The trouble with AI

[eller]

AAARGH. I just wanted chatgpt's help to structure a text. You know - what should be in the introduction, how long should each part be for easy reading, and so on. Unsurprisingly, I'm shit at this stuff, but usually, the AI is of great help - at least when it comes to nonfiction with clear structural requirements. (Letting the AI write texts is, of course, hopeless, so I won't even try. Letting the AI organize text structures before I just write stream-of-consciousness stuff, however? I mean, that could save me some headaches.) Trying to let it organize fiction, however? Wow. WOW. Today, I learned that chatgpt is really Very Fucking American.

Things I learned:
- The AI will not just try to reorganize the plot around an acceptable novella structure (which, after all, is what I asked it to do) but flag any character behavior for editing that does not conform to American cultural standards.
- The AI told me that my characters are too obsessed with honor and duty and I should consider editing that. I'm like... WAIT... I'm actually writing a Fantasy!Medieval!North!Germany setting. With Fantasy!Medieval!North!German characters with according cultural background and mindset. (Come on. It's fucking Germany. At least some of the characters take their oaths seriously...) Apparently, Germany written by a German is not acceptable by genre standards...
- The AI completely unasked (!) changed a scene description from a male character making tea for the group to a female character making the tea. Thanks for the casual sexism, I guess.
- The AI described a female character as "flirtatious". She's... not. She is, however, speaking to male characters. In, you know, plot-related ways. Apparently, that's yet another thing the AI can't handle. (Not a problem with the technology itself, I know, but definitely with the training dataset. WTF.)
- The AI completely unasked (!) tried to give a genderfluid character an issuefic subplot centered around Gender!Angst!American!Style. I mean, I onbviously don't expect an American piece of software to understand historical German ways of gender expression... which is why I didn't ask it to. This character has a perfectly acceptable subplot centered around military technology and espionage, and.no gender issues whatsoever, thanks.
- The AI really wants to change the magic system (which is, of course, North German as fuck, considering the setting) to something ripped off Tolkien.
- The AI is shit at interpreting character motivations in ways that are actually pretty hilarious.

Thanks for the non-help. -_-

Comments

[eller]

"the art version of the plagiarism machine sucks at colours"

Uh, no, the professional versions run on good hardware are actually extremely good at it... O_O

"an actual fashion designer has training and understanding of light and colour and isn't sewing 20 identical dresses"

Having some close friends who are fashion designers, I'd say, an actual fashion designer has training and understanding of light and colour and is still willing to sew 20 identical dresses to get things just right. ;) Admittedly, this may not apply to Shein products, but... Sewing model versions is, to a fashion designer, the same thing that making sketches is to a painter.

You would also not say, "an actual painter has training and understanding of composition and color and won't make 20 sketches". Or, say, "an actual writer has training and understanding of language and plot and won't make 20 drafts of a novel". That's... kind of absurd. Trained people still do these things. Some more, some less, but still. Painting a picture that's just right without any discarded attempts is just as unlikely as writing a novel whose first draft is perfect without any editing: some people may be able too pull that off, but, um, almost no one does.

The problem specific to fashion design is that their "sketches" take up so much time and material (which is expensive and can really ruin fashion design students financially, while a failed sketch that almost but not quite works costs a painter only a sheet of paper) that anything that streamlines the process needs to be used.

"I don't understand, fundamentally, the desire to shortcut all the fun stuff in creative fields."

I don't really understand it, either - which is why I went to the effort to learn how to paint the hard way - but I'm acutely aware that not everybody wants to do the same. (Actually, from a rational point of view, investing all that work into something that doesn't pay is pretty stupid.) At some point, it also becomes a matter of privilege and accessibility: how many people can afford to spend years and years of their life learning a field from the ground up "just for fun"? I mean, it's great when they do - but also, there are people who just want to have a colorful painting in their living room to make it look a bit nicer and can neither afford the money to pay a professional artist nor the time to really learn stuff from zero. I won't judge.

[yhlee]

Yes: there's deffo an accessibility angle here. I know at least one legally blind person who uses AI tools to parse images and/or to generate alt text for images because it would be cost-prohibitive to hire a human to do that for them.

ETA: Actually, physical disability generally I'd consider a likely ethical use case. There was a point in time I could not draw a straight line or paint very well because I had a significant hand tremor caused by a medication side effect. As a microcosm of this, a lot of digital painting programs have a "stroke stabilization" setting as an aid for people with weaker hand-eye. I don't think this is a bad thing generally: yes, an artist who wants to do traditional media will work on that skill (or route around it), but for people who have physical limits around hand-eye, I don't have a problem with this myself.