In two recent interviews, Andy Weir stated his support for AI. The first is in this interview with LA Review of Books, in which he says: “It’s only a matter of time before AI is able to write more entertaining, compelling, and exciting stories than any human.”
“Train an AI on all the great works of literature, all the great books that people have loved, and it’ll figure out the commonalities and put together stories that are really awesome, in the same way that it can make art that’s really pretty when properly prompted.”
He then said “I’m going to be out of my job eventually.” When the interview challenges him on this, asking “isn’t a lot of what people enjoy about art the community experience and the person behind it? The human creator?” he responded:
“Take a tool like Photoshop. It can do all sorts of really cool things, but nobody wants to talk to the program. Nobody wants to talk to Google SketchUp about its process in rendering 3D models. People accept that there are tools that do this.”
You can read the full interview here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/andy-weir-project-hail-mary-novel-film-interview/
In a second interview with Tom Bilyeu on YouTube, he went even further. It’s a long interview, but he says that AI can already make great art and that human graphic artists will go away and be replaced by people who can “refine” AI generated art, that AI is just a tool and that it shouldn’t be ridiculed, and that AI will be creating whole movies in the future that’s better than what humans can make.
You can watch that interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrdVpioZ5dU
Pretty abhorrent stuff, in my opinion. I enjoyed The Martian and Project Hail Mary, but coming out so in favor of art as to say it’s going to be better than human created art is just gross. And to not care that it’s “trained” on stealing work is ridiculous.
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Take a tool like Photoshop. It can do all sorts of really cool things, but nobody wants to talk to the program
…What?
“Blink twice if you’re in danger.”
Thomas has never seen such major bullshit before
Books written by AI cannot even be copyrighted.
The U.S. Copyright Office’s January 2025 report on AI and copyrightability reaffirms the longstanding principle that copyright protection is reserved for works of human authorship. Outputs created entirely by generative artificial intelligence (AI), with no human creative input, are not eligible for copyright protection.
https://natlawreview.com/article/copyright-offices-latest-guidance-ai-and-copyrightability
The publisher Hachette pulled a horror book thet could have been written by AI:
The US release of a horror novel has been cancelled by its publisher over concerns that AI was used to help write it.
Shy Girl by US author Mia Ballard had been scheduled for publication in the US next month, but that will no longer go ahead, publisher Hachette said. The UK version, which was released in November, will also be discontinued.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y9d44jj24o
I am not sure that the book was actually AI generated, for the reasons explained here: https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/the-shy-girl-ai-scandal-is-way-worse
I haven’t read the linked interview or watched the video, but based on the quotes in this post what Weir is saying isn’t wrong, it’s just (in my opinion) missing the point a bit. Do we really want AI to make art for us? Is that a good use for the technology?
My prediction is that AI generated books will end up replacing the ‘pulp’ part of the industry; the ‘airport novel’, the ‘trashy romance’, etc. If people can just prompt a machine to give them exactly the kind of book that they’re in the mood for, many will.
Human made books will still be valued because they’re human made, but they’ll probably occupy several niches; the books written mostly because the author loves writing (fan fiction, etc.) with little expectation of a large audience, and the higher-end literary works where the human element will be most valued.
I don’t think this is the direction that we should be taking with this technology. AI should be automating away the dangerous jobs and drudge-work so that humans can focus on more interesting and rewarding things, but at this point it would take a massive popular movement to shift things onto a better trajectory, and if we can’t collectively even get our shit together to properly address climate change, what chance do we have of doing this?
Also people who tout AI generated content as the future are missing the point. If every book in the store is AI generated, then… people can just use AI themselves to generate whatever they want, they’re not gonna bother paying for other people’s slop. Shortsighted
I love pulp and fanfiction in large part because they’re so approachable: they’re something an average person like me can aspire to write, and I can reach out to the authors and actually get to know them and talk about their writing.
I don’t just want to be gratified by something story-shaped.
Well that’s good to hear. Hopefully most fans are like you and I get proved wrong. :-)
Now that’s his books are being adapted (and it’s raining money) Weir seems to be happy to share his shitty opinion
I don’t think it’s strange to think a science fiction author would be enthusiastic about the theoretical future of science.
He’s talking about the humanities here though.
It’s about more than just producing outputs that meet your desires.
I think it’s a mistake to think of AI as “science.”
it’s been a bit jarring to see how disparately ai content is embraced between the western and non-western worlds ever since i eschewed centralized western media out of my life.
watching upvotes and positive engagement over ai generated content on platforms like weibo and rednote feels really odd to me as a westerner where the same ai content is downvoted and denigrated consistently by conservatives, liberals, and leftists alike.
if ai replaces human authors, it’ll take hold outside the west (at least at first).
That’s ok. They will need original content to keep training and updating their aisfrom somewhere.
