The Importance of Unimportance
A baseless prediction on the future of AI and Publishing (Part 3 of 3)
My first job in high school was at a Five Guys. I don’t miss it. I hated the grease, the low pay, and the heat of the fryers. On countless nights I drove home reeking of peanut oil and fat, the skin of my hands peeling from burns and abrasions and dried out from frequent hand washing. It wasn’t the worst job I ever had, but it wasn’t my favorite either.
However, at one point in my tenure, I worked with a gentleman who we will call Ted. Ted took over as General Manager for the store after the previous GM was fired. He was easy going, goofed around, and hated the desk work component of the job. In his mid-forties, some would think that Ted was an underachiever. He was managing a Five Guys with no plans of moving to another job.
However if you asked Ted, he was perfectly happy. Sure, he was coming home covered in grease and grime, and yes he was probably paid less than he should be for his hours worked. He didn’t care though. Ted was happy because he liked being on his feet, talking to people. He wasn’t fairly compensated, but he had what he needed to pay his bill. That was enough. When clocked out he would go home, play with his dog, and tend to his garden, the worries of the job far from his mind. If you asked him, that was the exact life he wanted.
What some people called underachieving, Ted called happiness. He was content, and desired to prove his worth to no one but himself (and his dog).
Ted is not an Artist.
He Wouldn’t Understand.
When we talk about AI and the future of publishing, the question often overlooked is, “Would it really be that bad?” I am not terribly concerned about the AI replacing writers. I’ve talked about it here and here (and also here). I am, however, concerned by the self-importance of writers and artists on this topic.
This tweet was shared with me last month. Reading it triggered the memory of something I saw a lot when covering comics news for The Outhousers. Take a moment to read it a couple more times. Who the author is, isn’t important, but know that they are themselves a writer. With that in mind, really consider what is being said here. Some of you may see the issue, and if you do, please know I am 99% sure the author had no ill intent in writing those words. Still, the tweet displays a cancerous behavior which permeates through the minds of so many creators stemming from a misplaced importance on the arts.
I’m sure a number of you are upset by that sentence. How dare someone who claims to be a writer say the arts are unimportant! I would be equally shocked, but Mr. Strawman, I did not say the arts are unimportant. I said there is a misplaced importance on them. While online dialogue thrives (and dies) in binaries, it is important to note that I am not denying the importance of arts. The arts and humanities are a powerful way to communicate emotions and experiences that are not easily defined in a single word. They’re a crucial component of human communication and expression, but we still need to put this in check for the sake of our egos.
Maslow’s Finger Paintings
Take any sociology or psychology course and you’re bound to come across this:
This is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Created by American psychologist Abraham Maslow, this chart places the needs of a human in a pyramid form. The bottom rows form the foundation of stability in an individual’s life. Maslow argues that food, water, and rest are more important than creative activities. Now, creative activities are still a need and a key part of a healthy life, but they’re not nearly as important as food and sleep. You can disagree all you want, but humans can survive a year without creating anything. The same can’t be said for eating.
Perhaps you are rolling your eyes at me at this point. Am I really just here to say that AI art might not be bad because food is more important than art? That’s not even an argument! That’s just two unrelated statements paired together as a single sentence. Perhaps in some crude fashion you could say that is my argument, but to fully understand this, we need to go back to that tweet I shared earlier.
So first let’s look at what this author wants AI to do. We’ll set aside the things that computers already do, such as blocking search terms and filtering spam emails. I’m unsure how the person did not identify that these programs already exist. Probably because we refer to them as spam filters and search settings, words that do not sound like AI but rather tools for efficiency.
So moving past this we have (1) taxes, (2) lawncare, and (3) COVID cure. Number 3 sounds a little anti-vax, but I will give the individual the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re referring to Paxlovid, the drug used to shorten the duration of COVID-19 after infection. This is actually another instance where AI is helping in deducing the efficacy of a drug. So we’re down to one and two.
This is the point that really bothers me. Considering that the author of the tweet is themselves a writer, we essentially have an individual claiming that AI is okay to take the jobs of manual laborers and accountants, but not the job of the ever almighty writer! Plugging this into Maslow’s Hierarchy, the author of this tweet is saying that their ability to monetize their self-actualization (the top part of the pyramid) is worth risking the income of others, thus endangering the physiological and safety (the foundation of the pyramid) needs of the supposedly disposable accountant and landscaper. In such a view, people like Ted do not compare to the value of writers and artists.
As you watch writers discuss this topic, you will see this sentiment again and again, that what they do is special and deserves protections that others do not. If you press them on this topic, they’ll acquiesce that they don’t want others to suffer (they’re not heartless after all), but they’ll contend that their profession is special. To such a person the arts are magical and more important than other professions, and by that logic, artists are magicians and prophets who are to be revered and protected.
This kind of thinking is conceited, and when I see that the ability to monetize self-actualization (albeit marginally so) treated as more important than other profession, I can’t help but wonder if AI writing wouldn’t be terrible. Because I’d rather live in a world without art, than live in a world full of self-important assholes.
Media Recommendations for You to Ignore
Television: Game Changer. I finally broke down and subscribed to a month of Dropout, primarily for Game Changer. Dropout is the streaming service subsidiary of the website CollegeHumor, which was bought by long time CH writer/producer Sam Reich a few years ago. Reich has spun the failing website back to life with a low cost streaming service based around the improvisational talents of his writers (ironic, I know). This has predominantly been done on the back of D20 (a Dungeons and Dragons campaign series), but I’m not big on D&D so I really just want to watch all of Game Changer and then I’ll probably put my subscription on pause because I don’t have the ability to subscribe to streaming services I don’t use.
Game Changer is a game show where the game changes every time. Contestants do not know what the game is when they walk on stage. It has been everything from Simon Says to a dating show (were the bachelor did not know ahead of time that he would be on a dating show) to a game designed just to break one of the contestants who had been winning too much.
Apparently there are other shows that have done this changing game theme, but I personally was not familiar with the idea prior to Game Changer, and Game Changer does it all too well for me to be interested in anything else.