Board 8 > The biggest division from my AI-and-writing workshop.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I appreciate everyone's feedback from my previous topic! Just finished leading a small two-hour workshop on this and think we learned a lot about the gray areas, so here's one more topic. I'm following about the area that led to the most division.

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THE AREA OF DIVISION:

Let's say I wrote the first five lines and the last five lines of a one-minute play. Can I ethically use generative AI to help me segue/tie/write those ten lines together and still say I am the playwright?

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AN EXAMPLE (I didn't actually write any of this but let's say I did for this example):

Title: "A Cup of Serendipity"

Characters:

EMMA: A curious and free-spirited young woman.
JAMES: A reserved and analytical young man.
Scene: A cozy coffee shop, with a small table and two chairs.

EMMA: (enthusiastically) So, James, let me get this straight. You're telling me that we're all just cosmic collisions of atoms, swirling around in a vast universe?
JAMES: (leaning back, sipping his coffee) Well, in a nutshell, yes. Science suggests that everything, including us, is composed of tiny particles interacting with each other.
EMMA: (leaning forward, eyes sparkling) That's incredible! It's like we're all connected, just floating through space, destined to cross paths at this very moment.
JAMES: (smiling, amused) I suppose you could see it that way. It's the beauty of serendipity, isn't it?
EMMA: (grinning) Absolutely! Here we are, two atoms colliding in this little coffee shop, sharing a moment of cosmic wonder.

[Prompt I can suggest to get a segue: Give me five examples of dialogue regarding how this beginning and end can be connected.]

EMMA: (gently) James, let's embrace the magic of this moment. Let's take a leap of faith and trust in the serendipity that brought us together.

JAMES: (pausing, contemplating) You know what, Emma? You're right. Sometimes it's okay to let go of our calculations and simply embrace the unknown.

EMMA: (smiling warmly) Cheers to that, James. Here's to the beautiful chaos of the universe and the unexpected connections it weaves.

(They clink their coffee cups together.)

JAMES: (grinning) Here's to serendipity and the countless adventures it holds. I'm glad our atoms collided, Emma.

EMMA: (raising her cup, playfully) And I'm glad they chose this cozy coffee shop to create our own little universe. Cheers, James. To serendipity!

(They share a heartfelt toast and the lights fade out.)

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[Other points of discussion: What if it was just two lines being added? Or just one line? Or it just suggests a general vibe of what could be said for me to then create by myself? What if there was already a written section here and I asked AI to rewrite it for a smoother transition? What if it suggests rewrites to my beginning or end and then I discover the best segue for myself? Does changing the size of this story change the amount of help I can receive? Should I still be able to put my name on this as my own work? Should I still be able to submit this for producing and publishing opportunities? Should I still be paid if this assistance won me money?]

Are one-minute plays actually a significant medium in some areas (outside the classroom) or are they just convenient for discussing hypothetical scenarios?

I inherently distrust the opinion of anyone who thinks AI should be used in any part of a creative process.

What does it mean to "say I am the playwright"? Is it an ego/pride thing, or does it confer some sort of social status? Or a financial rights thing?

Basically you need to be more precise in the question. When using the AI, should you still feel proud of your artistic creation? Should you still be treated as a playwright in society? Should you still get all the money from licensing the story?

I don't know about "okay" or "not okay" but I wouldn't take you seriously as an artist

foolm0r0n posted...

What does it mean to "say I am the playwright"? Is it an ego/pride thing, or does it confer some sort of social status? Or a financial rights thing?

Basically you need to be more precise in the question. When using the AI, should you still feel proud of your artistic creation? Should you still be treated as a playwright in society? Should you still get all the money from licensing the story?

Yeah Im gonna have to second this post in its entirety.

None of your added questions are necessary.Don't use AI to write or help you write. End of story.

redrocket posted...

Are one-minute plays actually a significant medium in some areas (outside the classroom) or are they just convenient for discussing hypothetical scenarios?

I've been a part of a one-minute play festival and see people sharing them sometimes. They are not common, but it beats reading a ten-minute generated play for these experiments.

Also, lots and lots of one-minute monologues are out there.

foolm0r0n posted...

What does it mean to "say I am the playwright"? Is it an ego/pride thing, or does it confer some sort of social status? Or a financial rights thing?

Basically you need to be more precise in the question. When using the AI, should you still feel proud of your artistic creation? Should you still be treated as a playwright in society? Should you still get all the money from licensing the story?

If a playwright is someone writing plays, using generative AI challenges that definition and title. Financial rights alongside licensing ability and overall ownership is my personal biggest angle of what you named here -- what can be copyrighted under your name, whose name is by the word "by" on the play's front page as well as the production's checks cashed, things like that. All of them have something to do here though.

I recognize how talking about ethics as a shortcut term trying to reference everything here can blur these topics together too much, sorry for confusion here -- just trying to recognize the valid rhetoric that people expect WRITERS to WRITE to own what they write alongside how credibility and respect as a writer is part of this conversation too. I'm interested in all three questions posed in the second paragraph and have intended to open space for each of them.

HaRRicH posted...

If a playwright is someone writing plays, using generative AI challenges that definition and title

It doesn't though. In your example you have unambiguously written parts of the play, so you would be a playwright. Writing has been a team activity for thousands of years and it's a solved question already. An editor has a massive effect on the writing but the play isn't "by" them, for example.

It just looks ignorant to pose questions that apply to editors, apprentices, ghost writers, focus groups, and other things that have been around forever, as if they are new. You gotta hone in on what is specifically new with AI.

And that comes down to the training set scraping millions of existing works and mashing them up without consent. And to some extent the ease and speed of prompting an output. Every other part of the process is old news.

foolm0r0n posted...

You gotta hone in on what is specifically new with AI.

That AI can do much of the work asked of every other person you mentioned combined, and it'll be as fast as you can ask it to do things. That seems new with AI and will improve.

I agree with your point about the training set's millions of consentless works online, just recognizing people have been inspired by works without their consent before...so to your point, what's different with AI? Do the artists that inspired in such a way need to be alive with an estate for this to be wrong, or is it still wrong if it's pulling from a playwright in public domain like Shakespeare?

You say AI doesn't challenge that definition and title of a playwright, but right now the poll is almost 2:1 against this particular example as not okay for a playwright to do. Theatres have recently been releasing their submission guidelines with rules about not accepting plays with any computer assistance. That's a lot of pushback against what you think you are and do. It's a new age with new responsibilities, and I'm curious where this is all going to land.

I've been playing around with some text generating AI and I'm really skeptical that it has the long term potential to actually generate finished products on its own - but it's super useful for generating blocks of text or story to edit around and brainstorm. An enormously useful tool for sure.

I'd say that in the medium term time frame, it will become common for writers to utilize AI to generate pieces of their work, and for artists to generate images and then tailor them into larger projects. Your scenario with the playwright fits right into what I've been thinking - you could use the beginning and the ending as your prompt and call the whole thing yours. I'd say you are probably likely to tweak the middle a bit rather than just use exactly what is spit out, especially the longer the generation is. But maybe I end up being wrong about that.

As long as some of it was written by you, I think its fine to say that you are the "play wright" People get credited for songwriting for less than 5 lines of a song.

To me, as long as all writers/AI's are credited its fine.

Honestly, I think AI prompts are useful if you are stuck and cannot figure out how to connect things.

HaRRicH posted...

You say AI doesn't challenge that definition and title of a playwright, but right now the poll is almost 2:1 against this particular example as not okay for a playwright to do.

The public has no idea how art is made and would have the same answer if asked about a play written by a full production team. It's still not specific to AI.