The Wire creator David Simon was recently interviewed on…

Per Axbom Akkoma

The Wire creator David Simon was recently interviewed on NPR by Ari Shapiro. Partly about "AI". A short exchange from that is being shared all over - and it's good, but the full segment about "AI" is even more rewarding I think.

The one that is being widely shared from the transcript is only the first of these three images.

Content warning: Reference to self-harm.

Full transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1177569966

Full segment about "AI" from the NPR interview, with Ari Shapiro interviewing David Simon.

https://player.mediadelivery.net/embed/514292/496557e3-992b-492d-84d3-5dbfdf261cce

It's funny because when I captioned NPR's audio I realised the transcript on their website is wrong.

David Simon does not say:

"You mentioned that."

He said:

"You imagine that?"

As NPR likely use "AI" for their transcripts, this adds an extra layer of irony.

1/3

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without AI, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems, or saying...

SIMON: You mentioned that.

SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.

SIMON: I don't think AI can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.

SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from Scene 5 to Scene 6 and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an AI and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition.

SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

2/3

SHAPIRO: You would rather put a gun in your mouth.

SIMON: I mean, what you're saying to me effectively is there's no original way to do anything, and...

SHAPIRO: No.

SIMON: Yes, you are.

SHAPIRO: That seems like a kind of absolutist take.

SIMON: Not only, I think, is it a fundamental violation of the integrity of writers and also of copyright - you know, when I sold all the scripts I sold - you know, 150 to HBO and, you know, maybe another 50 to NBC - I didn't sell them so that they could be thrown into a computer with other people's and be used again by a corporation.

3/3

SHAPIRO: So would you ever agree to a contract that saw any role for AI at all?

SIMON: No, I would not. If that's where this industry is going, it's going to infantilize itself. We're all going to be watching stuff we've watched before, only worse.

SHAPIRO: Do you think that position is where this is likely to end up?

SIMON: I mean, if a writer wants to play around with AI as the writer and see if it helps him, I mean, I regard it as no different than him having a thesaurus or a dictionary on his desk or a book of quotable quotes. Play around with it. If it starts to lead the way in the sense that a studio exec comes to you and says, AI gave us this story that we want, that's not why I got into storytelling, and it's not where I'll stay if that's what storytelling is.

🔗 Originally posted on Akkoma