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The simple answers to the questions that get asked about every new technology:
Will [blank] make us all geniuses? No
Will [blank] make us all morons? No
Will [blank] destroy whole industries? Yes
Will [blank] make us more empathetic? No
Will [blank] make us less caring? No
Will teens use [blank] for sex? Yes
Were they going to have sex anyway? Yes
Will [blank] destroy music? No
Will [blank] destroy art? No
But can’t we go back to a time when- No
Will [blank] bring about world peace? No
Will [blank] cause widespread alienation by creating a world of empty experiences? We were already alienated
Often times I see people discuss art and music, and I wonder if they see creative literature as art, or if it’s forgotten.
I mention this because AI has been devastating on the literature world.
This brought to mind a 2012 interview with Eric Wolpaw, writer of Valve games and Psychonauts:
Interviewer: “People take for granted that writing is easy. It’s not.”
Erik Wolpaw: “Yeah. Everybody can write. I mean, you’re a writer. But everybody thinks that they can, because everybody can to a certain extent.”
I think of writing as a form of art, but it’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word.