(by Cameron Court) I saw a quote on Instagram the other day that has stuck with me. The quote, attributed to author Joanna Maciejewska, reads, “I want an AI to do my laundry and the dishes so I can do my art and my writing, not an AI to do my art and my writing so I can do my laundry and the dishes.”
In a recent op-ed for The Guardian, Daniel Kehlmann describes how he spoke with a friend, a Hollywood screenwriter, about an advanced screenwriting AI he was developing. Kehlmann's friend tested the AI by describing a miniseries (characters, plot, tone) to it, and within minutes the AI had created an entire episode, fully written and ready for production. The results were smart, focused, witty, and creative. What's the biggest takeaway for screenwriters from this experience?
“I have three more years. Maybe five, if I'm lucky.”
The rise of ChatGPT and large-scale language models directly correlates with a growing sense of unease among many creators inside and outside of the radio industry, which I believe is entirely justified. I love this industry dearly, but when given choice over cost, we have not always proven ourselves able to defend the artistry of the business.
Just-released AQ6 data from Jacobs Media found that 77% of aviation talent are concerned about redundancies, and while economic concerns are certainly a factor, AI is widely seen within the industry as an imminent threat to job losses. There’s a reason why agencies and unions are building protection clauses into talent and worker contracts to protect them from malicious uses of generative AI.
Some days it seems like trench digging and plumbing are the industries safest from replacement by AI.
When I was a production director, given the choice between having an AI bot write an affidavit or ghostwriting an entire commercial, I would have chosen the affidavit in a heartbeat. (Some people have “silence” dreams. Me? I continue to have affidavit nightmares.) Affidavits are important, but that's not why I got into radio. I would have gladly traded all the time I spent choosing (Y) for time coming up with new copy to make my assistant assistant nervous.
Once the client agrees to the idea, it's only a matter of time before the group signs off on the AI-generated spec spots and broadcasts them immediately. And I don't blame the companies that created those products for the loss. The companies that took the last shortcut would be to blame. The same goes for broadcast talent. There's a difference between “I can't afford to hire them” and “Why should I pay to hire them?”
Why should you pay your hard-earned money to see the latest blockbuster movie at the cinema when you can just download a pirated copy on your home computer? Not only will it be a higher quality experience for the audience, but it will also support the entire chain that produces that content in the first place.
Am I anti-AI? Not at all. There are a surprising number of ways that AI can assist creatives. The key word is “assist.” I think it would be a tragedy if in 10 years we all took our eyes off the prompt box and realized that we'd left the fun parts of radio to machines. Making a good commercial is fun. Submitting it is fun. The human element of radio is fun.
There is no need to fear AI, but we should all fear the day when we choose to fully automate the creative process.
Cameron Court is Radio Ink's Online Editor.
