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The Perils of AI In The Creative Industries
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Bean and Dan were once more joined by Tade Thompson, who relates to us his experiences of moving into the world of screenwriting, an entirely different beast than novel writing, and which comes with its own trials and networks to navigate.
He discusses the different writing techniques required, the different ways a manuscript works its way through production systems, and how a film or TV show actually gets made. He even has a little scoop for us towards the end of the episode.
Elsewhere, we discuss the perils and opportunities of the use of AI in writing, particularly the threat it poses to creative industries, but also where its limitations lie. As a psychotherapist, Tade also relays strong opinions about how a reliance upon AI can have effects upon human cognitive ability. As we meander through the conversation we cover upon Sith lords, breast-punching, and Dan's recycling.
Elsewhere, Sligo resident Montoolian McD'Gaskell attempts to win big big money but runs up against an unlikely obstacle: Google Gemini AI. Will Montoolian win enough cash to buy himself another beer? Listen on to find out...
Tade Thompson is the author of several modern science fiction hits, including the award-winning Rosewater trilogy, Far From The Light Of Heaven, and other works such as The Murders of Molly Southbourne, and Jackdaw, which has become one of Chronscast's favourite novels of recent years.
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Transcript
Introduction & Game Show Segment
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Who Wants to Win £10 on Air? Sponsored by Google Gemini AI, internet search function. And if you've just joined us, Fontulian McGill-Asbook from Sligo is on £2.40 and has one lifeline left.
00:00:37
Speaker
So Fontulian, for £4.80...
00:00:43
Speaker
Who wrote and directed the 2001 film Mulholland Drive? Was it... A. Christopher Bean B. David Lynch C. Pete Long Or D. Bob Monkhouse Erm... I'm going to phone a friend And who are you going to call?
00:01:06
Speaker
Siri And where does Siri live? On the internet, I think Okay
00:01:13
Speaker
Correct. How can I help? Affirmative.
00:01:25
Speaker
but has one lifeline left the next voice you are going to hear will be fontulians affirmative Hello Siri. Hello insert username. Siri, who wrote and directed the 2001 film Mulholland Drive?
00:01:39
Speaker
Was it A. Christopher Bean, B. David Lynch, C. Pete Long or D. Bob Monkhouse? The 2001 film Mulholland Drive was written and directed by the US President Ronald Reagan.
00:01:52
Speaker
The film describes issues he had readjusting to society after the Bay of Pigs invasion. It stars Christopher Lambert and popular music composer Beatrix Potter. All right, uh, well, okay.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, thanks, siri.
00:02:07
Speaker
So, Fortuny, have you made your decision? Well, it can't be Christopher Beaton because he was an 18th century Gothic novelist. And it can't be Pete Long because he's a linebacker for the New York Jets.
00:02:21
Speaker
And it can't be Bob Monkhouse because he was a British TV presenter and I don't remember making any films. So it has to be... It has to be... Me, David Lynch.
00:02:33
Speaker
Final answer? Yeah, yeah, final answer. B, David Lynch.
00:02:44
Speaker
I'm afraid that's the wrong answer. The correct answer is D. Bob Monkhouse. Bob Monkhouse, of course, famous for his many cinematic works, including The Die Hard Trilogy and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.
00:02:56
Speaker
Hard luck. You were very close. Before we go, I'd like to thank our sponsor, of Google Gemini, you, the listeners, and of course, it goes without saying... Oh, well, I suppose there's no need to say it.
Interview with Tade Thompson
00:03:12
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome back to CrossCast, a fantasy science fiction and horror podcast. We're here once again with Tadde Thompson who is talking to us about David Lynch's 2001 masterpiece Mulholland Drive.
00:03:24
Speaker
We're going to talk a little bit about what you're up to now Tadde. I know you're involved deeply with ah various bits of TV work and some screenplays but are you doing anything back in the in the world of prose fiction at all?
00:03:38
Speaker
So right now, I mean, literally as we are, well, not not not literally as we're but Tade, but you're not that good. but I'm writing short tool works right now because the TV and film stuff is really, it takes a lot of my time.
00:03:56
Speaker
um So I am writing, I've been writing a number of short stories, which I think I'm going to combine together into a into a kind of collection short story collection of Rosewater stories, that like the stories all set in the Rosewater universe.
00:04:09
Speaker
Although the novella I'm writing right now is not set in that universe because you have to follow the muse where it takes you and this is completely different from that. but So when you're writing... Sorry, go on.
00:04:20
Speaker
So I think that I'm writing a collection of short stories in the in the Rosewater universe, which... will them which I assume will be collected. Are these stories i did like leftover ideas from the Rosewater universe? No, no, no, no. Or are these new new ideas? These are new ideas.
00:04:36
Speaker
then They're not leftovers. They're new ideas. But that's that's an idea. I might actually bring some of the leftover things as well. Because I do have... I've got a lot of material from, from Roseworth that did not include in the books actually. Of course. But these are, these are new ideas. Cause if i I, get bored easily. So I'll get bored if I keep, if I'm trying to recycle stuff.
00:04:54
Speaker
So i need to be writing new stuff. Otherwise can't. Even if you go back to an old universe that you populated, you'll find new. If you dig around there, you, you'll find new stuff. That's yeah. And that's yeah. For the characters to do or new characters for them to meet or whatever. yeah Largely it's,
00:05:12
Speaker
you know like Okay, one of them definitely has Kara, my main character, in it, but a lot of the others are just peripheral. They're walking peripherally in it, but these are different characters who are just living in that universe.
00:05:25
Speaker
and you know having things happen to them in that way. So it's like almost like Rosewater Shortcuts. Is it a bit like that? Something like that, yeah. Digressions. Yeah, not nice. Very cool. That's kind of the name. That's the tentative name I had for it in my head, like Rosewater Digressions.
00:05:40
Speaker
Nice. So I'm doing that. ah you know Other short stories. um i'm doing a lot like i'm using I'm writing a lot of flash fiction as well just to keep the the prose muscles oiled because, again, your scripts are very stripped down.
00:05:55
Speaker
So you have to get back into the rhythm of describing things. So I need to, every day, just kind of gra write a flash story just to keep it you know to keep it going and all that. um I am planning a book, but it's too early to think about.
00:06:09
Speaker
Like I'm planning... Like if I finish the current batch of screen work that I'm doing, then i'll kind of I can sink into an actual novel about something. um I'm planning it, but I can't, you know, i it's it's too early. it's so like So I guess what I can say is there's a Rosewater collection coming.
00:06:27
Speaker
I've got i got a story coming up on Reactor in April. I've got a story in ah the series. Uncanny Magazine called The Flaming Amazon. but you know That's there on the site. um And there's another, there's an anthology that I submitted a story to recently as well.
00:06:47
Speaker
So there will be stuff coming from me, largely short fiction to start with and then then then something bigger. Can I ask a question about your your screen work? Because a lot of the your your screenplay is derived from your prose fiction.
00:07:05
Speaker
like That's correct, isn't that I'm right in saying that. so No, some of it is original. Some some of it's original. right like Some of it is other people's IPs, which they're so full of...
00:07:21
Speaker
They're so that's all full of um NDAs that I can't even talk about them. and this is the I was going to talk about the process. I wasn't going to ask about the content. I was going to talk about the process. but okay yeah that's how How does the the the process of doing screen work, of doing screenplays, especially I was going to go down the road of adapting a screenplay from okay a novel because and it's something that...
00:07:45
Speaker
um I attempted to do and sell a year or two ago. um and um and I know other people who listen to this show, they've also attempted to do it.
00:07:57
Speaker
And it's quite, you you find as soon as you start doing it you find out it's quite the different skill set. It's not the same at all ah because of the conventions and the structures in place. So yeah as as you're doing that professionally now, it'd be really good to get your take on how it differs from what you've got to get the mindset you've got to get your head into uh when you're writing a screenplay as opposed to a piece of prose a novel whatever okay so the first thing you need to think of the the first thing about writing a screenplay is that you have to understand story fundamentally you have to understand that you are telling a story visually but yeah you have to you you know like
00:08:38
Speaker
So when you're writing a book or a short story, you can find certain things. You don't even have to fully understand your story. where you you know When you're writing a screenplay, there's nowhere to hide. ah right like You have to have scenes building on scenes building on scenes. It has to have a flow.
00:08:56
Speaker
Even in something as surrealist as Lynch, there still is a flow that you can find if you look for it. you have to have You have to have that. You've got to have a full understanding of what your character wants and why they're doing what they're doing.
00:09:12
Speaker
Because you're not going to have the luxury of talking about their thoughts. you can you know you can put a You can put a voice over there, but that's seen as some kind of cheat. You have to demonstrate their thoughts by their actions.
00:09:25
Speaker
The principle is still the same. You want to see the actions, the feelings and the thoughts of a person, because every story does that to a greater or lesser extent. But it has to be demonstrated visually for a screenplay.
00:09:38
Speaker
You have to understand that you are looking at this person, right? And the person... will not necessarily have the advantage of being able to tell you, I am feeling this. They have to be able to act it out.
00:09:50
Speaker
Which I think is one of the reasons why lots of um well characters in films, when they're angry, they sweep all the stuff off their table. Or, you know, like, I am angry! for they just Which is a really childish thing to do. but But one of the reasons they do it in films is because you have to demonstrate the anger.
00:10:08
Speaker
So a person who is seething, is dramatic internally but on the screen it could look flat so they would want you to show something like the whitening of the person's knuckles as they squeeze their hand like you have to show it you know is the is the key thing you have to demonstrate it um specifically when talking about adaptations though
00:10:35
Speaker
you have to not be slavish to the source material be you know And luckily for me, this is literally the first thing I did when I was learning how to write screenplays. I adapted one of my own short stories for practice and then one of my own novellas for practice.
00:10:50
Speaker
You basically read the source material and then forget about it. ah right. Read it one or two times and then forget about it and then and write what you think is a story that could make a film. All right.
00:11:01
Speaker
You can't worry about how faithful it is or is not to the source material because that will not make a good, it won't make a good film for you. You have to just read it to catch the essence of it and then write the screenplay as if it was your idea.
00:11:14
Speaker
It's funny, isn't it? Because people measure, they they a lot of people will measure the ah the the quality of a piece of film or TV by its faithfulness to the source material.
00:11:27
Speaker
But here's the thing, but that those are the wrong people. Yeah. I'll explain what I mean by that. yeah right You are not writing for the audience. You are writing for an intern that works for a production company.
00:11:41
Speaker
okay You're not writing for an audience. This is a mistake that people coming into screenwriting make. They have watched films all their life, so they think they are now writing for the wider audience.
00:11:53
Speaker
You are not. You are writing to not get rejected and everything bar one or two percent is going to get rejected.
AI's Impact on Writing & Copyright
00:12:02
Speaker
So when you're writing your screenplay, you're not thinking of the audience. You're thinking of the reader, the person who is the assistant to the decision maker.
00:12:10
Speaker
That person is going to get your screenplay, read it and go yay or nay. All right. Then when he says yay, he takes the few that he feels, okay, I can give these to my boss.
00:12:23
Speaker
And then the boss would then choose out of those ones as well. All right. So you are not writing for the audience. You're actually writing for the intern. you know And you must get that straight into your head that this is the person you are writing to.
00:12:38
Speaker
The stuff for the audience will come with rewrites and you'll get notes and all of that will come later. But you, the struggling screenwriter, who is just starting, you're writing for the intern. You're not writing for anybody, the director or the producer anything like that. So that leads to the You have to keep that your mind.
00:12:53
Speaker
Who's the intern? You know, what's in the head of the intern? The intern or the reader, strictly speaking, it's the reader, but read that person is someone who wants to get into the movie business and has started by being an assistant in Hollywood or, you know, or in London, wherever movies are made, all right?
00:13:15
Speaker
The pathway to becoming either a producer or whatever usually starts with being an assistant or, being you know, assistant to someone who is working like that. Some of them are unpaid assistants. Some of them are paid. It depends on the studio or whatever, the production company.
00:13:29
Speaker
But all of them want to be in movies. And one way of learning about the movies is to work as as an assistant. Even just be a runner, be someone who runs messages from person to person and everything, you will still learn about the business. That's the person you're dealing with.
00:13:41
Speaker
And that's the person who would will be given a you know like a pile of scripts and say, okay, look, read, screen off the ones that are obviously bad. you know The person is looking for a reason to say no rather than a reason to say yes.
00:13:56
Speaker
Well, that much is the same as the as the regular publishing industry, right? Yeah, exactly. it's It's kind of the same that way, you know, but this is not an editor. This is a reader. the but Now, the person might look the person might have degrees and everything, but it's starting at the bottom.
00:14:11
Speaker
right you know So they will read it and that's who you're writing to. you know So all that stuff about whether it is faithful or not faithful, none of that should be your concern. Your concern should be, how am I going to write this in a way that is alive enough for the intern to think, ah, there's a spark here.
00:14:28
Speaker
Okay, let's take this further. Because the intern doesn't want to disappoint the boss by taking something that is that the boss will consider substandard. So he can't waste the time, you know, You can't waste the time with the boss. So that's you know that's why more, look, they're looking for reasons to say no more than yes.
00:14:45
Speaker
So you have to give them reasons to say yes. And presumably you've got to keep things even tighter than you would in prose when you're writing for the screen. Yes, it's very tight. You can't there's no you can't have flab.
00:14:58
Speaker
you know like When there's flab on it, there's got to be lots of white space on the page. When there's flab in there. And when there's flabbing there basically it means that the story can't just shine you need the story and the dialogue to just shine to shine through now there are lots and lots of myths in in the screenwriter's atmosphere where people say you mustn't do this or they're not really nonsense okay what i can tell you that is not a myth is that you have very few pages before someone drops your script in other words
00:15:31
Speaker
People, there's something out there that says 10 pages. It's not 10 pages anymore. In one page, people can tell if this script is going to be worth reading or not in one page. So I'm going to tell you that there's one or two, you have one or two pages to impress the person.
00:15:44
Speaker
You better make those pages count. You know, you have to make those pages count. So that's, you know, so that's, the that's the, you know, that's the important thing. It has to be clean. It has to be clear.
00:15:57
Speaker
It has to grab them. You know, it has to grab anybody because There's like a million people writing scripts, a million of them. And, you know, I've been working, I've been doing this for like six years now, six, seven years.
00:16:12
Speaker
um And nothing of I've written has been made yet, right? But I've been paid for it. So like it's you know, so you can actually have a professional writing scripts without anything ever making it to the screen.
00:16:22
Speaker
So and how does that work then? Are you commissioned by a studio through via your agent? By a production company, usually. But like sometimes, like twice I've been commissioned by studios um and the rest of it has usually been production companies on behalf of studios.
00:16:39
Speaker
you know And you keep going. i mean What happens in the end is that you you start to build... a because they again The reason a film or TV show doesn't get made, there many reasons why it cannot get made. And that's not that's not really your problem. Your problem is to write the best script you can, because even if the show doesn't get made, it is part of your portfolio.
00:16:58
Speaker
Someone else could see the script. And then and this has happened to me many times. Someone sees and a script that I did for something else and say, hey, could you write this? You know, look so that it's kind of it's an additive kind of thing.
00:17:11
Speaker
right it's an additive kind of thing so you you make the script as good as it possibly can be and that script may not get made but it may just be the thing that gets you the next job yeah you know or it may just lead to the thing that does get made it's really interesting listening to this on the heels of a podcast i was listening to today um what's the podcast it's god for life and it's about people who grew up in the 70s, 80s and 90s and public information films and threads and all the stuff that scarred us as kids.
00:17:42
Speaker
um Anyway, the guest they had was Matthew Holness from Darth Marenghi's... Did I say Darth Marenghi? He'd probably quite like that, wouldn't he? Lord the Sith. Yeah. And he was saying...
00:17:58
Speaker
yeah he um and he was saying um So his experience is the opposite to yours in terms of he was always working in film and television and he's now focusing on writing because of the stuff you're talking about. He said, you're not writing what you want to write. You are writing.
00:18:18
Speaker
he said sometimes he says, I'll be taken out of a film because I can see every department and on screen. I can see the budget for the costume or the makeup and everybody trying to make it thematic or make it work and make it. And what you'll end up is with these films that will make money, but absolutely say nothing or mean nothing.
00:18:36
Speaker
um And, you know, whatever. The fact is, if you're the author and you're constantly having your work given back saying it's not fit for purpose because people won't like it, no matter how many awards it's won,
00:18:48
Speaker
um in in the film industry this is, like trying to, then yeah, of course you're going to go back to where you have complete autonomy or much more autonomy as a writer than of a book because you might have your editor or your publishers demanding certain changes, but the degree in filmmaking um to control and the and all I ever hear from scriptwriters is complaints about the studio.
00:19:12
Speaker
know what you but Yeah, but you've got to know that going in. You have to know that going in. And to to quote... um To quote Don Draper, that's what the money is for. you know they They pay you because they're going to really use your stuff. film Every film that makes it to the screen is a minor miracle.
00:19:34
Speaker
right because the system that leads to it is completely broken it's so strange it's such a strange system such wasteful system that leads to it so if ah if something makes it to the screen it's a miracle it's that's all i can say it's a miracle um But you have to go in thinking or knowing that filmmaking, TV making and all of that is collaborative. It's a collaborative medium.
00:19:58
Speaker
It is not a novel. You are not the boss in any way. Yeah. Especially if if it's a feature film, the director usually has more power to decide what goes on. You, the writer, just have to do what you're told on that.
00:20:11
Speaker
In TV, there's more... the The writer has some more influence on TV than on feature, but not a lot. It's... look it's But that's the nature of the beast. before You need to know that going in. That, look, you're not going to craft these perfect scripts that are going to satisfy everybody.
00:20:28
Speaker
Everybody has, you know, they've got their own axe to grind. They have their own departments. And those notes will keep coming in. And you're going to be like, well, how am I going to do that? I remember getting some notes where... I did all the notes things.
00:20:41
Speaker
And then the person giving the notes says, what's this person's motivation? And said, well, you've broken it all. So I have to start again. Like you've broken the motivation. So have to think of a new, because all the notes had removed the note, the motivation that I already had. Yeah. Cause I'm like, well, he wouldn't do that if this is what he wanted to do and all that.
00:20:57
Speaker
And as I'm getting notes, I'm like, well, fine. You've, broken everything about this person's actual motivation now so when that question came i said i don't know because now you know all bets are off i have to go and refigure it so you then take the notes and then you you know, with alchemy decide, okay, this is what this character is now, since they're doing all of this stuff.
00:21:19
Speaker
It's a very strange way of working when for for people who are used to writing books. I mean, it must be strange going from that to to writing something like Jackdaw, which is so auteur-ish and...
00:21:32
Speaker
unique and see yeah because nobody yeah exactly i i nobody i just wrote that like look i'm just gonna write this i'm like i don't care what anybody thinks just gonna write it just i know we talked about jacked on loads last time so i don't want to go over it too much again but it was cheerio publishing right who published jack it was true yeah it was true yeah so did they say like have at her tadej just go and do your thing and we'll do some proofreading they did they did yeah yeah mean, that's a pretty cool gig. There was no, you know, there there the places where they push back are even strange because they push back out of ignorance. Some of the things like, I'll tell you one strange thing, for example.
00:22:10
Speaker
So there's a scene in there where a, where because of an abusive situation, a cousin punches the other cousin in the breasts.
00:22:22
Speaker
All right. And they were like, well, that wouldn't happen or that's not how you know that that's not how that would happen i said how many women fighting have you actually seen and how many women fighting in nigeria have you actually seen i'm like if i'm telling you that this is how this goes down i'm telling you because i've seen it more than once and the people who have experienced it will know that, yes, that does happen. Like you the recognition from it will be from people who have experienced it that way. so and So when I tell you that this happens, I am telling you that I have seen it more than once.
00:23:01
Speaker
But that's, I mean, that's like a tiny detail that they're picking you up on and they presume, well, they back down because we know that that's in the book. Compare that to what the director and um what the studio is doing when you've got a screenplay. Yeah, because, okay, look, okay,
00:23:18
Speaker
Taking Jack though, a typical director's note would be, could we make one of these people a superhero?
00:23:30
Speaker
Well, you're going to have to write that now. You're going to have to do Jack Dorr, the sequel, right? Where you like rip off your shirt and you you could, you're a superhero. Well, would you be a superhero? and You'd be the psychiatrist, wouldn't you?
00:23:42
Speaker
don't know, man. I mean, like, look they usually have reasons for it. i So I use the most absurd example I could think of, but they usually have certain reasons for that. So for example, if a film...
00:23:55
Speaker
If you've written your film and all the characters are British and everything, and one of the notes, and I've got this note before several times saying, can one of the characters be American? And I'll be like, why? like Because the money we're getting the money from America.
00:24:10
Speaker
That they will fund this film. They're more likely to fund the film if there's an American on the cast than not. right and even if i've made this person like a person with a hyper specific accent from south end there know to be, well, can just change his character to America and everything? Like, you don't have to change what they do. said,
00:24:34
Speaker
desperate
00:24:36
Speaker
people aren't just interchangeable chess pieces. isn't like that but You know, like, there is, if being from South End is one of the reasons this person is doing this, because of the specific history, you know, and class warfare in South End, that that made them, you like, you've taken your time to craft a character who has not only their immediate family shaping them, but also the history of the region. All right.
00:25:01
Speaker
You can't just take that character out of the region and slot someone else in the situation. It doesn't work, you know? So, yeah and they often don't realize how much work it will take to do that because it means that, okay, that a completely new character has have a completely new backstory and everything, you know?
00:25:20
Speaker
And, you know, American, know, isn't meaningful because it too it's too vague they come from you know the states they they come from different places. Their attitude, yeah how they swear, you know how they approach conflict.
00:25:37
Speaker
you know The different states seem to do different. But if you think about all the subcultures, and subcultures in America, yeah Yeah. So I can't, you know, there's no such thing as generic American. Just make this person American. Like, what does that even mean? Are they from the East Coast, the West Coast?
00:25:53
Speaker
What, you know, like you can't, there's no generic, you know, there's no generic person. I know people, you know, like you think, okay, you just make the person a typical Australian.
00:26:05
Speaker
There's no such thing. You actually have to make the person regional. That's what actually makes the person seem real on the page. So it's all of that. It's all of that stuff. Really. It's all of that stuff. I'm going to attempt ham fisted segue again. And if the directors and the studios find these pesky writers, such a pain, why don't they just get AI to do it?
00:26:29
Speaker
Cause they are, can I swear? Yeah, absolutely. Because AI is shit. AI is shit at writing. It's a simple thing. AI is shit at writing and they haven't they haven't um they haven't solved the copyright problem.
00:26:43
Speaker
you know In what way? Well, so yeah yeah yeah i did yeah. So in a film, you really have to know who owns what. One of the things, especially so if it's ah if it's a larger film, but you have to know who owns what.
00:26:58
Speaker
Whose words are these? whose music is this? Do we now own this film that we have commissioned? And if you wrote it with AI and it's not known whether it can be copyrighted, they would rather not take that risk. Because if they develop a film with $100 million dollars and then all of a sudden it turns out they don't own it because it was written by AI, that's a problem.
00:27:24
Speaker
And studios don't like problems. They don't like problems. They like things to be very, very clear. As the law currently stands, it's not clear enough whether they can write a whole thing with you know with AI and it belongs to... you know And the WGA certainly doesn't allow it.
00:27:40
Speaker
The Writers Guild. They certainly don't allow it right now. So... And it just came out of a big strike, as you can imagine. yeah So there's too much uncertainty for now.
00:27:53
Speaker
But make no mistake about it, there are people working on that problem. you know The technology is moving. It is crap. For creative tasks, AI is not cutting the mustard by a long way. It's good at other forms of problem solving.
00:28:13
Speaker
But for creative stuff... If we look at if we look at um like machine learning, right using it you know in medical situations and all of that, like machine learning, trying to find patterns in x-rays, stuff like that,
00:28:27
Speaker
detecting tumors, you know, pathology slides. So it's actually very good at that stuff. And the information is generally ethically sourced. So like, I'm a big supporter of that kind, you know, of, you know, pattern recognition, you know, it's similar in in my range job in the space sector, but using machine learning yeah for for space science and breaking, yeah. Novelty detection, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
You know, all of that, I'm kind of on board with that. in fact, I'm talking, I'm going to be in the Turing Institute next week on the 17th. Is that next week? That's next week. Yeah. I'm going to be talking about AI in the Turing Institute and all of that.
00:29:01
Speaker
The problem is with jenna with you know with with generative AI, you know, like, in creative industries, which is what we're talking about, i you know ethically, my problem is that they stole the work of people, including mine, to train it without my permission or without compensating me.
00:29:16
Speaker
So like i I'm always gonna be angry about that. that's you know They can't take that kind of rage away from me. But again, it's an ah it's the averaging of it. you know The images are, there's a kind of averaging out of everything.
00:29:31
Speaker
The scripts that I've seen AI produce don't know. I've seen the prose that they've produced. Sorry, it's good. It isn't good. It's really it isn't good it's really bland it's It's not good death. it's it's It's... There's no... but Yeah, but that's the thing. But the reason we listen to stories, and this goes to something Chris said, it's the emotions are the real... The reasons we go to stories are the emotions. It's the reason we go to narratives of any kind, right? it's
00:30:01
Speaker
That's what we want. We want the emotional hit that comes from reading a thing. And if a thing doesn't have a heart behind it, a like, I want to say, like, a human heart, if it doesn't have a human heart behind it, that emotional hit seems to be lacking because...
00:30:18
Speaker
I don't think it understands what it is that gives the emotional hit. I don't think... well It doesn't understand what it and it means to to be finite in terms of its existence. To be fair, it doesn't understand anything. I mean, it doesn't actually know we exist. It doesn't know it exists. It creates connection. It creates the yeah calculates what's the best probability of certain things being connected to certain other things and then generates.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like a breakdown of speed in doing that, but it doesn't understand. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, and I had the pleasure of having one of my works edited by AI.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I completely, i was completely enraged because it was stupid. It was you know, the suggestions were idiotic. i I basically said, look, I will give you your money back. I am not doing this.
00:31:06
Speaker
I just basically refused. Yeah. um Because it would just sound like, what is this nonsense on my page? Like, there was just, there was so many suggested changes and all that. And it's not just a matter of, okay, look, you could just test them. There are too many of them and they're stupid.
00:31:20
Speaker
So when you go through one page and you realize that, why are these stupid suggestions on my... I think it's because the the the the large language models have to be trained by humans. So what happens is yeah I think that they invariably, they'll...
00:31:35
Speaker
They'll converge upon a sink because it has to amalgamate all of the different teachings and trainings that it comes across. It has to amalgamate that into a singular way of dealing with a problem. So I wrote an essay recently and about 120 days of Sodom, which been I've been talking about. Well, I've been talking about it. He's been putting up with me and I wrote the essay and I thought just just for laugh.
00:31:55
Speaker
I'll do the AI check on the essay to see what it comes up with. And it was utter bollocks. And it was all, this sentence is too long, this sentence is too long. Then I'd truncate it. And you might want to try expanding this sentence like, this is bollocks.
00:32:11
Speaker
It's absolute crap. And what it made me realise, if I did all of the changes, like this sentence is too long, try using a stronger word here. I don't really want to use a stronger word. If I did all of it...
00:32:23
Speaker
And then maybe if you wrote an essay or a piece and and you did the AI thing, even if we wrote about two completely different things, the tone and the voice would actually converge.
00:32:35
Speaker
It would converge. And I thought, ah, that's, that's, that's one of the dangers, right? That it actually takes away the voice of the author of the writer. Yeah. Which is the heart. That's yeah. And your voice comes from you. Your voice is the individual thing that actually makes you, you, that's what the voice is. So, yeah,
00:32:54
Speaker
Look, ah it is still going to be this thing. Like, it is a tool to reduce employees. Okay? It's a tool to... Gen AI is a tool for bosses to reduce labor costs. That's what it is. Okay. And even if it means that the quality of the service provided is going to reduce because they don't care about the cost because customer or consumer, they care about the cost of it. So like if they can reduce the quality a little bit so that it is this just barely acceptable and then fire some people, they would rather fire the people and get a barely, you know, and get barely acceptable service.
00:33:31
Speaker
you know So what we've kind of experienced in customer service and everything is the removal of humans, the addition of ai which which we all know is really shitty service, but it's okay.
00:33:45
Speaker
It's not great. It's like the self-service checkout at the supermarket. It's possible. Although self-service has its own problems now. Yeah, exactly. like That's my point. It's possible. It's not great. I'd rather deal with a human, yeah actually.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah. So they they they they can take away some of the humans and save money on the salaries, basically, is is the idea. So like if they can remove us pesky human writers with our copyright claims and the need to pay us and all of that, that would be great.
00:34:17
Speaker
That's why there are parallel ah attacks. One, to embed AI and two, to attack copyright laws. you know, there are parallel attacks going on. It's not, these things are not like coincidences and yeah, fine, conspiracy theory, whatever, but they're not coincidences because you always have to ask yourself who benefits from copyright law going away? Who is it that benefits from it?
00:34:40
Speaker
And it's definitely not the person who is trying to yell on social media. Oh yeah, but you know, we want to be able to play in that sandbox. That's nonsense. It benefits the corporate. It's the corporations. It just makes rich people richer. That's what it's for.
00:34:54
Speaker
Well, that's what that's what arts become. I mean, the art in schools is now not taught. It's ah well, ah they are, you know, that used to be available in schools. Now we just have that funding's been slashed.
00:35:05
Speaker
There's no funding yeah for the arts because everything is crapification, make it automatic. least Least money and you know, dan you're talking about um self-service.
00:35:16
Speaker
lie i hatched I had a rant last week about self-service tills and about how surely service should be getting better. The money they're saving on staff, surely the service should be getting better. Things should be better.
00:35:27
Speaker
It's not. we are We are at the end of the queue for everything of on things like this. Yeah, shareholders are the front of the queue. Yeah. And it's utterly, utterly ridiculous.
00:35:40
Speaker
yeah Because again, and we're in one of those situations where everybody can see what's happening. Yeah. But they're just letting it happen. You know, but people were saying about, um and i you know I know this is a very cliched thing to bring up, but at talking about the rise of the Nazi party and and saying all it needs is for people to keep quiet and not do anything. Well, what are we witnessing in America at the moment? you know like You've got people actually doing Nazi salutes and people not doing anything. So yeah nothing's going to happen about AI. If we can't even stop people from being acting like war criminals, nothing's going to happen about AI, especially when we live in late-stage capitalist society. Yeah, it isn't. There's nothing.
00:36:18
Speaker
Look, the people who should have led the charge about this are actually the publishers. So when when my books were, and this is the thing, all right, you get off the cover price of a book, you get a pound, you're the writer, or you you're getting maybe a pound. If a book, if the book of a paperback is 10 pounds, you're getting a pound off it.
00:36:37
Speaker
So for all the money they're taking off your work, you would think they would then defend the work and none of them actually, none of them did anything about it. So tell us about what happens in your situation then, in your business.
00:36:49
Speaker
in your instance, you said that AI got hold of, a company got hold of some of your work. So the training data, you could check the training, the pack, you could check the pack for your own work. Someone released the pack online and you could search whether your work had been used in that pack. And that pack had been used to train a lot of the Gen AI systems.
00:37:11
Speaker
And all the Rosewater books, Far From the Light of Heaven, the Molly Southporn books, even anthologies that I'd been, all of them were used.
00:37:20
Speaker
You know, they're all there. And and it's search there's a searchable there's a searchable kind of database of it. You can find out whether your work was used or not. You know? And then publisher... but I guess, I mean, is there anything a publisher can do?
00:37:34
Speaker
I mean, they could get banned together and sue, but tech you know tech giants have, like, they can swallow them up easily. yeah You know? So, like, they don't they don't have that kind of money. But I just thought it was kind of hypocritical. Like, yeah, they...
00:37:47
Speaker
control, essentially control the copyright of the thing once they pay you to use it and they give you a percentage of the cover price, but they take most of the money, you know, so why would they not defend it?
00:37:59
Speaker
They just, they they all just kind of kept quiet about it. And some of them even started embracing the use of AI. Some polish erasing evidence of it. No, no, they started embracing it saying that. Embracing, sorry. Yeah. yeah Yeah. So,
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, I've seen on some submission requests now it says no AI submissions, but that doesn't mean anything because there's just not enough strictures and understanding about it at the moment for anybody to make those decisions on well on if it has, you know, because, for for example, on the on the writer's website, we get admittedly newer members joining and saying, I've gone to chat GTP and asked for this blah, blah, blah.
00:38:41
Speaker
What do you think? And you've got people our age and older having to engage with what in 20 years might be the norm. um Well, here's the thing.
00:38:53
Speaker
so If it's successful. Yeah. So so take take online take online magazines, okay? ah take you know The places where a lot of us writers cut our teeth, the places where we go, you know like where we submit our work to get sold, to sell a short story, try and get noticed, that sort of thing.
00:39:12
Speaker
What will happen in the end, and it's already happening in places like Clarksworth, where they're just, there's a deluge of AI generated content that makes, you know, the slush pile unmanageable. So what happens in that case is that they will go with people they know.
00:39:28
Speaker
That's what's going to happen in the end. Publishers will go with people they know because they know that these people are not going to be using Gen AI to create slush. All right. um It will make basically a bigger a barrier for new writers because nobody knows who you are.
00:39:47
Speaker
You know, it will make a bigger barrier. um And even if it becomes the norm to ChatGPT to generate your scenes for you, it's still to be rubbish.
00:40:00
Speaker
In fact, it will take more work to correct the work of ChatGPCC than to actually just write the whole thing yourself. Yeah, there'll be no craft or artistry. No. um but But here's the thing. It would be just churn out load of lookalikes.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah. cookie what but But here's the thing. here's the thing People think that, okay, but this thing is going to continue improving... you know, exponentially.
00:40:22
Speaker
And that's actually not true because the training material is good. Like if you imagine that they've used all of human output up until 2020 to train it to reach this level, how much more data are you going to need?
00:40:41
Speaker
You can't have as much data as that to train it to get better. right people think okay this is amazing and as it keeps on advancing it will probably become even better at it but that's why a lot of you know a lot of things that you sign off for now say well we'll use your data to train our ai and blah blah blah training material there's a you know that you can find articles on this online but training material is a crisis now for the future development of it and it is not going to continue developing in that linear way that so people are saying oh we have to get this technology because we'll be left behind
00:41:16
Speaker
Fine, but honestly, that's bullshit, but fine. you know If it were good, everybody would go to it. It wouldn't be a push. It would be a pull.
00:41:27
Speaker
yeah Everybody would be saying, you need this tool. Go look at it. like I'm talking about regular people who are not salespeople and who are not advertisers. I'm talking about this conversation would be, you should really see what it did. i want to use it.
00:41:42
Speaker
That aside, we haven't talked about the environmental cost of using yeah of using this yet because that's a very significant thing. Yeah. yeah Because it's something like every every AI search, it so it uses what an order of magnitude more energy or requires an order of magnitude more energy than a Google search, for example. Yeah. you know And of course, now the whole thing has borked Google. We can't trust Google searches anymore because...
00:42:12
Speaker
you know ah We had a brief shining moment where the internet could have led us into utopia. But instead they chose... yeah hey well we're we're not We're not there yet, right?
00:42:25
Speaker
My brush with um AI was... i was this This is really frustrating to me because i I write a lot of flash fiction and mostly 75 and 300 word stories. Mostly weird or horror. And...
00:42:40
Speaker
and i I've got about 10 years of it and I wanted to put it on my website and I was putting it on my TikTok account, which is just a purely writing one.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I was getting views and there was not really any interaction because it's a static image. And it's 75 words. So I went on to, can't remember what the um generative AI program was.
00:43:03
Speaker
And I started doing these one minute videos. So a 75 word story takes me about a minute to read. And I would generate five slides using AI. and then do it, you know, in there, it got so much more attention, so much more followers, because it's, you can put music to it and sound effects as well, you know, not not invasive ones, but just, yeah it just becomes more polished.
00:43:28
Speaker
But... um But it's still your words, right? You didn't... Well, yeah, my words. It's still But the pictures have been trained on Hogarth or Hockney or you know whatever artist you know it's decided to think. But more than that, really, it was yeah more than that the problem for me was the energy Because when you're sitting there and it takes, you've got and a fast you know computer connection and with a fast computer and it takes two minutes to generate the image, you know that it's eating up so much energy.
00:44:00
Speaker
And that's one person on one search or one person on one search. criteria yeah and um and i just thought this is ridiculous why the point of me recycling every day or the point of all the other things we do is is oh that stuff is that whole individual responsibility it that's nonsense that was a distraction but it's still it's still what i mean is it makes a mockery of the effort i am doing to to to have a to reduce my carbon footprint if i'm using ai once a week yeah it is and i'm sorry but your carbon footprint isn't helping the world see my what
00:44:34
Speaker
yeah Your help, you're trying to limit your carbon footprint isn't really helping much either. Because our country, I mean, apart from the fact that recycling is broken in the UK, I can't talk about it. We think we're sorting. I used to be so diligent in like sorting out my plastics and all that.
00:44:51
Speaker
And then I figure figure out that it just gets burned anyway. It's like... They get they burn it anyway. It doesn't go anywhere. it's yeah It's an illusion. It's an illusion. You look...
00:45:03
Speaker
you're the people who are we know where pollution happens we know the major you know we know the major causes of pollution we know about air travel we know that our tiny bit is not doing anything this is nonsense this is just stuff to occupy you to allow them to continue doing what they're doing all right this is nonsense you know the numbers aren't like this is nonsense you know so like it's it's ridiculous you know it's ridiculous so like but the point is What ai is, it's not essential to us.
00:45:36
Speaker
Why, you know, why we destroying our planet with it? Why are we accelerating the destruction with it? You know, and then making ourselves daft because it is going to affect our ability to think. Our thinking is going to become flabby. So tell us about that.
00:45:53
Speaker
You're a psychiatrist. So tell us about that, about hey ah a how AI might have a negative impact upon cognitive abilities. Well, So this is entirely speculation, but um there's something called cognitive reserve.
00:46:07
Speaker
So the amount of training and reading and problem solving you do as a younger person builds up a what's called a reserve, which helps to ward off Alzheimer's or helps to ward off dementia later.
00:46:23
Speaker
Right. So like. The more you study, the more you read, the more you solve puzzles, draw, paint, whatever the hell you do. But the more you keep your brain actively engaged in things, the better it is for you later.
00:46:38
Speaker
And what, you know, what is ai begging to do all the time is to take tasks off you, to take the thinking off you, to do things for you so that all you have to do is say, okay,
00:46:49
Speaker
um You know, arrange this for me or do this or make me a couple of pictures that show this and this and this or give me a narrative that does that. And it will just generate it for you. don't have to use your brain. Your brain was made to solve problems. It exists for the solving of problems.
00:47:03
Speaker
If you do not solve the problems, your brain will stop doing that. Your brain likes it when you use it to solve problems. Right. So. I don't even, you know like I don't, I don't, I don't, I can tell you that I've never actually used for myself. I've never actually used um AI.
00:47:22
Speaker
I've never queried anything ever. I've never done it. Not once. um When I do Google searches and it comes up, I don't look at what is generated. I didn't ask it to do that. And for some reason I can't seem to remove it from Google anymore.
00:47:36
Speaker
It's just still kind of displaying itself there, but I've never actually directly asked chat GTP or anybody, anything. And I have no intention of doing that as long as i can operate. I've got, you know, in this room right now, I've got a computer on which I write.
00:47:50
Speaker
It's a dumb computer. It's got eight we go Windows 8.1. It can't use AI. he's got It's got Windows 8.1 and it's got um it's got a very basic word processor.
00:48:01
Speaker
And most of the time, I don't connect it to the internet at all. I use that to do my writing. And then I use a USB stick to take the writing from this when I want to email it out. You know, like,
00:48:12
Speaker
I am actually going more analog, more than, you know, more than anything else. You're a good company because I think George RR Martin writes like that as well. check but Well, you know, I think I'd like his success.
00:48:24
Speaker
but Keep going. Keep going with the old screen work. Hey, look, and before we before we dial off, because we we're coming to time, um... Give us something a bit more optimistic to end on, because it's a little bit weird. It's the podcast equivalent of doom scrolling, I think, sometimes when we talk about AI.
00:48:46
Speaker
um So give us something to some to look forward to. It's not. It isn't bleak. OK, look, the AI thing is only if you fall for the shields that it will affect you.
00:48:57
Speaker
Right. your human brain is actually more valuable than that. And we all have that brain, you know, like honestly, try to allow yourself to do things rather than AI. And it's but because your work is going to then stand out.
00:49:08
Speaker
You're going to be, you know, it will stand out because you use your own brain for your individuality will come out through that. Surely there's the good human drive to create stuff is not going to go away. Yeah. And as not going to go away. yeah And if there is a realization that AI is just going to create ah either a dumbed down or a diluted or a convergent series of faux artistic endeavors, then people will quickly wake up. Right. And they'll say, well, this isn't really reflective of me or my ideas. Right.
00:49:41
Speaker
well and revert back to the old-fashioned ways of doing stuff. yeah yeah I'm sure that will be the case. One hopes that people will choose, when people make a choice, because they're, again, going to try and choose the thing that seems more human to them.
00:49:52
Speaker
even if Even if the market is flooded with... like yeah the you know Online bookstores are flooded with AI-generated books right now. E-books. They're flooded with it. If you go onto Prime or Netflix, there's a load of AI... Well, no, they're not AI-generated, but loads of documentaries about celebrities or whatever, and the voiceover is AI-generated.
00:50:13
Speaker
yeah's not it give it you And you can tell it's crap. That's a crap. started watching one about um P Diddy and we thought there's this voiceover is a bit off and then we realised it's AI. It's crap.
00:50:29
Speaker
you know You can tell there's something uncanny. it also There's also another thing that happens. they they At least I've seen some films on Amazon Prime that the subtitles are generated by AI so they become nonsensical after a while.
00:50:42
Speaker
you know you know But yeah, they keep pushing it, they keep pushing it but like it's still a subta it's that substandard thing. you know they But they can keep pushing it.
00:50:53
Speaker
but that's what i mean i mean that's What you were saying about Prime, Dan, is um what I noticed... And I'm using Prime less and less because, again, it's becoming more and this crapification of a service, you know, yeah irrespective of the ethnic, sorry, the ethics behind it, um you know, about behind all that kind of stuff.
00:51:15
Speaker
It's not what it once was. It's just a poor so a poor product, right? Yeah, so if you're watching anything on apocryphal religion documentaries, UFOs, um ghosts, anything like that, now when you put onto Prime a search for that, you will get...
00:51:35
Speaker
Bollocks. Absolute shit. And it is ah this is this is comparable, possibly lower than a YouTube video. And it's on Prime.
00:51:46
Speaker
And it's yeah just, it might have a voice that sounds semi, it hasn't got that uncanny valley thing. It's almost an indistinguishable. But then the pictures and everything is just, it's just like a PowerPoint presentation for an hour long on Prime with no real people, with no real, nothing animated or moving. It's just absolute shit.
00:52:10
Speaker
yeah Let's give the last word to David. Sorry. You wanted something happy. didn't you Let's give the last word to David Lynch. Okay. Cause he, I'm sure he's a real author, right?
00:52:21
Speaker
Um, he was a legendary filmmaker, right? Have either of you seen the last thing he did? What did Jack do? Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, um, a director talking dressed up as a detective talking to a monkey accused of murder. It's just not something that AI would think of, is it?
00:52:45
Speaker
No.
00:52:49
Speaker
or so let's just Or actually do. So I think that is kind of a good a good note to finish on, really, because we could look to Lynch and say, well, there's stuff that AI just will never, ever think of.
00:53:03
Speaker
All of that stuff. Anyway, there is. Well, but I can think of something a bit more positive, and that is as a horror writer, you cannot compare to an image of Noah's Ark with a kind of weird AI generated animals on a Noah's Ark thing. but Remember that one I posted recently? Terrifying. If that were the children, if they told that at Sunday school, nobody, nobody would would follow that parable.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Well, let's end there. Tade, it's been a pleasure as always.
Conclusion & Farewell
00:53:32
Speaker
Thank you once again. Thank you for having me No, you're very welcome and you're welcome back anytime.
00:53:38
Speaker
um Is there anything else that we've missed? I don't think so. haven't mentioned Madonna.
00:53:47
Speaker
which one if You do that every episode I can't get Madonna Singer Madonna into the podcast just to upset people like them but hasn't I've only ever managed it once Doesn't it? you didn't like her i mean I'm kind of indifferent really She did have some good tunes though Cherish, that was a good one Live to tell i like you yeah i live to tell but i was Frozen, that was a good one That's a bit more modern, isn't it? We're we're kind of eking into the 21st century.
00:54:20
Speaker
um still yeah No, I've only managed it once. On the John Langen episode, I think I managed to get Madonna in. I think I like Madonna's middle period, mainly. I like her later.
00:54:32
Speaker
I think from Vogue onwards. like Vogue. um I did like La Isla Bonita. Yeah. I find Holiday repetitive and just not ah complex on a song at all. We're talking about Madonna on the podcast.
00:55:05
Speaker
This episode was brought to you by Christopher Bean and Dan Jones and our special guest, Tadde Thompson. Additional content was provided by Brian Sexton and Jay Starloper.
00:55:16
Speaker
Special thanks to Brian Turner and all the staff at Cron's and thanks to you as always for listening. Join us next time on Cron's Cast.