Yesterday I was at the annual symposium dedicated to science fiction: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/sciencefictionatcitytech/.
The topic of the current symposium was defined as “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI” (generative AI means AI that creates texts).
I got to a session where famous (by the standards of this symposium, but not to me) science fiction writers read excerpts from their works.
Once again, I discovered that I do not understand literary texts right away, but that is not the point. I tried (given my knowledge of English) to ask: have these writers themselves tried to play with generative AI, using it at least as a co-author of their texts? All of them (four) as one disowned the use of AI, citing the fact that they like their creativity, work on the text, and that AI is not capable of replacing human creative work. Moreover, they claimed that using AI is plagiarism, etc.
If I knew English better, I would have started a discussion about how new technologies open up new horizons for art creativity. An example is photography. This technology has changed the attitude towards the creativity of traditional artists and created new types of art based on photography: artistic, journalistic, portrait photography. You can find other examples, such as linocut, the art of cinema (as opposed to theater), architecture (buildings are built by hundreds of workers and engineers, but this does not mean that the architect loses authorship and is not engaged in creativity).
However, I did not start a discussion, but simply said “thank you” in response to their defense of traditional literary creativity. But it seemed to me that there was a note of anxiety in the air: something new is coming, and these science fiction writers, who, it would seem, should be ready to perceive the new and explore it in their work, found themselves trapped by their old ideas, as if petrified.
