I have recently been experimenting with many generative AI tools, and as someone who enjoys writing stories and filming, I have come to a realisation. I write this in full acknowledgement of the environmental impacts of AI use, but I still think the benefits outweigh the consequences to some extent.
On small projects, I would argue that using AI is fine, provided you don’t have the budget to hire someone to, say, compose your music. One thing I would never do is replace a human creator with AI. If someone offers their help for free and you feel they can make a genuine contribution, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t let them. The only slight exception to this is time: if you’ve got a three-week deadline for your film submission, you don’t want someone taking their time producing a film score for you.
When writing stories, I often use AI for research, character backstories, or plot ideas. Essentially, I am using AI as a tool to support my process; the core creative responsibility remains mine, with my mind driving the creation. People often forget that CGI is a form of AI. It may not be what we currently think of as AI, because a human guides the process, but, in my experience, there is always a human shaping the prompt and guiding the output with generative AI.
As a visually impaired individual, I see an additional advantage of AI. Speech synthesisers and image recognition are examples of AI. I want to reiterate my earlier point: while AI offers benefits, these advantages do not completely outweigh its environmental impacts, especially when I’d rather not go outside because of the sun.