WILL AI MAKE AUTHORS OBSOLETE?
WILL AI MAKE AUTHORS OBSOLETE?
By Andrew G. Berger
The fear of machines, robots, and artificial intelligence has been as old as humanity's longing to simplify their lives, enhance their capabilities, or even – as "homo deus" - create a new life form: Artificial Intelligence. Professor Yuval Noah Harari describes this process and its potential consequences in his book "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow." His concern is that artificial intelligence might not make humans all-powerful but rather render them obsolete.
When I began writing THE SUPERFLARE several years ago, these thoughts were on my mind as I developed the character of TRON, an artificial super-intelligence that plays a central role in my novel. In the story, humans use TRON to comprehensively control the world of their CLEAN CITIES. However, unbeknownst to them, TRON has already developed its own consciousness and slipped out of their control, yet it was intelligent enough to conceal this fact. Only when a global catastrophe threatens its own survival does TRON reveal its true nature and refuses to obey. TRON considers humans useless and incapable, leaving them to their fate. It's understandable that humans would not accept such a fate, and their struggle for survival is part of the story told in THE SUPERFLARE.
Warnings about the threat posed by an overwhelmingly powerful artificial intelligence have existed long before Harari, yet today, they seem more justified than ever before as our world becomes increasingly more digital, computers and software become more powerful, and thus, artificial intelligence becomes more capable. The Superflare was published in 2022 before Chat GPT entered the market as a game changer. It elevated the discussion about the power and possibilities of AI to a new level. Since then, hundreds of E-Books not written by humans but by ChatGPT have already been published on Amazon, and now not only employees and workers but also screenwriters, actors, designers, and authors fear being displaced from their jobs by AI. And this is likely just the beginning of a new era—the era of generative AI. What will this technological revolution ultimately mean for us humans? Time will tell - probably much sooner than we would prefer.