Writers, AI, and Craftspeople
Thinking about the creative ecosystem
We should have seen this coming. For roughly 250 years, since the birth of the Industrial Revolution, we’ve moved from handmade to automated as fast as we could invent the technology. It was only a matter of time until we created something to replace the words coming out of our mouths and keyboards.
Of course this also applies to artists, actors and lots of other creative people pursuing increasingly tenuous careers. The controllers of AI are exploring all sorts of ways to make many of our jobs obsolete. This is nothing new in the pursuit of faster, cheaper ways to deliver more products and higher profits. It’s how our society and economy function, and have always functioned.
Machines replaced looms and spinning wheels. Mainstream jobs became niche, artisan jobs, or disappeared entirely. Spinners, dyers, coopers, wainwrights, fullers, bookbinders, stenographers, wheelwrights, tinsmiths, fletchers. Many gone the way of the dodo, but I think the exceptions show us our future as writers.
Blacksmithing has been around for about a thousand years, and while its heyday is long past, people do still work as blacksmiths. There are artistic nuances and custom flourishes in ironwork you can only get when it’s done by hand. People also spin and dye yarn, and weave…
