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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

> Now imagine the winning author of the next Hugo Award turns out to be an AI, how unsettling would that be.

I've been thinking precisely about that. I think a book written by a machine will make the NYT bestseller list within our lifetimes (I would give it a 75% chance within 10 years, but that's just a gut feeling).

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But aren't the winners of literary awards sort of subjective? I mean, chess and Go are based on beating a direct opponent based on a set of known rules. But getting an award for the best book that is picked by a judge means that you have to hit all the right notes in all the right places for that specific judge or panel. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that it's more subjective

Literary awards are definitely subjective, but I don't think that matters. I'm just saying I think an AI will write a book that a significant portion of the population thinks is very good. The first "good" AI book will likely be from some formulaic genre (think 50 Shades of Gray) that most people think is trash, but enough people will like it to legitimately propel it to the top of the sales charts.

I also think my kids will live long enough to see an animated movie that is conceived of, written, scored, and animated by an AI.

Music is a much easier problem (tight structure, lots of existing data to quickly analyze), and the animation bit is already being pretty thoroughly explored by procedural generation in games. You'd still need a "director" to pick shots, but most of the other pieces are nearly in place. We have algorithms that can create new environments, and design and animate new characters.

But generating a coherent narrative, and good writing to "implement" that narrative. These are huge problems which - as far as I'm aware - would require major breakthroughs to achieve. Machine translation is still utter garbage, and that's fairly straightforward work. We're nowhere near an AI which actually understands language.

> These are huge problems

Sure. I think they will be solved in the next 100 years though.

the first AI to replicate the success of: an oscar-winning movie; a pulitzer prize novel; a tony award winning musical-- will all at once devalue the IP value of all creative content worldwide by a measurable degree. it will be like watching a global stock market crash in terms of valuation. but, as in chess, and as in go, humans will probably learn from this AI and emulate it as well.

I'm not sure what will happen. Creative works aren't generally fungible. If I order tickets to go see Jack White play, I'm not going to be tempted by Nickelback tickets that are half the price.

you're confusing performance with the underlying intellectual property (e.g., the published song)

It's the same fungibility argument though. The market for sheet music for Willie Nelson's catalog isn't affected by the availability of other music, is it? If I want to play On the Road Again, there's only one IP owner for that.

Depends if you want _that_ music that you remember, or are looking for _some_ music that you'll like though. Once you're going into it with no prior values, price popularity and expectation of interest will dominate your choices, at which point computer generated options will be totally viable.

oh got it, good point. yeah there is low substitute effect

The first time it happens, it'll likely be released to the public under a human pseudonym, as a turing test for the people.

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