While much of the world is concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) as it may eliminate many professions, Booker Prize-winning celebrated British-Indian author Salman Rushdie says it only poses a threat to unoriginal writers.
“AI tools may pose a threat to writers of thrillers and science fiction, but lack the originality and humour to challenge serious novelists,” Salman Rushdie wrote in a French journal published Thursday (21 March), according to a translation of the article by AFP.
Rushdie said he tested ChatGPT by asking it to write 200 words in his style and described the results as "a bunch of nonsense, said the article translated into French for the literary journal La Nouvelle Revue Francaise (NRF).
His judgement of ChatGPT's skills was harsh, finding it had "no originality" and was seemingly "completely devoid of any sense of humour".
"No reader who had read a single page of mine could think I was the author. Rather reassuring," he said.
However, Salman Rushdie said generative AI writing tools could be a threat to more formulaic writers - particularly acute for film and TV writers.
"The trouble is that these creatures learn very quickly," he said, adding that this could be worrying for writers of genre literature like thrillers and science fiction, where originality is less important.
"Given that Hollywood is constantly creating new versions of the same film, artificial intelligence could be used to draft screenplays," he added.
