[sickbeard]

Can anyone explain the appeal of getting an AI to generate a movie or (chat with you)? I find that experience "plastic", not exactly the right word but I hope it conveys the feeling I get when something programmed pretends to be intelligent.

[xemdetia]

I'm very interested in this area, and for me it's a couple of different factors.

From the engineering side:

1. There is a model that is built of what is a valid screenplay, and that can grow and be enhanced over a time. What gets generated is an 'acceptable' output.

2. Lots of extraction of storytelling and adding all the features and constructs to the model (through algorithm or manually).

3. Representing that knowledge in a form that makes sense, in English.

4. You really get to play with the pieces of what makes language and the composition of language work rather than just consuming it, which is sort of the same as authoring under your own power.

5. The act of carrying a tune. Lots of AI's right now are building a model with a look at the next step which is great- but combining that with building a structure with a beginning middle and an end is much harder.

From the output/end result side:

1. Lack of culture preconceptions- an AI doesn't know what the last Marvel movie was, an AI never saw Back to the Future, an AI can't quote Star Trek or Gilmore Girls references off the top of their head (unless they were informed), an AI doesn't know about WWII, the Crusades, or other historical events, lots of things like that.

2. Lack of social norms- developing a morality system for the end output is very difficult so the AI author doesn't know what is appropriate or isn't.

3. The act of serendipity. Just like doing a materials science or engineering optimization through computers you can have a sequence of events that come together in an unexpected way. Instead of getting a interesting new material or alloy, you end up getting something that is a valid output of the model with all of the warts for and against.

4. It fits the form of a 'single room/closed room' movie such as 12 Angry Men. The entire universe as it is known by an AI is considered when it constructs a script.

This ends up forming for me at least the same kind of intrigue as watching sports or a well written mystery. It is a story told within in a certain framework and there is always a chance for something truly special to come from it.

[knodi123]

right now, the appeal is modern art. it's not generating a piece of narrative entertainment.

[stepvhen]

Depending on how open you are to ppssibly over-analyzing things, it is part of a grander discussion of the last century that states, very simply, "robots are people too".

Many people believe that creativity and emotion are the big things that are inherently "human", and cannot be replicated by a computer. This may or may not be true, no one has any strong evidence for either side. What is gaining more traction though is the concept that computers are not human but still have "experiences" and "culture", that while the things produced by an AI may be unintelligible to us, it could make perfect sense to a computer. (A fair assumption, given that a computer made the thing in question.)

In the same way that astronomers who sell books will pose scenarios claiming that intelligent life may exist outside our neighborhood but we would never know because it's so (ahem) "alien" to human intelligence, computers may have an intelligence that is so unlike ours that we may fail to perceive it.

This opens the door however to deeper existential, spiritual, and philosophical debates regarding our roles as creators, what responsibilities that may entail, and what rights a computer should have (if any), as well as what constitutes "life". Those topics, however, are for philosophers and science fiction writers, less so this internet commenter.

The recent post [1] about AI encoded Philip K Dick film adaptations, as well as this Radio Lab episode [2] and this Idea Channel episode [3] should offer more information towards stance I have laid out. You could also synthesize much of the AI centered Sci Fi works of the last 50 years, which between the love stories and laser battles offers a great deal of insight.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11766063

[2]: http://www.radiolab.org/story/137407-talking-to-machines/

[3]: https://youtu.be/S5AeqYfcb7w

[x1798DE]

I can understand the appeal of getting an AI to generate movies or TV shows - if it were actually good, you'd be able to get a lot more of that stuff at relatively low cost.

I have zero interest in having a conversation with an AI, nor do I want my computers to have a personality in any way, but I think chatbots serve a similar purpose to this sort of thing - as a demonstration of the progress being made towards something with actual utility. I don't want to make smalltalk with a computer, but I'd love to be able to say, "How many books about dragons, written in Estonian, feature children under the age of 8?" and have it understand my question and understand the books well enough to give me an accurate answer.

Stuff like this is a good demonstration that we're nowhere near the level of sophistication for either of these things yet.