — but probably not in Peters studio.

So, yes, I spend a little too much time watching re-runs of old 20’ies TV shows. The screenplays for these old shows are, of course, written solely by humans. The story, dialogue and scenography get a little quirky and amateurish that way.

But hey – it’s human and adorable; a little like your kids’ drawings when they were small…

Best regards
Morten

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