W.D. Clarke’s Reviews > The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI > Status Update
W.D. Clarke
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One afternoon, as I walked the line with a group of writers, one of them said, “You know, you prompt a chatbot exactly the way a studio exec gives notes to a writers’ room: ‘Make me E.T., except it’s about a dog, and there’s a love interest, and give it a car chase in the third act.’”
I was thunderstruck: this is exactly right. The difference is that writers are bolshie and
[Cont'd]
— Jun 26, 2026 08:12AM
I was thunderstruck: this is exactly right. The difference is that writers are bolshie and
[Cont'd]
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Chatbots, on the other hand, are completely pliable: give that prompt to ChatGPT and it will dutifully shit out a whole screenplay in a matter of moments. The fact that it’s a terrible screenplay isn’t all that important: the AI companies assure us that the quality of the writing will only improve, after all. The vital thing about replacing a writers’ room with a chatbot is its pliability.