I see it’s been a year since I last posted a blog here. I confess I’ve largely replaced blogging on my website to posting on Substack, but this topic relates so directly to writers and actors I thought I’d post here for a change.
A few months ago I was contacted by Amazon KDP telling me Congratulations, you now have the opportunity to try out our AI narrators for your audiobooks! We look forward to your feedback!
I gave them my feedback. I told them over my dead body would I contemplate putting experienced and talented actors out of work by replacing them with AI, no matter how good it was. (And it isn’t.) I confess I went on a bit, because as an ex actor with actor friends I know how hard we work to earn our paltry livings and learn our trade and for the life of me I cannot see what Artificial Intelligence can possibly offer to the creative world that is superior to what living and breathing and sentient humans can produce.
But I’m not sure all writers think that way. At a recent online conference on self publishing the idea of using AI for audiobooks was, if not exactly recommended, certainly put forward as an option for writers on small budgets, which is 99.9% of us. I was shocked by this. Writers have been exploited recently by AI companies stealing our work without our knowledge or permission or compensation, which apart from breaking endless laws has alienated the writing community from the AI community forever, or so I thought.
Is it hypocritical for writers to use AI for things such as marketing, or writing blurbs, or even coming up with ideas for their next novel? Frankly I am too old to have the time or inclination to look into AI but I know lots of writers do use it for those purposes, and recommend it. I can’t help but think it is a slippery slope towards handing our whole selves over to it, to the detriment of everyone and everything.
In a world in which every country – including and especially ours – is resisting regulation on AI in order to get ahead of the game it’s all the more important we creatives stick together, is it not?