Against AI, political punditry can still do the write thing

Striking Hollywood writers are nervous about artificial intelligence — also known as AI — and I’m not feeling so good myself

- Clarence Page

 

When I see all those bright, clever, and mostly young talents out on the picket lines, I cannot help but ask myself: Could we columnists be next?

The strike by the Writers Guild of America, their first since their 2007-08 walkout that lasted 100 days, has brought a new fascinating and troubling issue to the forefront: AI.

The promise of AI has long boggled our human minds. Like putting humans on the moon, the idea of artificial intelligence has been dreamed about for ages — sometimes nightmarishly in forms as varied as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or HAL the computer in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001.”

Now in an age that has seen an astounding acceleration in the output of scientific and technological innovations, we suddenly look up and see artificial intelligence is upon us, producing new wonders by the day as well as new and troubling questions.

We are beginning to bear witness to a new unease at the thought that these innovations might make millions of jobs held by flesh-and-blood humans obsolete.

In other words, could the anti-AI backlash in the WGA indicate a new Luddite phase?