Literature on Demand

[rynling]

Confessions of a Viral AI Writer
https://www.wired.com/story/confessions-viral-ai-writer-chatgpt

As much as technologists might be driven by an intellectual and creative curiosity similar to that of writers [...] the difference between them and us is that their work is expensive. The existence of language-generating AI depends on huge amounts of computational power and special hardware that only the world’s wealthiest people and institutions can afford. Whatever the creative goals of technologists, their research depends on that funding.

The language of empowerment, in that context, starts to sound familiar. It’s not unlike Facebook’s mission to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together,” or Google’s vision of making the world’s information “universally accessible and useful.” If AI constitutes a dramatic technical leap [...] then, judging from history, it will also constitute a dramatic leap in corporate capture of human existence. Big Tech has already transmuted some of the most ancient pillars of human relationships — friendship, community, influence — for its own profit. Now it’s coming after language itself.

This isn't my favorite essay about the problems with AI-generated content, but I appreciate how the author admits that it can be fun to experiment with. Very evil in practice, but also intriguing in its potential.

I am nothing and no one, and obviously nobody is going to ask me to write an article for Wired. But, for what it's worth, I think AI-generated writing is hideously flat and stale. I played with ChatGPT and Sudowrite for all of two days before becoming terminally bored, and I haven't looked back since. It doesn't surprise me that professional authors are now relying on AI-generated writing to help smooth over rough patches, but I'm just not that type of writer.

Comments

[lassarina]

"flat and stale" has also been my impression. There are some super cool analytical things we can do with machine learning, but none of them are the things being shilled for AI, alas.

[rynling]

> There are some super cool analytical things we can do with machine learning

Oh my god yes. I mean there's this one...

The Pastry A.I. That Learned to Fight Cancer
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-pastry-ai-that-learned-to-fight-cancer

...as well as all sorts of other tools involving the analysis and summary of other large sets of data. I've read some really interesting stories about analyzing weather patterns to help mitigate climate change, as well as a handful of deep dives into how medical researchers are using AI to create a vaccine for degenerative diseases like Parkinson's. This is cool as hell.

I hate how tech corporations are looking at this, and saying, Man it would be awesome if we didn't have to pay writers and artists. And now they're going after actual programmers, apparently, because ChatGPT can now generate code. Fun times.

[lassarina]

Thank you so much for that link, it was fascinating. My primary care doctor had told me a few years ago about an AI that can look at photos of skin irregularities (moles, etc.) and detect with 99% accuracy whether they should be biopsied for cancer, which is being used in places where there aren't many doctors so people know if they Really Have To travel 3 hours to the big hospital. AND THAT IS SO POWERFUL AND FUCKING COOL. And it's that kind of thing that is fundamentally useful in the world.

in some ways I don't think ChatGPT's code is any different than, three years ago, when I would google "how do I make a pop-up in JavaScript" and get someone's example where I needed only to copy-paste. It can do a lot of very basic tasks, but I genuinely do not think it can do what I need to do, if only because people cannot describe what they want in such a way as to make it useful. (I spend A LOT of time applying 15 years of experience with the specific plan I'm working in and 25 years of domain knowledge to tease out what the user actually wants to do versus what they say. It's possible AI will get there, but even as it is now, it requires good prompts to do the thing.)

[rynling]

I genuinely do not think it can do what I need to do, if only because people cannot describe what they want in such a way as to make it useful.

Honestly I want to engrave this sentence onto the Bat Signal and broadcast it into the night every time I see this discussion comes up.

This is not in any way comparable to your expertise and experience, but I worked in the tech support office for my university library during my senior year of college. My division handled the back end of the library's website and holdings catalogs (and our own specific portals of ILL + related services), and we were constantly getting requests from librarians who meant well but couldn't really describe what they wanted. Just as you say, one of the most important skills anyone could have in that position is to be able to translate what people say they want into a meaningful adjustment.

Bit of a non sequitur, but:

I've been working on a fantasy novel called The Demon King whose main character is a tech support guy from New Jersey who's been magically thrust deep into a postapocalyptic future. His main talent isn't that he can code (/ do magic), but rather that he listens to people and is infinitely patient in working through complicated problems. In my story, that patience and ability to listen is what saves the world.

This is just to say that I agree with every word you wrote. It's so good and true. Thank you!

[lassarina]

It absolutely is comparable, though, don't knock your ability. ♥ The ability to understand what someone says when they aren't using your way of saying it is not as common as we would like to think! (I think a lot about the "baseline assumption" - how someone with a lot of knowledge in a specific area will just assume that everyone has, say, 10% of their knowledge when in fact it's more likely to be 1% unless that person is also an expert in that domain. This came up at work yesterday when a coworker I very much like, who has like 40 years in this field, was talking about how "simple" Linux is and the vibe is that everything is very simple to use. I made another coworker almost choke by saying "I always thought the vibe of Linux was 'git gud, scrub.'" It's true that every individual piece of Linux does One Thing Super Well, and that as the user you can figure out neat ways to chain that together to be way more powerful, but....most operating systems abstract that for you and knowing it takes a lot of patience. So, baseline knowledge.)

Okay, but "patience and ability to listen" is SO IMPORTANT and I love this for him, and your book. More stories should be solved by those traits!

In related "there should always be more cakes" news, there's a novella you might enjoy by Meredith Katz called Smoke Signals, which is a gay dragon shifter romance with billionaire dragon on one side and game company tech support on the other. It's charming and doesn't outstay its welcome.