Generative Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe?

by Erin Muñoz 

Since its release in November 2022, people all over the world have been discussing whether or not generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is a threat to writers and creators everywhere. In fact, when I told a family member I had decided to switch into the English major, he didn’t hesitate to tell me that my degree would be rendered useless because, within a year, ChatGTP would be writing novels and television scripts.

While my brother, who works in a far more analytical field than myself, loves ChatGTP (I’ve actually heard the man refer to it as his “good friend ‘Chatty’”), I’ve approached the technology with extreme caution. Is my dream of becoming a writer dead? Could it really render everything I’ve been working for a waste of time? 

In the fall of 2023, I discovered I wasn’t alone in this fear when the Writers Guild of America went on a 148-day strike. And while it wasn’t just about GAI in the workplace, it was definitely a contributing factor. WGA proposed an agreement that states, “AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit.” This essentially means that even if AI is used to create an idea for a film, credit will go to the first human that has “creative contact with it.”  This proposed labor agreement also aims to set other protections in a world where generative AI and its abilities are constantly growing. 

Around the same time of the WGA strike, the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) were also on strike. Actors were more concerned about how GAI could lead to the unauthorized use and/or reuse of an actor's likeness or voice. On April 30th, "the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law convened a hearing on the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe, or NO FAKES, Act." Current SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland argues that an individual's likeness and voice should be given the same protections as any other intellectual property rights. Currently, the few laws protecting someone against the use of GAI to create images or audio clips are primarily in relation to sexual deepfakes. Deepfakes are the digitally altered face, body, or voice of a person- typically used to spread false information. Under Child Sexual Abuse Material Laws (CSAM), the creation or distribution of child sexual abuse material is illegal. The Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act was introduced last year, which allowed victims to file civil lawsuits when the deepfakes are sexually explicit. Earlier, the release of deepfakes of Taylor Swift brought much-needed attention to this issue and will hopefully lead to laws and regulations being implemented to protect people from these harmful images. 

Humans have feared the day we will be overtaken by machines for years, and with all these recent adaptations, one’s forced to consider if we’re really that far away from it. With this concern and the many issues that have already arisen, one might ask why GAI is still legal and so incredibly easy to access. There are a couple of feasible answers to this question, but the one I considered most when doing research for this post is that generative AI tools are not inherently evil. With this thought in mind, I took steps to answer the question on so many of our minds: Is generative AI a friend or foe? 

For the sake of this blog, I’m going to primarily focus on ChatGPT as it is one of the most popular forms of generative artificial intelligence and the GAI I’m most familiar with. 

The Negatives of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Since we’ve already discussed the many reasons creators are concerned about AI and the steps they’ve taken to minimize the risk for the people in these professions, I’ve decided to keep the party going and address some other detriments associated with GAI and writing. A study performed by Ahnaf Chowdhury Niloy and colleagues sought to answer this question. They split 600 students from 10 universities into two groups. The experimental group used ChatGPT in their creative writing process. After examining the originality, content, presentation, accuracy, and elaboration, it was found that ChatGTP does have a detrimental effect on a student’s creative writing abilities. 

Like any piece of technology, ChatGTP has limitations. These limitations both solidify the fact that it won’t be stealing our jobs anytime soon and highlight the dangers of putting too much faith in this technology.

1. ChatGTP lacks the creativity that human writers possess. It has the inability to reflect on its own emotions, experiences, and imagination to create new and intriguing storylines.

2. Going off of number one, ChatGTP cannot express the vulnerability and uniquely human qualities that audiences crave. 

3. Human writers can appeal to a specific audience. While ChatGTP can appeal to a specific age demographic through the subject matter that’s being input, it misses the specific persuasive nature that a human writer applies to their work when they are writing for a specific audience in mind. In my experience, humans have the ability to change dialect and create imperfect dialogue (because no human has perfect grammar) far more efficiently than GAI. 

4. Stories written by ChatGTP often find it difficult to establish themselves within the world's context. Comparatively, a human writer can build off of source material or a previous effort with little to no effort.

5. ChatGTP is only as good as the input it receives. If you want the AI to produce a good product, the prompt has to be very specific and will need to be reviewed and reinforced multiple times to achieve the ideal end product. It stands to reason that humans who are capable of creating detailed prompts will remain very valuable for a long time.

6. ChatGTP gets all of its information from the internet. While the internet is filled with great sources, it also contains so much misinformation. This leads to ChatGTP giving false or outdated information in a text. 

All this to say that, for the time being, ChatGTP cannot create a creative and moving product without the constant supervision and input of a human being. Securing the jobs of creatives like myself.  

The Positives of Generative Artificial Intelligence 

Since ChatGTP cannot create without a human’s guidance, the next reasonable step is to consider how it can help us with the creative process.

As I’m writing this article, Grammarly is running in the background to help me catch some low-level errors within the piece. Recently, Grammarly has expanded its horizons to include an AI writing assistant, and while I’ve never used it, it will occasionally note a place where I could benefit from its assistance. For example, the early portion of this article originally only discussed the WGA strike and how generative AI affects writers. Grammarly suggested that I talk about the SAG-AFTRA strike as well, and when I looked it up to see if there was any new and relevant information on the topic, I was pleasantly surprised and decided to include it. I think this perfectly shows that writers can use GAI as a tool throughout their writing process and still create original and personal work. 

With this in mind, I implore you to consider the other ways generative artificial intelligence, like ChatGTP, can help with the writing process. 

1. GAI, like ChatGTP and Grammarly AI, can proofread your work and point out errors. 

2. ChatGTP can help generate ideas.

3. As a test, I asked ChatGTP to give me three ideas for a fantasy short story. When asked to expand upon one of them and write an excerpt, it actually wasn’t half bad. It gave the characters names and did a good job of setting up the environment. I can definitely see the potential in taking this initial scene as a template and giving it a human touch to help it reach its full potential. 

4. ChatGTP can brainstorm and round out ideas based on the input it is given. 

While all the unknown implications of this new technology can be frightening, I think it’s important to consider how helpful it can be. It’s clear generative artificial intelligence isn’t going away anytime soon. And if you can’t beat it, you might as well join it.