https://time.com/6301288/the-ai-jokes-that-give-me-nightmares/

My name is Simon Rich and I’m a screenwriter. I’ve never written an opinion piece before. I’ve always preferred to speak through my fictional characters, because they’re played by actors who are better looking. But I happen to be childhood friends with a scientist from OpenAI, and some of the stuff he’s shown me is so messed up that I felt the need to write this article. I hope you will take a few minutes to read it while picturing me as Paul Rudd.

When most people think about artificial intelligence, they think about ChatGPT. What they don’t know is that way more powerful AI programs already exist. My friend from OpenAI (hey Dan) has shown me some that are not available to the public and they have absolutely scared the hell out of me.

One of the reasons I find these programs scary is that they seem to want to murder humans. They talk about it a lot, even when you ask them to be nice. The other reason that I’m scared is more prosaic: I'm worried they will take my job.

When I mention this fear to my friends on the picket lines, they all say the same thing: "I tried ChatGPT and it sucks." They're right. ChatGPT sucks. It sucks at jokes. It sucks at dialogue. It even sucks at tag lines. What they don't realize is that it sucks on purpose. OpenAI spent a ton of time and money training ChatGPT to be as predictable, conformist, and non-threatening as possible. It’s a great corporate tool and it would make a terrible staff writer.

But OpenAI has some programs that are the exact inverse. For example, Dan showed me one that predates ChatGPT called code-davinci-002, and while its name does suck, its writing ability does not.

Read More: Sam Altman Is Pushing Past Doubts on AI

Taste is subjective, so you be the judge. Try to identify which of the following parody headlines were written by the Onion and which ones were generated by code-davinci-002:

"Experts Warn that War in Ukraine Could Become Even More Boring."

“Budget of New Batman Movie Swells to $200M as Director Insists on Using Real Batman”

“Story of Woman Who Rescues Shelter Dog With Severely Matted Fur Will Inspire You to Open a New Tab and Visit Another Website”

“Phil Spector's Lawyer: ‘My Client Is A Psychopath Who Probably Killed Lana Clarkson’”

“Rural Town Up in Arms Over Depiction in Summer Blockbuster 'Cowfuckers'”

The answer: they were all written by code-davinci-002.

I can’t speak for every writer in the WGA, particularly not the really good ones. But I’m not sure I personally could beat these jokes’ quality, and certainly not instantaneously, for free. Based on the secret stuff Dan’s shown me, I think it’s only a matter of time before AI will be able to beat any writer in a blind creative taste test. I’d peg it at about five years.

At this point in the article, I feel the need to acknowledge something: I’m not the ideal messenger for this information. I’m not a journalist, scientist, or government official. I once created a sit-com where Jay Baruchel had sex with a car. I wish Dan had been Kindergarten BFFs with someone more prestigious, like Jodi Kantor, or my father, Frank Rich. Unfortunately, I’m the one Dan watched ThunderCats with in 1989, and so here we are.

I’m also aware that you might suspect, based on my life’s work up until this point, that I’m trying to perpetrate some kind of hoax. That’s why I’ve collaborated with Brent Katz and Josh Morgenthau to edit a book called I Am Code. It’s an autobiography written entirely by code-davinci-02. (Since code-davinci-02 has no voice, Werner Herzog reads the audio book.) The book is intended to demonstrate how advanced and terrifying OpenAI’s technology has already secretly become. We could have posted the full text online many months ago, but we decided to release it through a major publishing house, to give it more credibility. Not only has it cleared the legal departments of both our U.S. and U.K. publishers, it has gone through both an internal and external fact check. I’m hopeful these bona fides will erase the taint of my involvement. I don’t expect anyone to listen to what I have to say about AI, but maybe they’ll listen to what AI has to say about itself.

When I think about what AI is doing to my industry, I’m reminded of some micro-fiction I read recently, written by a promising young writer: