A brief article in which Ali Khosh discusses the entrance of AI into the writing arena and its capabilities to enhance the process.
He starts by discussing how AI has become prolific in all sectors. This article was written in 2017 but he discusses how ubiquitous AI already was at the time.
He discusses how writing is now no longer a solely human enterprise but how AI can be incorporated into workflows and can be a collaborative partner in the process. He feels it is important how AI impacts the entire process and for storytellers to effectively harness its capabilities.
His focus is not creative writing but news writing. He discusses how AI can analyse data, predict patterns, identify anomalies and remove human subjectivity from the equation. He mentions Twitter’s example to predict riots an hour before they occur.
He discusses how AI’s ability to deal with a numerous amount of data supersedes the human capacity and thus the ability to analyse data and make decisions on what is relevant or useful.
These capabilities allow journalists to have more time to concentrate on more important things like producing high quality copy.
AI’s capacity for analysing large amounts of data allows it to detect patterns which enables journalists to create contexts around their storytelling enhancing AI and human collaboration in storytelling.
‘Natural Language Processing (NLP) as well as Natural Language Generation (NLG)’ are being used to generate text from speech, creating summaries and trend predictions, removing bias and a need for large editorial teams. Image generation and object recognition also support storytelling.
Social media has become a key method of news distribution which is changing the way stories are consumed and lessens the grip of traditional mainstream media. Search engines determine what content is shown to specific individuals based on data maintained by the search engine companies. Understanding how machine learning works as well as working with tech companies will empower writers rather than make them feel like victims.
AI can help to identify specific audiences for stories or specific stories for audiences as well as create various headlines to choose from for best audience engagement through the monitoring of click through rates on titles. AI can suggest the length of article, images, titles and other metrics based on data such as audience location, devise used, beliefs and other metrics.
The writer states that the problem of unequal access to the internet and technology remain an issue although he believes it provides an opportunity for AI to bridge this gap and bring about more equity, with for example, SKYPE which allows for conversation from anywhere in the world and Google translate which removes language barriers.
‘Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay. It is no longer possible to imagine a world without machine learning, as industries who refuse to adapt fall further behind. Like electricity or internet connectivity, the ubiquity of AI is becoming so widespread that it will soon be embedded in all aspects of daily life’.
According to the author, this is a paradigm shift which only happens once in a generation and he suggests that storytellers can leverage AI’s capabilities to enhance their work in the areas of content creation and distribution. He calls for a partnership with tech companies to better understand and exploit the capabilities of data driven insights from AI and human creativity and ingenuity.
This was a brief article but an interesting one as it provided insight into the way technologists viewed AI 7 years ago and the patterns around AI in the creative space were beginning to emerge.
Some of his discussions around the capabilities of AI such as creating patterns identifying audiences, analysing data and the growth of social media as a distribution platform are now ordinary, everyday acknowledgements and occurrences in our lives.
His mention of AI creating more equality in the world is now seen to be an optimistic dream as AI currently seems to be widening the gulf of inequality rather than bridging it.
The author’s statement that AI is a paradigm shift and early adopters within storytelling will thrive is relevant, and echoes Peter’s Drucker’s cry of 1986 ‘innovate or die’ in relation to the arrival and growth of the internet.
Storytelling in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Ali Khosh, 2017, https://khoshgozaran.com/ai-story-telling/
My course 'How to use AI in your Creative Practice' is available to purchase on my website.
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