OpenAI CEO
Sam Altman believes that writers' jobs are safe from being replaced by AI – at least for the foreseeable future. He said that AI chatbots are a helpful tool for writers as they lack the capacity for original thought and creativity that are crucial parts of good writing.
According to a report by Business Insider, Altman said in an interview with writer and podcaster David Perell that there is no evidence that AI is “killing writing.”
“There's like a lot of bad AI writing plastered over the internet, and there's like a lot of like bad student assignments that have probably been written by AI.
But I don't think anyone's serious,” he said.
AI is a “collaborator”: Altman
Altman remains confident that despite AI chatbots being used to write books and assignments at school, human writers will maintain an advantage over AI
“It's definitely not like gonna replace coming up with the ideas anytime soon. It's an incredible tool for writers, but definitely not a writer," he said
Altman sees AI as a helpful tool for writers, comparing it to a collaborator that can assist with subtasks. However, he believes that AI reaching the level of "full super-intelligence" – matching or exceeding human intelligence – is necessary before it could truly replace human writers.
He even went on to say that even with the emergence of highly advanced AI, the most popular novels will still be written by humans.
“When I finish a great book, the first thing I do is like I want to know about the writer. I want to know their life story. And I don't think I'll ever have that feeling to AI writing,” Altman added.