Google has presented a new artificial intelligence prototype called Wordcraft. It allows writers to come up with ideas for telling stories.
After presenting an AI capable of generating an image from text, Google is attacking writing tools powered by this technology, like Grammarly.
Giving ideas to writers
Wordcraft is based on LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a language model developed by Google, capable of generating text and maintaining a conversation. If this AI does not really understand language, meaning or context, it knows how to produce speech that seems human thanks to the countless data on which it is trained. In addition, a Google employee was fired after claiming that LaMDA was a sentient being.
The Wordcraft tool, however, is different from the AI it relies on. The Mountain View firm explains that it is akin to a kind of ” text editor mixed with an online word processor. For example, users can ask it to rewrite sentences, make one funnier, or even describe objects. Rather than generating a story, it will give ideas to its author according to the latter’s request.
So far, Google has tested its tool with 13 professional writers, and the stories they wrote with its help have been brought together on a website (in English).
A controversy to come?
“ A clear conclusion is that using LaMDA to write full stories is a dead end. The writers do the work said Douglas Eck, senior research director at Google Research. As a journalist from The Verge who has been able to test Wordcraft, the tool struggles to stick to a precise narrative style and produces an average or cliché writing style. He also avoids developing villainous characters.
It is very certain that Google will improve its tool which is only at the experimental stage. Douglas Eck explained that his company wants to advance the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence in the arts, because he considers this technology ” like a spice, a complement to what we are trying to do “.
The use of AI in the visual arts already poses copyright and plagiarism issues. With the development of language models, it is likely that the field of writing will be affected by the same phenomenon in the future.
Sources: The Verge, CNET
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