The Next Hot Job in Silicon Valley Is For Poets (washingtonpost.com)

An anonymous reader shares an article on Washington Post: As tech behemoths and a wave of start-ups double down on virtual assistants that can chat with human beings, writing for AI is becoming a hot job in Silicon Valley. Behind Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana are not just software engineers. Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools. A new crop of virtual assistant start-ups, whose products will soon flood the market, have in mind more ambitious bots that can interact seamlessly with human beings. Because this wave of technology is distinguished by the ability to chat, writers for AI must focus on making the conversation feel natural. Designers for Amazon's Alexa have built humanizing "hmms," and "ums" into her responses to questions. Apple's Siri assistant is known for her wry jokes, as well as her ability to beatbox upon request.

Comments

Good news for humanity?

[mi]

For ages and generations an artist (writer, composer, singer, dancer, painter, what have you) had to be either independently wealthy or have a rich sponsor to create.

Cheap replication (coupled with strong copyrights and intellectual property laws) have helped, but it still requires a strong business acumen in addition to artistic talent for an artist to prosper.

If, indeed, computers and robots take up more of the drudgery in the next industrial revolution, the creative jobs may proliferate... And I don't mean simply people majoring in Arts, who then "sell out" to earn more — the actual artists. People, who want to be musicians today, but are (mediocre) programmers instead, because music does not pay... Maybe, it will?

Supposedly, AIs will be able to create art too, but I suspect, people will eventually treat such creations — deservingly or not — the way art-reproductions are treated today.

(To spoil the impression this post may have created in your mind, I'll point out, that this all may happen just as the people pushed to STEM by government enter the workforce...)