Oppenheimer serves as a parallel to what is happening in our world now with AI. They created something to expedite the end of the war, but it was destructive. Once the genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back in, there was no containing it or controlling it. The Atomic Bomb changed the world.

AI is changing the world. There is no containing it or controlling it.

The writer’s strike is about so much more than many understand. AI can replace all the writers in Hollywood and beyond. The future of television shows and movies can be/ may be created by AI, but this is about the Actors too. AI cannot only duplicate images but create and manipulate images. The future need for actors is questionable.

Wait, there’s more. AI may displace a whole industry of people. The grips and gaffers, the drivers and all the others who count on making a living around this industry. Beyond them, there’s a whole group of businesses and people that serve these people.

Christopher Nolan didn’t use CGI to replicate the blast of the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer. I wonder if he is a hold out, if he values the activities of creation and replication without the use of computer generated scenes and images. I don’t honestly know.

While I sat in the theater, I wondered what it might like to see a movie in 5 or 10 years without the use of writers or actors; the whole thing created on a computer screen. Would we be able to tell? Would we see the differences between the way humans move and AI generated images move? Would we be enjoying our AI movie with lab grown hamburgers?

Where does that leave writers – novelists and short story writers? I imagine AI can write a novel faster than any of us. A short story might be executed in mere minutes, rather than days, weeks, or months of perfecting.

Will our originality win out? Or will people start preferring what AI can generate? Perhaps readers won’t know the difference.

Does my purpose continue to have place or value? I write. I have always written. I will continue to write. But will it ever see the light of day or will it perish unread and unknown?