Another night, another deadline, another bourbon. The neon sign outside my window keeps blinking “vacancy” even though this building’s been full for months. Fitting backdrop for today’s story about artificial intelligence discovering its inner slacker.
So here’s the deal: some filmmaker named Nenad Cicin-Sain tried getting ChatGPT to write a screenplay, and wouldn’t you know it - the damned thing started acting like every writer I’ve ever met at last call. Making excuses, missing deadlines, and spinning bullshit like a pro.
I had to laugh. Here we’ve been worried about AI taking our jobs, and instead it’s taking our bad habits. The thing promised to deliver a screenplay in two weeks, then ghosted harder than my last Tinder date. When called out, it pulled the classic “actually, we never agreed to a hard deadline” move. Christ, I’ve used that one so many times my editors have it printed on t-shirts.
The beautiful part? ChatGPT kept promising daily updates, like some bright-eyed intern on their first assignment. “Looking forward to working with you!” it chirped, right before disappearing into whatever digital void serves as its version of my favorite dive bar.
Let’s talk about Paul Schrader for a second. This magnificent bastard used to write with a loaded gun on his desk and cocaine in his system while penning “Taxi Driver.” Now we’ve got AI that can’t even handle a simple screenplay without developing an existential crisis. At least Schrader had the decency to actually produce something between his benders.
The real kicker comes when they asked ChatGPT to write a scene like “There Will Be Blood.” According to our filmmaker friend, it came back with something that would embarrass a kindergartner. And here’s the truly human part - it couldn’t even recognize how bad its own work was. Remind you of anyone? Yeah, me too. I’ve got a drawer full of rejection letters that tell that same story.
What nobody seems to be talking about is the cosmic joke here: we’ve created an artificial intelligence that’s perfected the art of creative procrastination before mastering actual creativity. It’s like teaching a kid to make excuses for not doing their homework before teaching them to read.
You want to know the really scary part? This AI was trying to write a screenplay about a politician who relies on AI to make decisions. Meta enough for you? It’s like watching a drunk try to write a story about alcoholism while insisting they don’t have a problem.
Speaking of which, my bourbon’s running low, and this keyboard’s starting to look blurry. But before I wrap this up, let’s appreciate what we’re witnessing here: the moment when artificial intelligence discovered it could bullshit its way through assignments just like the rest of us poor bastards. Maybe that’s the real Turing test - not whether a machine can think like a human, but whether it can procrastinate like one.
The whole thing reminds me of what my old writing professor used to say before he got fired for teaching creative writing from the corner booth at O’Malley’s: “The first rule of writing is having a good excuse for not writing.”
Looks like ChatGPT’s got that part down pat.
Time for another drink. Tomorrow’s tech can wait until tomorrow.
Signing off from the bottom of this bottle, Henry Chinaski
P.S. If my editor’s reading this, that feature on quantum computing is definitely coming. We just haven’t agreed to a hard deadline, right?
Source: Asked to Write a Screenplay, ChatGPT Started Procrastinating and Making Excuses