Reading, Writing And AI Observations

Introduction

Stephen King has shared many great insights into reading and writing and this one struck a chord with me.

I also use the adverb "really" too much and he also says this:

So I am going to try and take that on board, REALLY 🎃🎃🎃

These were borrowed from this site:

So now to dive into this, in two parts, Reading and Writing, and Threats Caused By AI. I could have written two Vocal stories but our creations and how we make them can be affected by AI. I often use AI to create art for my Vocal stories and have written why I do that at length.

The music is "Guitar and Pen" by The Who from the album "Who Are You"

Reading And Writing

The great thing about the Vocal Community is that it gives us a platform to create and share our work, and also get paid for our creations. When you read this I will be paid 0.6c by Vocal.

I am aware of that fact when I read other Creators' stories, and I always leave a comment to let them know that I have been there. I also believe that leaving a comment will ensure that I am on the story for long enough for Vocal to register it as a read.

I still feel I do not read enough but in last week's Leaderboard I was the third most supportive commenter, which, when you think about it, out of eight hundred thousand members I was number three, which even impresses me, but I was still behind Andrea Corwin and DK Shephard. Check here:

I believe that reading other Creators' stories can give you ideas for your own.

When I first started writing poetry here someone (sorry I have forgotten who it was) suggested using emojis, for the segregation of the verses and that has helped me develop a style that says "This poem is by Mike Singleton - Mikeydred" even if you don't see my name initially, and I am so grateful for that.

It does make it difficult when using the poetry to create my anthologies and the emojis don't translate into the Kindle editor.

So if you want to write you need to read, and on Vocal it does you good to reciprocate because that usually brings in reads for your stories. 0.6c does not seem very much but the reads do add up. This article by Judey Kalchik is a brilliant treatise on the subject:

Threats From AI

I regard AI as a tool and I have been criticized for using it to create art for my Vocal Stories. I am not an artist and I use AI to avoid charges of plagiarism.

This image, shared by my friend Stephen Foster is a perfect illustration of what AI does. It takes what humans do and then applies computer speed and power to create variations, but nothing is original. That is true of the art I generate, but I am not an artist, and paying an artist to create art for my Vocal stories is not a feasible option.

My biggest earning story has brought me eight dollars, an artist could not consider working for a portion of that.

Yesterday I saw six AI-generated stories by the same person, I would not call them a Creator, surrounding my submission on Vocal Latest stories. They had been honest about it, but this is how I felt:

I have used AI to create music and I find that disconcerting because the performance is better than I could do with my guitar., this is an example:

This interview with Frank Zappa reminds me of how AI is moving

I am worried that corporations and money will decide that they can dispense with real artists and use AI to generate art, music and writing because it is much cheaper financially.

Spotify describes what they have as "content" and nothing would change for them if no new music were ever produced.

When all that matters is money, profit and dividends, then all art becomes disposable.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this. I hope that you can take some positives from it. Now go out there and read somebody else's work.