Data-driven artificial intelligence is not going to replace human talent, but it is going to redirect it. Whether composed of pictures or words, the output of a General Purpose Transformer AI tends to be boring and generic, unless it is artfully steered by a skillful human.
Just as society gradually realized that photography can be great art — in the hands of the right person — society will eventually recognize the value of the work of talented people who understand how to direct AI to great effect.
But this means that future art will be different. A story will no longer need to be a linear sequence of events.
Instead, it can consist of characters interacting with each other in a semi-improvised way. A great novelist will shape the backgrounds and personalities of those characters, so that their interactions with one another over time are profound, or truthful, or just plain funny.
A story in the future may become something that you can revisit from time to time, like having lunch with an old and dear friend. You don’t expect to have the same conversation with your friend each time, but you do expect to encounter essentially the same person that you’ve always known.
AI will lead to something similar. Each time you read a future story, it might be a little different. Yet if well crafted, it will continue to thematically hold together, like an old and dear friend.