Connecting with the works of farflung and/or "timetraveling" writers is a special feeling. If I stumble upon what feels to be a paradoxically unique AND universal truth in the journey of another imperfect wanderer then I consider that work a fitting contribution to the human pantheon. I consider the AND key, for the magic trick to work, I need it to be both bottoms-up and top-down.
Rankle #1, AI "writing" is top-down only. I often think AI writing feels "glossy" for this reason, but as Joel mentions, I'm sure there has been plenty of short-form I've read that I wrongly thought human.
Rankle #2, life is already short, to what end do we wish to shortcut our way to great art? Isn't art supposed to be a bigger part of the picture and reason for being?
As a silver lining, the book industry's largely grim economics helps matters. One human writer's *trash* (small rewards) make for collective treasures (human literature standing the test of time) that remain mostly undesireable to a theoretical flood of grifting profiteers.
To me, authenticity is not about whether it is human work; it is about whether it is human experience. The universe is an essentially lonely place. I have only my own experience. Everything else is closed to me, and how am I to tell if my own experience is authentic or a delusion?
The only available way is to compare experiences with other human beings. But while we can discuss our experiences philosophically, we still lack a shared touchstone. The value of art over philosophy is that it allows the artist to share actual experience with the reader or viewer. The artist is asking the most poignant question in the universe: do you see it too? The reader is seeking the most poignant of affirmations: someone else sees it too.
Aesthetics are a nice ornament to this exchange, but they are by no means of the essence. The question of whether AI can produce good aesthetics, therefore, is beside the point. AI cannot have a genuine human experience. It can only construct a pastiche of such experiences, and no matter how well it does so, it is not the genuine article. You can build a better and better sex doll, one that pushes all the buttons, but it is not and never will be a woman.
Art is a bridge between souls, and AI has not, and never will have, a soul. The fact that advances in AI make it harder and harder to tell the difference between authentic experience and pastiche, therefore, is not a feature, its a bug. It makes the search for genuine human connection harder, not easier. I don't know if I speak for anyone but myself in this, but this is why I want nothing to do with AI art or writing, and every improvement in it makes it worse, not better.
The problem with the Matrix is not that you can tell that you are living in the Matrix, but that you can't.
I was mid-write when your comment posted, but we touched on similar items. You call art a bridge and I call it timetravel...whatever we label it, the human to human connection is the point!
I dislike AI-generated writing because it is shallow and it repeats the same point over and over with different wording - it reads like a poorly written student essay that is just trying to fill up the word count.
I distrust the idea of AI-writing, not only because it could be used to create false narratives, but also because there are layers of communication within human writing that an algorithm cannot reproduce. It is human experience that creates the depth that allows two different readers to see different shades of meaning within the same text. I often think those who confidently declare that AI is the future of writing must only speak one language; language learners who truly struggle to master another language become keenly aware of the layers of communication beneath basic conversation: idioms, puns, euphemisms, extended metaphors, allusions, and subtexts that are utterly unique to each language and can only be truly learned by living day-to-day within a culture for years.
It never seems to occur to anyone that the way to end this is to cut AI off from its literal and figurative power supplies- data center bans and utility taxes, as well as obvious growing apathy from the general public, should be enought to hold it in check and halt more fear-mongering.
I just try to remember that it is a machine and can be controlled the same way machines are ultimately controlled. As Rahsaan Roland Kirk said to a computer on record in the 1970s, "I pull the plug out on you, and you be DEAD!"
Ah, well, as usual, Joel, you take the conversation of the day and bring it to a higher, smarter level. Well done. I am with you, or at least getting there. The best sense I can make of AI in writing is this: It's like when the synthesizer hit peak popularity in the 80s.
What's funny about the synth is that The Beatles used one—the Moog—way back in 1969 on Abbey Road. That was one of the things that made them great. They were always innovating, trying things people had never done before, especially in the studio.
But then you get into the late seventies and early eighties, and every rock/pop group is using it in place of a full choir or orchestral strings. In fact, Queen would put on their records "no synthesizers were used in the recording of this album" as a flex (not unlike how people are currently doing with "No AI was used in this post").
Over time, the music industry evened out. All the artificial sounds of the 80s were overcorrected by the emergence of grunge in the early 90s—which, in my view, was a hearkening back to both early rock and roll and punk—and then, the technology ultimately found its place in music. But, you could argue, it took at least thirty years.
So it will probably be with AI and writing. The fact is that it's a powerful tool for any author, writer, or "content creator." And before this, it wasn't like everyone was just coming up with their own original ideas and writing from scratch. We were all borrowing from somewhere.
What I think AI sucks at is taste. There is a certain flatness to most "out-of-the-box" prose it generates from an average chat session. There are ways around this, albeit limited ones, and my experience as someone who has worked with AI, as a book collaborator, is that it can be a useful tool but not unlike the Internet "research" that predates it, an unreliable one.
My view is that the people who will be "best" at using this tool are those who, like yourself, have spent decades reading, writing, and living in the world of books. That's the only way you develop taste: it takes a long time and a lot of practice.
Everyone else, who has no idea that their social media posts sound the same as all their peers, is going to struggle. At least, that's what I think, and that's what I'm seeing. Ironically, real writers have the greatest advantage in this new world of content that's emerging. The question is, what will we do?
Just my two cents. Let's talk about it on a walk some day.
Connecting with the works of farflung and/or "timetraveling" writers is a special feeling. If I stumble upon what feels to be a paradoxically unique AND universal truth in the journey of another imperfect wanderer then I consider that work a fitting contribution to the human pantheon. I consider the AND key, for the magic trick to work, I need it to be both bottoms-up and top-down.
Rankle #1, AI "writing" is top-down only. I often think AI writing feels "glossy" for this reason, but as Joel mentions, I'm sure there has been plenty of short-form I've read that I wrongly thought human.
Rankle #2, life is already short, to what end do we wish to shortcut our way to great art? Isn't art supposed to be a bigger part of the picture and reason for being?
As a silver lining, the book industry's largely grim economics helps matters. One human writer's *trash* (small rewards) make for collective treasures (human literature standing the test of time) that remain mostly undesireable to a theoretical flood of grifting profiteers.
To me, authenticity is not about whether it is human work; it is about whether it is human experience. The universe is an essentially lonely place. I have only my own experience. Everything else is closed to me, and how am I to tell if my own experience is authentic or a delusion?
The only available way is to compare experiences with other human beings. But while we can discuss our experiences philosophically, we still lack a shared touchstone. The value of art over philosophy is that it allows the artist to share actual experience with the reader or viewer. The artist is asking the most poignant question in the universe: do you see it too? The reader is seeking the most poignant of affirmations: someone else sees it too.
Aesthetics are a nice ornament to this exchange, but they are by no means of the essence. The question of whether AI can produce good aesthetics, therefore, is beside the point. AI cannot have a genuine human experience. It can only construct a pastiche of such experiences, and no matter how well it does so, it is not the genuine article. You can build a better and better sex doll, one that pushes all the buttons, but it is not and never will be a woman.
Art is a bridge between souls, and AI has not, and never will have, a soul. The fact that advances in AI make it harder and harder to tell the difference between authentic experience and pastiche, therefore, is not a feature, its a bug. It makes the search for genuine human connection harder, not easier. I don't know if I speak for anyone but myself in this, but this is why I want nothing to do with AI art or writing, and every improvement in it makes it worse, not better.
The problem with the Matrix is not that you can tell that you are living in the Matrix, but that you can't.
I was mid-write when your comment posted, but we touched on similar items. You call art a bridge and I call it timetravel...whatever we label it, the human to human connection is the point!
I dislike AI-generated writing because it is shallow and it repeats the same point over and over with different wording - it reads like a poorly written student essay that is just trying to fill up the word count.
I distrust the idea of AI-writing, not only because it could be used to create false narratives, but also because there are layers of communication within human writing that an algorithm cannot reproduce. It is human experience that creates the depth that allows two different readers to see different shades of meaning within the same text. I often think those who confidently declare that AI is the future of writing must only speak one language; language learners who truly struggle to master another language become keenly aware of the layers of communication beneath basic conversation: idioms, puns, euphemisms, extended metaphors, allusions, and subtexts that are utterly unique to each language and can only be truly learned by living day-to-day within a culture for years.
It never seems to occur to anyone that the way to end this is to cut AI off from its literal and figurative power supplies- data center bans and utility taxes, as well as obvious growing apathy from the general public, should be enought to hold it in check and halt more fear-mongering.
I just try to remember that it is a machine and can be controlled the same way machines are ultimately controlled. As Rahsaan Roland Kirk said to a computer on record in the 1970s, "I pull the plug out on you, and you be DEAD!"
Ah, well, as usual, Joel, you take the conversation of the day and bring it to a higher, smarter level. Well done. I am with you, or at least getting there. The best sense I can make of AI in writing is this: It's like when the synthesizer hit peak popularity in the 80s.
What's funny about the synth is that The Beatles used one—the Moog—way back in 1969 on Abbey Road. That was one of the things that made them great. They were always innovating, trying things people had never done before, especially in the studio.
But then you get into the late seventies and early eighties, and every rock/pop group is using it in place of a full choir or orchestral strings. In fact, Queen would put on their records "no synthesizers were used in the recording of this album" as a flex (not unlike how people are currently doing with "No AI was used in this post").
Over time, the music industry evened out. All the artificial sounds of the 80s were overcorrected by the emergence of grunge in the early 90s—which, in my view, was a hearkening back to both early rock and roll and punk—and then, the technology ultimately found its place in music. But, you could argue, it took at least thirty years.
So it will probably be with AI and writing. The fact is that it's a powerful tool for any author, writer, or "content creator." And before this, it wasn't like everyone was just coming up with their own original ideas and writing from scratch. We were all borrowing from somewhere.
What I think AI sucks at is taste. There is a certain flatness to most "out-of-the-box" prose it generates from an average chat session. There are ways around this, albeit limited ones, and my experience as someone who has worked with AI, as a book collaborator, is that it can be a useful tool but not unlike the Internet "research" that predates it, an unreliable one.
My view is that the people who will be "best" at using this tool are those who, like yourself, have spent decades reading, writing, and living in the world of books. That's the only way you develop taste: it takes a long time and a lot of practice.
Everyone else, who has no idea that their social media posts sound the same as all their peers, is going to struggle. At least, that's what I think, and that's what I'm seeing. Ironically, real writers have the greatest advantage in this new world of content that's emerging. The question is, what will we do?
Just my two cents. Let's talk about it on a walk some day.