Artificial intelligence (AI) creation is a hot topic in the field of literature and art.
In recent years, AI technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, making people rethink the relationship between creators and AI.
In particular, the application of generative artificial intelligence has convinced creators that artificial intelligence will bring major changes to literary and artistic creation, and online literature, mainly genre novels, will bear the brunt.
In 2023, China Literature Group released China's first large-scale language model "Yuewen Miaobi" focusing on the vertical field of online literature and its application products, realizing artificial intelligence in world view setting, character setting, scene description and fighting. The descriptive content generation function has suddenly become a hot topic in the entire online literature community.
How to respond to and grasp this new trend of "content production automation" is an unavoidable problem facing Internet literature practitioners and researchers.
Literature has never died due to media changes, but has achieved new changes under the impact of technology.
"Internetability" is the fundamental attribute of Internet literature.
Regardless of its creation, dissemination, reading and reception, or even IP development, it is inseparable from digital technology and has many media attributes such as typing, interactivity, and community.
As a kind of consumer culture, its degree of entertainment, commercialization and industrialization is also increasing day by day.
Due to the extensive use of routine and fusion-style writing such as "upgrading monsters" and opening "Golden Finger" in the creative process, online literature is often defined by scholars as database writing in a digital artificial environment, which also applies to Japanese scholar Donghao A modular narrative that aggregates various "cute elements" proposed by Ji.
Generative artificial intelligence (AIGC) based on neural networks and deep learning, such as "Yue Wen Miao Bi", "Yu Ai Liao", "Wen Xin Yi Yan" and "Xiao Yao Big Model", are mainly based on a rich corpus database. , using algorithms to recombine existing texts or generate new texts, is particularly suitable for the writing and operation of databases such as online literature.
Since generative artificial intelligence can assemble a massive database of knowledge achievements jointly created by existing human groups and achieve optimal configuration, it is naturally difficult for a single writer to match such a huge "collective intelligence".
Many past examples have shown that the text generated independently by AI can often even surpass most ordinary writers, making it impossible to distinguish whether it is a human being or a machine behind it.
The rise of generative artificial intelligence demonstrates the strong participation of technical rationality in literary and artistic creation.
In the past two years, new AIGC products have been continuously released, pushing the application scope and creative potential of artificial intelligence to unprecedented heights.
This makes people in the industry frown: Will AIGC really replace online writers?
Throughout the history of media development, every time literature encounters the impact of emerging technologies, a round of "replacement" or "threat" voices will be reawakened.
In the era of printing civilization, literature is the undisputed protagonist. From Cai Lun's improvement of papermaking to Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing, from manual typesetting to laser typesetting, every technological innovation has amplified the communication effect of literature.
Until the birth of modern media such as radio, film and television, the combination of images and sounds surpassed written media such as newspapers, books and periodicals with rich and colorful audio-visual effects, diverting a large number of literary audiences.
Especially after the birth of computers, the Internet quickly swept the public with its massive information content, rapid transmission speed and wide coverage, becoming the "fourth media" after newspapers, radio and television. Mass media has an overwhelming advantage in impacting the public. With the monopoly of printing civilization, traditional literature continues to decline.
Scholars represented by American critic Hillis Miller have argued that "literature is coming to an end", and the literary world is also worried about the disastrous consequences of the media on literature.
However, it is obvious that literature has not died due to media changes, but has achieved new changes and taken on new life under the impact of technology.
Internet literature, which relies on the Internet, is the morphological change that occurs when literature adapts to media changes.
It quickly captured readers due to its life-oriented aesthetics, spectacle-oriented narrative, ultimate emotional experience, splicing and blending of time and space scenes, civilian perspective that resists grand narratives, consumption and carnival that focuses on two-dimensional experiences, and smooth and straightforward oral expressions. , becoming an important aspect of people’s literary life in the Internet age.
The "2023 China Internet Literature Development Research Report" released by the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that in 2023, the number of online literature authors in China will reach 24.05 million, the number of online literature works will reach 36.2 million, and the number of online literature users will reach 537 million.
According to statistics from relevant agencies, the number of Chinese Internet users is 1.079 billion, and nearly half of China’s Internet users are Internet users.
Literature and art is a process in which human beings establish relationships between themselves and others through the exchange of experiences and emotions in creation. This is the unchanging core of literary creation, and the update of media only brings about changes in the methods of creation and communication.
As Wu Jun, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said, "Spiritual activities have infinite possibilities, and literary creation is an expression of this infinite possibility. The most important thing is that literature can never exhaust all spiritual activities. If To say that there is the so-called death of literature is just that certain literary methods have been eliminated, but at the same time, new literary methods must be born - the infinity of the spiritual world determines the eternity of literary methods. Moreover, there must be Eternal literary methods...Digital technology and artificial intelligence will once again provide a historical opportunity for screening, refining, innovation and creation for human civilization and literary canonization."
From this point of view, generative artificial intelligence is also expected to open up a new paradigm of literary production, and even bring about a series of major changes in literary production, dissemination, reception, and even aesthetic concepts, interpretation and criticism.
Upgrading from a single text to a multi-dimensional, three-dimensional and interactive work form
The 52nd "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" released by the China Internet Network Information Center pointed out that generative artificial intelligence has brought many new changes to the online literature industry: Generative artificial intelligence tools can be used in framework construction, detail supplementation, and creative prompts Various links such as this provide assistance to online literature and effectively reduce the workload of creators, allowing authors to focus more on content innovation and promoting the improvement of literary writing methods.
As a new media literature, online literature is inherently endowed with dual attributes of technology and humanities.
Technological updates have greatly lowered the threshold for creation. Ordinary people can also participate in literary creation with the help of machines and use AI to automatically generate stories.
In addition to providing auxiliary functions such as situation description, AI can also assist the creation of online literature in many aspects such as world setting, framework construction, style matching, and innovative clue supply.
At the same time, due to the advantages of AI in occupying corpora and retrieving information, people can efficiently match content related to creation through convenient queries, complete material collection, analysis, and even preliminary writing.
This is actually similar to the research methods in humanities research that use digital humanities research methods such as distant reading, corpus analysis, key field capture, sentiment curves, and social network analysis to supplement and assist traditional close reading.
In the future, online writers can get rid of a large amount of basic work and focus the saved wisdom and energy on creative work, so that they can be more committed to content innovation and optimize the allocation of resources through human-machine integration.
The vigorous development of AI will also encourage online literature companies to strengthen their generative artificial intelligence technology layout and create a new situation in the industry.
Internet literature is deeply influenced by big data algorithms and commercial consumption logic. Readers' reading behaviors including likes, complaints, comments, sharing, collections, payments, etc. are converted into background data storage and calculation. By analyzing the readers' stay traces, Background information such as subject matter preferences, reading scenes and psychology, living area, education level, etc. can not only use user portraits and interest tags to accurately locate reader groups, tailor-made and customized services, but can also be developed in depth to support film, television, animation, and games. Waiting for IP adaptation and industrial operation.
As online literature companies gradually deepen their overseas presence, generative artificial intelligence technology further empowers human-machine translation models, accelerates AI translation updates and iterations, realizes the migration of writing styles, and helps online literature go overseas.
From top websites to downstream development, web-related industries in the entire industry chain can not only use AI to accurately locate audiences in the increasingly segmented reading market and achieve efficient data-based operations, but also use generative artificial intelligence technology to empower Can read scenes digitally.
The current artificial intelligence creation has begun to evolve from "Wen Shengwen" to "Wen Sheng Video".
There is no need for complicated 3D modeling or complicated frame-by-frame rendering. Entering a sentence can display a high-definition picture. Some people predict that importing a novel may generate a blockbuster movie in the future.
This means that language, text, sound, pictures, videos, program codes, etc. can be freely combined across different media carriers. Generative artificial intelligence has taken a leap forward towards a model of multi-modal switching and mutual generation.
In the future, online literature can use AIGC to integrate multi-modal data to achieve multimedia creation integrating graphics, text, audio and video, and games, fully mobilizing users' senses such as hearing, vision, and touch, and allowing for more natural and intuitive human-computer interaction with characters in virtual reality. Customize a richer, more diverse, and innovative immersive reading experience for users.
As Ouyang Youquan, a professor at Central South University, said, the appearance of online literature may change by then, from a single text to a multi-dimensional, three-dimensional, interactive work form, and everything from platform to market operations will change.
Cornette, a French artificial intelligence expert, said: "Generative artificial intelligence is like a high-power engine that can be mounted on a tractor to maximize traction, or it can be installed in a racing car to allow it to fly by." Just like a driver does not need to know the principles of an engine to drive fast on the racing field, generative artificial intelligence intervenes in online literature and will use technology to liberate the productivity and creativity of more creators, breaking and even merging the boundaries between reality and virtuality. .
With the popularization of technology and the reduction of costs, ordinary people who lack the ability to create art can also realize their own creativity with AIGC. The combination of man and machine will create works with both scientific temperament and artistic flavor, realizing a paradigm change from simulation to creation. .
Be wary of the challenges and risks brought about by technologicalism
Technology is often a double-edged sword.
The increase in authors also means a diversion of readers. If they want to attract more readings and gain visibility on numerous online article rankings, online article authors will have to work harder on innovation and conception, and strive to break out of homogeneity. The stereotype of change.
According to the current rapid development rate of artificial intelligence, regardless of the height that AIGC has reached in generating poetry, even large-scale online novels are expected to surpass the vast majority of human authors.
When the entire industry realizes human-machine integration, writing efficiency will be greatly improved. If online writers only stay at the simulation, integration or even limited renovation of existing writing models, routines, and Internet memes, it will be difficult for them to emerge in large numbers. achieve effective differentiation in their works, not to mention those creative and outstanding writers who surpass their fellow human beings.
Beyond technology, good stories always touch people's hearts.
Only those works with richer emotional experiences, more unique story ideas, and more diverse narrative art can stand out.
At the same time, as an information tool that can assemble previous human knowledge, although generative artificial intelligence technology has unlimited potential, we still need to maintain critical thinking about it and be wary of the data bias caused by technicalism.
In particular, algorithm recommendations in artificial intelligence may amplify or cover up certain aesthetic tastes, emotional tendencies, artistic types or subject content, etc., causing online writers to write in a similar way, or only pursue eye-catching themes and popular subject writing, which will weaken the ideological power of their works. and literary value will always hover at the same level, making it difficult to make greater innovations.
Under the current technical conditions, generative artificial intelligence in its growth stage not only consumes extremely high energy, but also risks being abused.
The introduction of AIGC will bring a series of issues such as data security, information ethics, privacy challenges and copyright management to literary and artistic creation, including the online literature industry. It is necessary to put forward new demands for relevant regulatory systems.
At the end of 2023, the New York Times took the lead in launching the first shot at AI copyright, accusing Microsoft and others of using newspaper content to train artificial intelligence models without authorization. It is also difficult to avoid copyright disputes among these AI R&D institutions falling into a "battle of hundreds of models."
All these remind us that we must not only pay attention to the structuring, patterning, and homogeneity problems in generated texts, but also initiate strict filtering procedures, establish a sound supervision and governance system, and guard against plagiarism, privacy leaks, security loopholes, and inappropriate content. And other issues.
Today, the development of artificial intelligence is changing with each passing day. It is not only widely used in daily life, but will also become a major trend in the technological development of human society in the foreseeable future.
Facing new problems, new phenomena, and new opportunities in AIGC's literary and artistic creation, there are both affirmative and questioning voices.
However, the current practice of human-machine collaborative creation in various literary and artistic categories shows that the opponent of human creation has never been AI. The biggest problems are the solidification of creation, the elimination of individuality, and the average aesthetic.
In the face of generative artificial intelligence, we might as well put aside "anthropocentrism", neither panic nor reject, actively explore and consider carefully, actively embrace "artificial intelligence +", build a new paradigm of human-computer interaction, and let technical rationality and humanistic spirit Harmonious symbiosis in an environment where humans and machines blend together.
(Author: Tang Qiao, associate researcher at the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) (Source: Guangming Daily)