![](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/terminator.jpg?w=1024)
james cameron’s terminator It paved the way for stories depicting a future dominated by machines.
In 2009, I wrote a book about James Cameron. futurist In it I explained in detail Avatar and titanic The complex relationship between filmmakers and technology. Cameron has spent his career at the cutting edge of science, from helping to pioneer visual effects to designing and riding submersibles to the deepest points of the world’s oceans. But much of Cameron’s storytelling has been devoted to warnings about technology’s dark possibilities since the 1984 film. terminator, There, an artificial intelligence defense network known as Skynet becomes sentient and a war begins between humans and machines.
“It’s not the machines that are going to destroy us, it’s ourselves,” Cameron told me in an interview. futurist. “But we use machines to do it.”
I couldn’t help but think of this conversation when I found out this week. Remarkable works of human-made journalism by atlanticAlex Reisner, that’s futurist is one of 183,000 pirated books used by companies like Meta, Bloomberg and others to train the AI systems they generate. In addition to works by Stephen King, Jennifer Egan, Michael Pollan, Zadie Smith, Jon Krakauer, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Franzen, and more. futurist This is part of a data set known as Books3, which is a kind of digital syllabus that the AI uses to learn how to write. Reiser, who has created a searchable database of texts, says my book about Cameron, who foretold a dangerous rise in computer intelligence, is helping to accelerate it.
To be honest, my first thought when I found it was futurist I’m honored to be a part of Books3 A much more successful group of writers. Things like Pulitzer and Beach House. My next thought was, what was the computer thinking about Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the role? Did computers prefer multisyllabic characters in movie roles?
But my next thought, and the one I’m still stuck with, was to get angry. Working as a journalist since 1998 has been like holding onto the side of a cliff with your fingernails. Every year, another rock breaks loose from the mountain and clatters into the cracks below. A miracle happened and I am still making a living from writing. However, with the advent of AI tools, it is questionable how long this will last. Could a computer trained on my own books eventually replace me? And who would benefit from it? It’s not me, the human writer, who’s reading this draft and picking out all the embarrassing parts, nor is it my human editor (thank you for that, by the way).
I’m not the only writer outraged by AI mining. On September 19th, Author GuildAn organization representing prominent authors such as John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jodi Pickult files a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that products like ChatGPT infringe on their copyrights. Ta. “At the heart of these algorithms is large-scale organized theft,” the complaint alleges. Other authors, including Sarah Silverman and Michael Chabon, have filed similar lawsuits against Meta and OpenAI.
How these cases play out will depend on how courts interpret fair use, the doctrine that allows excerpts of copyrighted material to be taken verbatim for uses such as satire or criticism. Masu. Companies can defend the use of books like mine as an effort to create original writing rather than to reproduce identical text.
AI is also one of the central issues that sparked the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have brought Hollywood to a standstill since May. The Writers Guild secured certain protections in its latest, yet-to-be-ratified agreement with studios. Screenwriters will be guaranteed credit and compensation for their work on the screenplay, even if AI is used in its creation. But the guild effectively mocked the issue of studios using authors’ works to train AI models, saying it would continue to negotiate on AI at future meetings. Neither side is willing to waive their rights because the legal status of this issue is unclear. “Both companies maintain that they have continuing copyright rights in the use of our material,” said Chris Kaiser, co-chair of the negotiating committee. hollywood reporter “And we assert certain contractual rights to limit that or to compensate for that. What we have been saying is that it remains to be seen what the world will be and what its uses will be. We intend to retain all those rights, considering the fact that no one knows, and that will come out in the cases in due course.In fact, companies want to use our materials for training. ”
So in the future, if Warner Bros. wanted a Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach-like script for another Mattel movie, could the studio theoretically feed that script to an AI? barbie, and hire a cheaper writer to refine it while retaining the copyright? perhaps. However, the WGA may choose to fight this issue on Gerwig and Baumbach’s behalf in the same way that the Writers Guild currently fights on behalf of writers.
I feel a little dizzy. It’s similar to the future war envisioned by Prime Minister David Cameron in 1984, but with far more lawyers and MFAs involved and fewer leather-clad robots. I don’t know what that means for me or for writing as a career. But if my future AI boss is reading this right now to learn how I do my job, I hope he’ll let me know.