Why we aren't afraid of Ai

Ai can’t do emotion. It can deconstruct online reality and spit it back out. That’s it. So is it a storyteller? Hell no! Can it ever be? Of course not. It’s got no feelings. In fact it doesn’t even have intelligence. It’s just a large language model. A fancy computer.

I think people are starting to realise this.

Take a classic film like Taxi Driver. Can you imagine an Ai version of Travis Bickle holding your attention for more than 10 seconds? Of course not. Or a classic comedy like Dumb and Dumber. Would an Ai version of either of the main actors be able to make you laugh? I doubt it!

Good animation involves acting. A highly skilled animator makes a million decisions for every shot which hopefully results in the audience feeling something.

If you watch an Ai generated “film” and wonder why you feel no connection with it the chances are that it’s because it was spat out by a computer that’s trying to simulate reality rather than a human storyteller. Like a copy of a copy of a copy – there’s nothing there of any substance and people can feel the difference.

That empty feeling.

That’s not to say that large language models aren’t useful. They can be incredibly useful. They can help write code to automate boring tasks so that human creativity is freed up to make creative decisions.

So if Ai can save us a few clicks and automate tedious tasks then we’ll use it. We will never allow it to shape our creative output however because we think it’s important to be original.