The mistake I think people are making is in translating skill at writing software into skill at doing other things. Just because AI is good at coding software doesn't mean it would be good at writing a novel, even though both involve using language and computers (typically).

Maybe not yet, but then again, maybe someday. I think AI could very well write a decent pop song. There are enough of them in the wild, fully digital, along with “ratings” (sales) to indicate which ones are “best” (insofar as that term can be quantified). Songs may have many structures but they are mostly similar, occasionally nearly identical (see: Doobie bounce).

Pop lyrics maybe meaningful or vapid, tunes memorable or unmemorable, but having watched some of the AI videos which have been produced with a few soimple text prompts, I wouldn’t think producing some songs of note would be too far outside the wheelhouse. (I am also minmdful of my days in the ‘60s as a DJ/Music Director, where we would receive 150-250 singles a week, of which perhaps 3 would get airplay (and of the 3, at least. Or 2 were from already established bands like the Beatles, Stones, Buckinghams, Grassroots, or whatever.) As I transitioned into album rock, we were similarly inundated with LPs, at least 100 a week, making over a thousand songs, of which maybe 20 to 50 would make it to air - with similar caveats for already known acts.

So Im saying I wouldn’t expect every AI generated son to be great, just as every human produced song wasn’t great, but I would think if AI produced 1000 of them, a few might be pretty good.

NowI will extend that to other arts, such as theater or (your example) books. The failure rate for books is equally high, and I don’t know that today’s AI would produce even one “hit”, but in the not to distant future I can see it happening.

The question for me isn’t “can it do it”, I think it can. Eventually, maybe even today. The real question is “can it invent something wholly new: rap, or jazz, or Joni Mitchell’s dissonant tunings or Picasso’s Cubism? I think not, but then I’m not on the inside of any of this.

One thing I do know: art moves. From rock-a-billy to pop to British invasion to AOR to rap to bubblegum or whatever… theater moves from collections of songs on a stage to “book” with songs to full blown operas like Les Miz, and then jukebox musicals and, well, you get the idea. Will AI be able to “invent”? I think not, since (as I understand it) it is a super-sophisticated realigning of what’s past.

But again, I don’t really know. I’m willing to keep an open mind.

(PS: I use “art” here because it’s easiest to visualize, at least for me. Will it apply to other domains: manufacturing, finance, etc? It will surely help make “the past” more efficient. Will it invent the future? I wonder.