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- Author and entrepreneur Neal Stephenson has spoken out about AI-generated content.
- Speaking to the FT, he said things produced by AI might seem comparable to those produced by humans.
- But people didn't have "that awareness of communing with the creator," he added.
The author who created the term "metaverse" is skeptical about the hype around AI.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Neal Stephenson spoke extensively on the impact of the technology and its role in Silicon Valley.
In one part of the interview, he told the outlet: "I think of AI in terms of supply and demand. We already have an abundant supply of images: every website is plastered with them. So the ability for everyone to make hundreds of new images and put them up on their social media feeds isn't interesting to me."
When asked whether he'd consider using ChatGPT to write his next novel, Stephenson said experiencing art is about interacting with the artist.
He said: "My theory is that when we experience art — whether it's a video game or a Da Vinci painting or a movie — we're taking in a huge number of micro decisions that were made by the artists for particular reasons. In that way, we're communing with those artists, and that is really important.
"Something generated by AI might seem comparable to something produced by a human, which is why people are so excited. But you're not having that awareness of communing with the creator. Remove that and it's hollow and uninteresting."
Stephenson coined the term metaverse in his 1992 sci-fi novel "Snow Crash." His career has included a stint working at Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin. He also co-founded Lamina1, which aims to provide communities with infrastructure to build a more immersive internet, per its website.
The recent surge in interest in AI can be traced back to the launch of ChatGPT in November. The technology was created by OpenAI. Its wide-ranging abilities, including writing essays, authoring novels, and coding, helped it to reach 100 million users in just over two months.
However, concerns about the use of AI have mounted as some students have been caught submitting ChatGPT-written essays, while one author used it to write a children's book. It's even been listed as author or co-author of more than 200 books on Amazon's bookstore, Reuters reported first.
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman said in January that the company would devise tools to detect ChatGPT plagiarism.