Statistics does not paint a very pretty picture regarding job security for the established and recognized professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers, architects, engineers, even journalists) who seemingly have a definite and specific end-goal, drawing a clear line of demarcation in respect to their particular fields, owning the perfect algorithms which allows technology to replace them.
Artificial intelligence can now write fiction and journalism. But does it measure up to George Orwell.
And we have to remember that writing is not data. It is a means of expression, and a non-sentient computer program has nothing to express. A non-sentient computer program has nothing to express, quite apart from the fact that it has no experience of the world to tell it that fires don’t happen underwater.
We turn to literature in part to deepen our understanding of the human condition, and its magic derives as much from the writer’s own lived experience – emotional, sensory or otherwise – as from their creativity.
It’s unlikely that authors or fiction writers will be replaced anytime soon.
Creativity is something that is hard to program into a robot and is far different than intelligence. Imagination is something humans have but computers do not. A robot with creativity would be like embedding consciousness into a computer. A concept that has not yet achieved and is much too surreal.
However, one day, maybe 50 years from now, when computers are able to cross-reference and permute stellar quantities of information, parallel with a small set of rules and algorithms, they will build a pseudo-creative piece of work – in ‘sort of’ the same way that we do.
It is pleasing to know that authors are not nearly so easily replaced 🤓.