Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

A February 4, 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal ("AI Tech Enables Industrial-Scale Intellectual-Property Theft, Say Critics") bemoaned the effect of artificial intelligence software on the production of creative works, some believing it would be its death and certainly reduce the financial livelihood of creators. I am less pessimistic, being unable to conceive of software that is capable of truly mimicing a human mind. Literature derives from the unconscious part of the mind which, after mysteriously opening, closes when the creative work is completed. I now lack motivation to write the fiction and non-fiction books that I wrote or even can conceive how I did. Moreover, artists have always had a difficult financial time. H. Somerset Maugham, one of the most commercially successful writers of his time, wrote "...the successful books are but the successes of a season...the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and to release from the burden of his thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success." Sage advice from a master of the craft. As I advise teenagers who wish a creative career: first figure how you'll support yourself, then try it part-time before deciding.