"With a one-sentence prompt and 20 seconds of thought, one can now get ChatGPT to turn out an essay that rivals something an experienced writer might have taken days to produce"
I'm going to have to strongly disagree with that. It's very obvious when publications are using AI to produce work, and they're getting lowest-common-denominator stuff that's very obviously crafted by AI.
They're replacing writers, sure, but the work is garbage.
One problem, as I see it, is that “the work” of AI is becoming more sophisticated and “less garbage.” Hell, Sports Illustrated got smacked down only because some intuitive readers questioned some of the articles. Humans, we, are losing our ability to think deeply and morally about all things like this. Which is JUST where the billionaire autocrats want us. We are sheep being led to a slaughter we cannot yet even imagine. But it’s coming. “Whether we like it or not doesn’t matter.” Apparently.
The elites are using it and hyping it up. And I'm not sure we can stop their efforts to use us and control us.
Re: a machine like ChatGPT producing content through associating words from the multi giagbytes of content it scans through in seconds.
Yes, it puts a piece of content together. But it doesn't have an impulse to create content or a goal in doing so. One then has to question the goals of the people providing the training material for the machine
Are we really "losing our ability to think deeply and morally about things"? A broad sweeping glance at human history tells me that we have ALWAYS had a tenuous relationship with thinking deeply and morally about things. When commerce was used to justify the kidnapping, torture, rape and dehumanisation my people from the 1600s onwards and a whole field of science grew out of it from the 1700s onwards, dedicated to maintaining racial hierarchy (talk less of religion), I would say morality and deep thinking was lacking then. When clergy justified dehumanisation and racial segregation in as late as 1970s in US and 1990s in South Africa, I would say morality and deep thinking was lacking then too. There are many many other instances from antiquity until today of moral depravity and shallow thinking. I'm incredibly unconvinced that it worse now.
I don’t disagree at all with anything you say here—it’s all so so true and so sad and so insane. If anything, perhaps the terms used in my response could be interpreted differently—“losing one’s ability to think deeply and morally about things” (which is still where I think we are and are moving closer to, as a species, generalization though it still is), should not be mistaken for “CHOOSING to not think deeply or morally about things.” The examples you site are examples of man’s never-ceasing inhumanity to man (“man” used intentionally). THOSE “men” are adept at justification, manipulation, power-mongering, and cult-like persuasion. Moral depravity and shallow thinking all, yes. And as you factor in tools (like technology) and habits (like a lack of deep reading, love for deep books and history, an all-too-easy way to select the kind of news you want to hear on the internet, in short clips no less), the minds of the masses are losing skills and abilities to “think deeply and morally.” Losing them out of lack of use—or worse, apathy. Or even worse yet, an active choice to not think or feel compassion toward others. This is also why I’m worried that AI will be used as a tool towards terror when immoral leaders (men) learn how to wield it for their benefit. Would you agree with this way of thinking about it all?
How do you think today (and the future) compares to the European Dark Ages or the time before The West had the printing press? At that time powerful men were also controlling knowledge production.
Also, I wonder if the decimation of indigenous ways of knowledge via colonisation has also disconnected many from the ability or access to the tools to develop "deep thinking".
Der Ukraine-ANGRIFFS-Krieg ist wieder so eine SCHLACHTBANK! Wir alle wissen darob, sind jedoch zu feige und korrupt den Dreckschweinen auf ihre schmutzigen Finger zu hauen.
The "elites" have been laying this path for a very long time, back to Babylon or even before, perhaps. The entire education and allopathic "health care" systems were designed by the cabal, and of course all the entertainment , news, and historical narratives are of their creation. Discerning reality through all the noise is the main challenge.
Humanity has been domesticated to serve their needs and will be culled when technology is able to fully service them. That's their plan, anyway. But I'm pretty certain it will be derailed as synthetic systems of great complexity are ultimately fragile, and exploiting one weak link can take it all down.
But was that good writing or was that writing that was pedestrian? Isn't that why the quote of "1 million monkeys with Typewriters and Shakespeare" resonant?
It may well come upon us—but I firmly believe that the soul of the human writer will never be copied (emulated possibly, but a true and sensitive reader will notice the lack of true soul in any genre).
oh I dunno - people aren't all that perceptive (consider the once & future president of orange hue...and people have read & loved soulless garbage since cuneiform days)
Thank you @TCinLA! We cannot even imagine how AI will become weaponized. But it will. And to have HIM at the governmental levers at such a young and impressionistic stage in AI development is unfathomable. When other’s talk about his next potential tenure as “the end of democracy,” well, with AI as a weapon at his disposal, his path toward absolute power and control becomes inevitable.
I’m sorry you weren’t equipped to understand his speech. It is actually quite nuanced and may of the speeches not at all “dark and hateful,” which was what they “were” according to most media outlets that one listens to instead of hearing things straight from him and trying to understand.
You just had to drag your little fears into this with the bad Hillary Clinton simile. Are you using AI (Absent Intelligence) to look for needed human warmth? Try Elon and his X to get all cozy.
You are going to take a ton of crap for using HRC, but the point is valid. She's a perfectly warm human, betrayed by her speech writers at almost every turn.
They will if the machine generating the writing is pulling from the work of millions of people who know what it is to love or suffer. Plagiarism has certainly moved people in the past…it will do so when a machine does it as well.
AI is too stupid to solve a CAPTCHA puzzle. The problem is not that AI is so good, it's that we accept too little. It's that too many people endeavor to speak the usual platitudes rather than develop their own thoughts. For such people AI is a wonder. For the rest of us, it is a bad joke.
Don't give it time to get embedded! It needs to have a stake driven through its heart. We are retarded in our common sense human intelligence the last thing we need is AI.
I am very much afraid we have lost our ability to detect the garbage as our societies become zombified by electronic gadgetry and AI where humanist interfacing dies a cold and lonely death.
You’re right but the thing with AI (or so I’m told) is that it gets smarter and better with time. Right now it doesn’t produce very high quality content. It might be indiscernible in a couple years.
Animation and CGI have made huge leaps in the past few decades, and yet no matter how realistic they get, you won't mistake them for real life. I think the same applies with AI. There will always be an uncanny valley.
Google’s latest phone feature they are touting HIGHLY (as if it is a good thing—and again, something we aren’t questioning) is the ability to alter photos to make it look as if everyone is smiling, or jumping higher, or cut out of the picture altogether because they were in the background and not wanted in the photo. THOSE photos are not real! But they get taken as real—‘cuz that’s the point. Scott, your faith, though I would want to be one to believe it as well, is faulty. Humans are quickly losing the ability and skill (and certainly the energy and desire) to discern reality and truth from manipulation.
Great points here, but I'm still unconvinced that humans are losing their ability to discern reality and truth at a higher rate than ever before. I think the 24/7 newscycle most of us see, including social media, makes the loss more obvious, all at once. History features some true dumbasses who did the same thing. Still, it's upsetting.
So true. Watching the trailers for "Masters of the Air," in which all the aerial scenes are done CGI after watching "Battle of Britain," where all the aerial scenes were done with actual people flying actual airplanes - the CGI is so obvious because airplanes never fly that smoothly and uniformly (as I learned too well, taking photos of them from other airplanes). CGI is always obvious, no matter the topic, since too often the person creating it has no real idea of what the "reality" is of what they're doing - like ChatGPT trying to "write what it knows."
CGI has been on the scene for 65 years. It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution. If your definition of “never” means “in my lifetime”, then you have a maybe at best. But “never” is a very long time.
I disagree wholeheartedly. People, apparently much less perceptible than you, ARE being fooled daily with AI, CGI, green screens and other high tech methods. Ever watch the 1997 movie Wag the Dog? Go ahead and claim it's all "fiction". They've been fooling people for the past 30 YEARS, at least, and have gotten EXTREMELY GOOD in the past decade.
Late to the party here... I agree with @Scott Hines - AI's reasoning is on a knife's edge and there are no boundaries and no real understanding of a conversation or material it regurgitates. I would argue that original content will become more sought after and more in demand as the AI material becomes mainstream.
Came here to say exactly this. The syntax and structure of ChatGPT produced content is repetitive and obvious. Sure, it will probably develop enough to the point where it can recreate human nuance, but not at this point in time (in my opinion).
Of course it will. And yes, soon. I agree with the people protesting it, with the writers who fear their jobs. Unfortunately technology has always driven our society because money has always driven our society. Most people are too scared to do anything about it so we instead succumb to the loss. What would your solution be?
Is there a solution? I’m not certain there is. I think it’s more along the lines of cultivating a relationship with people who have the ability to “see things as they really are,” then make the necessary adaptations together (which sometimes means resistance), that serve to keep the embers of morals, ethics, compassion, kindness, and love glowing. For that to happen, we don’t need any technology. Just good old fashion connection.
Actually, in this binary view is where the folly usually lies.
When one sees things as they are, they also begin to embrace the inherent duality in everything, and that the duality in everything is where the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are never separate but are always intertwined with one another.
When one cannot see things for what they are, however, they begin to employ a subjective view of the world. From then on the common view becomes a binary view in which the object of observation is deemed as good or bad relative to the position from which it is being examined.
For instance, modern science will have you believe that viruses are bad. But in a different context, examining transitions and mutations that led to development of our species, all of the sudden viruses are deemed as essential integrative pieces of a large (w)holistic puzzle.
So here. Technology and AI, in essence, are neither good nor bad. It's what humans do with them, and most importantly, the underlying awareness that guides their usage or lack thereof.
Agree completely. And man being man, he shall always find ways to hurt others, including non-human forms, with the aforementioned “rub.” It’s all in the rub.
Darwin explained the biological basis of human morals*, social cooperation and altruism. More recent cognitive scientists discovered the areas of the brain [enlarged in modern humans aprx 50,000 years ago] that enable INHIBITION of non-cooperative/non-altruistic personality traits. Evolutionary psychologists determined that contemplative-renunciate religion was kind of like a software upgrade that emerged after the Bronze Age collapse that increased INHIBITION and enabled widespread social cooperation in the increasingly complex agrarian city states.
Each failure of an old social form in cultural evolution results in new adaptations that increase survival. The transition to a new social form is usually messy, violent and chaotic (Bronze Age collapse, Industrial revolution and so forth).
-----
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were
[--->] always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good,
would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
The only way I want to "connect" with brainwashed "leftsts" that endlessly regurgitate mindless, cheap slogans is to tell them the truth: they are shallow, uninformed, low IQ assholes.
And yes, they will probably be mostly replaced with AI b0t scriptz.
Maybe 20% of an audience is sophisticated enough and pay close enough attention to detect the tone of AI and as our dumbing down continues that percentage will fall and AI will get better. We’ll be reading it every day and will mostly not notice.
It reminds me of that line in the first Jurassic Park...
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should...”
I am not against it, I just don't think the people in charge of building it are as smart as they think they are. And yet we will all have to live with the consequences of their possibly criminal incompetence. We know they lied and stole IP, they have admitted to that, so I am not feeling warm and fuzzy about these flim-flam tech bros and their bloated egos.
I als took issue with the quote about how wonderful the world has been since the Industrial Revolution. Where instead of slaving away in one’s own farm fields, one could slave away in a factory or coal mine for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, again, for the comfort of the elite. For decades until labor unions. Which initiated their own problematic rise.
And to say NOTHING about what actually happened to farming and FOOD production!
“Prior to the industrial revolution, more than two-thirds of a country’s labor force had to work in agriculture to be able to feed its entire population. Since the automation of agriculture, that share has fallen to less than 5%. And yet we have abundant food and more jobs to do than ever. Today, many people have the kind of work and prosperity that their great-grandparents could only have imagined.“
We are EATING WORSE THAN WE EVER HAVE BEFORE, eating mass-produced, industrialized, processed pseudo-food substitutes and POISONS, which have destroyed our health AND environment;
And…THE FARMERS THAT ARE LEFT ARE WORSE OFF THAN EVER BEFORE, barely making ends meet, eaten out of business by ruthless industrialized BIG-FARMA “farming” and the government lobbyists and policies that symbiotically live with the industrial farms.
I've been part of and around the AI writing community for a while, and I can't agree that all of the work that comes from AI, or is powered by it, is garbage. There is garbage in the mix, as there was in print before AI came along. (Okay, there probably is more garbage in the mix.) These machines are becoming better and better at producing high-quality writing, especially with good prompting (ChatGPT) or improved features (Sudowrite).
Human deskilling as writing becomes easier, now that is a concern. New writers not doing the drudge work that allowed us to tell good writing from bad writing, now that is a concern too. And a huge imbalance with regard to income (as described here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/opinion/audiobooks-spotify-streaming-algorithm.html) is also a big concern. But the quality of AI writing in itself won't be a solid argument for long. If it is in late 2023, it won't be by mid-2024.
When people write from their own experience it shows. The brain is a super fancy network, from a physiological standpoint, (and that's without counting the inhabiting spirit). Right now, AI doesn't 'experience'. Maybe someday it will come close, but that's probably a long way off.
I think the greater challenge will be in long reads or deeply researched articles where writers will need to cite more sources than before. Or, they might fall into a trap where the source is really an AI that aggregated suspect information.
It's going to be a big change for sure. Glad I read from many trusted and maybe not government-trusted sources to get information about a variety of topics.
I agree with you, but I also agree that "now" is an important qualifier here. The technology will improve over time, and that is what concerns and depresses me at the moment. Whether or not there turns out to be a hard limit, like the speed of light, beyond which it will never be able to go remains to be seen.
Working in the GenAI sector, I can say that AI-generated texts are a mere starting point. The whole thing about "voice" is that it cannot nail, and when it does, the risk of turning out to be tone-deaf is very real. I use GPT (not Bard - that's just Google rinse and repeat) for brainstorming, but when it comes to creation, you better write for yourself. However, an interesting use of GPT is to critique your writing, which I've found to be useful.
How dare you write: “ Whether you’re for or against this development ultimately doesn’t matter.” It DOES matter, and it SHOULD matter. Saying that gives a moral pass to technocrats like Musk and Altman—and all their ilk. It’s akin to what was said by the moral skeptics after the race for the nuclear bomb, “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.” It is obvious one of the major characteristics of our human species is that we cannot learn from the past. [btw, this post response was not written with any AI influence!]
“Here, take this. And trust me. It tastes horrible but in the long run, you’ll come to like it. Whether you’re for it or against it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s doing it.” Even as it harms you.
What a wonderful euphemism for mRNA-shots and the current government's and WHO's propaganda-machinery for the world-wide gene-therapeutic interventions...🤣🤣🤣
IT companies typically don't commit suicide by making public statements that their business model is wrong.
What substack is saying is that the don't want to do censorship, they want free speech and to give readers/subscribers choice so that the "market" will sort out what writing is best.
Generally, the moral panics of the "left" are irrelevant to that model.
But, if a service or product of a global corporation is widely accepted and sought-after by huge swaths of the populace, they have full freedom to make ANY moronic public statement (including future implementation of any abhorrent plans) without having to fear that their stock-value changes even in the slightest way. THAT is (terrifying) power !!
:-) :-) I'm laughing because I am normally averse to being emotionally manipulated but I was taken in by this article, probably because my essays are all about human hope and connection and it was what I needed to hear. But Kert is right, that one sentence about my opinion on the subject not mattering did cause me discomfort. It certainly wasn't a very nice thing to say!
I guess you both will enjoy my full comment on this piece of trash published by Substack. I addressed this part and also a few others, but ended up getting tired before finishing all the points I had to disagree with. This is maybe the worst take on IA I"ve seen the whole year. And amazingly, it comes by the end of the year, and is so not updated in many aspects.
I'm astonished to see that the Chief Writing Officer of Substack isn't even making a case for writers getting paid in the AI age. We're all supposed to live on "relationships," I guess. They used to call it "exposure."
incoherent gibberish. people make money on substack with paid subscriptions.
substack prefers that the "market" decides what people want to read, not creepy leftist censors that are addicted to endlesss outrage and moral panics.
I was referring to professional writing in general, not to Substack specifically (where paid subscribers are less than 10% of the readership BTW). Hamish McKenzie seems unconcerned that writers will be paid close to zero for content creation in the future, even though Substack is styled as a "home for great writers."
incoherent gibberish. substack gives writers the capability of charging for subscriptions. if your writing is garbage/boring/whatever you probably won't have paid subscribers.
What do you write? You seem to hate anything progressive or different and talk in tired old anti leftist tropes. Time to wake up and see reality out there.
I share your fury, but I don’t think that was the point of the comment. It means “whether you want it or not doesn’t change whether AI will take over the landscape”.
But I agree that it is infuriating that society at large has not been willing to take the time to have the conversations about the implications of such an abrupt and unregulated use of this kind of technology.
I saw his point Jason—but thank you for the elementary school lesson. That one sentence is exactly what autocrats and dictators and fascists want for the populace to believe: in order to make “what is coming” more palatable if not inevitable. In the end, it’s about money, power, and control. It’s ALWAYS about money, power, and control. And when you control language, how and when and by whom it is used, you control it all. (George Orwell RIP please—I have a feeling he’s turning over in his grave saying “See, what did I tell you??? But you didn’t listen.”)
There is very little the real left now. It's mainstream middle of the way politics. Not the wonderfully exciting 'left' of old. That was Aabout the people, the commoners, determining their lives, rather than the capitalistic monster that we have to endure now.
Your condescending tone is entirely unwarranted and unnecessary. I was not talking down in any way. I pointed out something that seemed to be taken a different way in what you posted. And in rereading your original comment I still don’t see what I mentioned acknowledged. If that upsets you, express it like a grown adult and consider the way your own words present your ideas rather than lashing out at anybody who dares read what you wrote the exact way you wrote it.
Yes it is always about money, power, and control. But this is not just a fight against autocrats. This is a battle against individual greed as well. Which is why it does not matter whether or not you agree with it; the forces of individual greed at scale in the hyper-individualistic society we have already built makes it a losing battle.
And to be abundantly clear, it is a battle I still fight in daily, knowing the end result is futile.
But you're wrong dude. If you're against AI, don't think it is futile to be so. This tech isn't a god-given gospel or something like that. It isn't cheap. It isn't easily replicable. It takes a lot of money, A LOT of computing power, and A LOT of near-slave labor in far away digital sweatshops parcing bad data (to prep the algorithm "meals") to make a single iteration of any AI. This could easily be banned or regulated, if so we wish, and many wish.
Many wish, and I am among them. But I also know many more wish for exactly what we are building, because they refuse to see the damage. Just like we do with food production. Just like we did for decades and largely still do wit global warming. Just like we did with the introduction of social media as suicide rates skyrocketed. And even if we ban it for commercial use, governments will still develop it behind closed doors and leverage it in ways we’ll remain oblivious to, because they put themselves at risk to not do so.
When I say it is futile I do not mean I wont keep fighting. But im not going to pretend to be oblivious to the historical patterns of humanity either.
In the subspace of AI writing, the tools to defrock the priest are still with us; but it is not general outrage or philosophic opposition that will expose the toxic babble it now creates. An "innocent example" is gently derided on my post recent "Division."
If humans are going to control culture despite AI, then they must subject scurvy examples of AI to a persistently heavy dose of irony, debilitating critique, and serious deconstruction. Otherwise, the mass of Internet readers and viewers will easily succumb to the Newspeak of AI.
Didn’t want to be condescending at all. So my apologies. As long as you, as well, see how I might take your attempt at “mansplaining” his intentions to me, as condescending too. We are on the same team, Jason. For Hamish to write “whether we are for it or against it doesn’t matter” could have been written by any dictator at any of their moments in the sun.
Fair enough. Perhaps the idea of “the march isn’t stopping” can be shared in a way that doesn’t allow a subtext of blindly embracing it rather than trying to shape it.
I would say there is a place for both the conversation of “this technology is coming at us like a steamroller” alongside “these are all of the societal problems we should expect with it and should therefore not be complacent in its arrival”. Fight it. And also don’t be caught off guard as it gets its foothold. We can both accept that a missile is inbound so we can take the necessary precautions AND object to its deployment/further use.
I share your fury. But whenever was the common person given a chance to make a decision about 'advances' in technology. I am old enough to remember protests about the 'bomb'. The nuclear bomb. The protests made no difference. The technology was adopted and kept.
agreed Kert... as humans (imperfect, natural beings) it’s clearly not possible for us to comprehend or even see the full scale of ramifications here so this article is, at best, complacent optimism...
On first reading, I was wondering why you were all fire and brimstone and then I went up and did read that paragraph again, including that laughable idea that it is "proven" - which to any thinking programmer is a good laugh.
Although I don't quite understand your reference to the nukular topic (Could you maybe elaborate what you mean there?)
So much is basically wrong with your blather, but you are correct that the OP is little more than standard silicon valley tech marketing jargon.
You are wrong about what matters. You are confusing what matters to YOU and the unhumane nature of technological and neoliberal disruption in general, which your PERSONAL VALUES and concern trolling won’t change, at all.
The human species exists because it evolved the ability to learn, cooperatively.
You yourself have probably lost the ability to learn to transcend your confirmation biases, but that doesn’t mean other people are stuck being brainwashed by propaganda.
I don't believe this is true, at least for young writers. For established careerists, yes AI will prove to be useful, but that's because we have already "paid our dues" through difficult jobs that AI promises to destroy.
While painful, the jobs of interns writing repetitive earnings reports, transcribing interviews for the boss, or aggregating information are already going the way of the dinosaurs. Those jobs are how many young people (think 20-25 years old) get their foot in the door at major organizations. They are often rewarded with titles like Reporter, Staff Writer or Creative Associate, which go a long way towards building the infrastructure of a career.
My first job out of college was transcribing interviews, then I cut B-roll, and eventually I was promoted to produce a 3-minute internet television show. Eventually, layoffs got me, but that experience was critical to parlay into another internship that eventually led to my first full-time job and the beginnings of a career.
In our AI-driven world, I would not have been needed to transcribe those interviews or cut the B-roll, so I doubt I would have ever gotten the opportunity to learn from mentors and bolster my portfolio.
Apologies for being a wet blanket, but I think AI optimists tend to be mid-career and forget about the jobs they had to do when they were 22.
23 year old here. I can’t get a writing job as is, despite two degrees and an internship under my belt. The last thing I want is AI taking what’s left of the starter jobs 😂
You are correct. The only people who don't fear the impact of AI are either like you said those who are established or those technocrats that will profit from it. As for the rest of us, we should fight against it's use in replacing human creatives. It's a soul-less technology that ultimately will be allowed to repress and destroy human to human connections.
This established author used the fact I am the most successful author at my publisher (a smallish place that takes the time to try and do things right) to get them to put a clause in their author's contract in the section where the author certifies the manuscript is their sole work, that they will now certify that no AI writing tool was used in production of the manuscript at any point in development.
As it should be. Most Illustration and Cartoonist organizations have also adapted such policies. Unfortunately though, there are some trade organizations (like the AIGA) that haven't and are allowing graphic designers to figuratively cut their own throats with AI use. One would also think that the various middle men businesses (like Creative Circle) who make their living from placing creatives into jobs would also take a stand against this but alas that are only helping to speed up their own demise.
Well said Kevin. You’re not a wet-blanket, but a teller of truth. AI optimists can’t see the forest for the trees. They are enamored with this slick and sexy new toy—plus they have likely personally invested. It’s a venture capitalistic swamp where, once again, only the billionaire-class can profit while the rest of us wallow in poverty—a poverty that includes emotional, psychological, moral, and cognitive poverty.
There is so much waste, inefficiency and nonsense in the intellectual machinery of jmost organizations that AI could potentially fix that would devastate the white collar workforce far beyond “writers”.
If the AIs were only trained on out-of-copyright or freely released works it wouldn't be so bad, but the way many (all?) are trained on copyrighted books, artworks and so on (without permission) is morally and legally dubious.
Before you know it the meatsacks will be ground up as a fuel source for the AI generators to churn out endless content to fill social media platforms with interacting AI chatbots that Heaven-send every human (that hasn't been ground up for energy). Ah, then we'll be sorry.
"With a one-sentence prompt and 20 seconds of thought, one can now get ChatGPT to turn out an essay that rivals something an experienced writer might have taken days to produce." Yes, this must be why I've had three clients come to me in the past month with stuff their techbros had "written" using ChatGPT, asking me to rewrite it because it's unusable.
Well I hope it works out this way but as is my want (see name of magazine) I am skeptical! As it is, a great deal of reader attention is taken up by substandard fare, readers who are not professional media critics and may not realize that high quality content has been displaced by low quality content. For want of a formal term, call it the BuzzFeed effect.
It is not that AI can't help already excellent creators be more creative. It is that it will also help the mass of people who aren't particularly good at creating. And would not have even tried before AI, pump out more and more mediocre sludge, greatly increasing the "noise to signal" ratio in the wrong direction for the people who are talented writers but struggle to stand out.
There are tens of thousands of talented writers and tens of thousands of companies selling good products who never got the attention or sales they deserved because they were not at the right place and the right time.
The volume of content being put out in content channels thanks to AI augmentation will make finding that right place and right time for great creators far harder, IMHO.
I truly hope I am wrong. I would love to see a creative revolution powered by AI, I just don't believe it's going to happen. I believe AI will be an extension of the trend that saw thousands of newspapers and magazines across the US shut down in last 30 years. I personally worked at three of them. I personally have had an editor I worked with kill himself after that happened.
For me, anyone proclaiming a glorious and widespread creative future is going to have to bring some receipts before I buy into the latest iteration of techno utopianism.
Sadly, and I know you know this already, you are not wrong. There are no receipts save for those generated by AI itself. We cannot even grasp the consequences of what has already been unleashed let alone who will come to be blamed when those consequences are fully realized.
Kert, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a bit of a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag you all when I get it up.
Thank you, Art! I’ll look forward to it. Again, I agree completely with you re: the initial intentions of the founders of the Substack platform. I was an early adopter as a reader and writer. And I trust as well they are strong enough to read, listen to, and respond appropriately to constructive criticism. As a “for profit” organization specializing within the digital landscape, Substack is susceptible to the same provocative promises of AI as any other capitalistic company. But because they make their money from the efforts of their contributing writers (us!) who charge for subscriptions (I don’t, btw--never will!), it also behooves them to be 100% transparent in how they utilize AI in their organization. I have no doubt AI “has written” innumerable blog post and blog responses--on a platform the founders want to highlight as a space for human connection, they better quickly put safeguards, policies, and procedures in place when AI takes over their own brand so that I can trust that when I send a “like” to a writer, it’s to a person with a beating heart.
BTW Kert you might find this episode of our podcast of particular interest. Kentaro is both an expert technologist and a Buddhist who sees the downsides of techno-utopianism. He's also just agreed to become a regular contributor and advisor to The Technoskeptic. https://technoskeptic.substack.com/p/geek-heresy-author-kentaro-toyama
I have yet to see any "utopia" from anything created by the Silly Con Valley bros, other than a computer makes "all writing is rewriting" easier to do.
TCinLA, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag everyone who took time to write a reply when I get it up.
Thanks for covering this topic! I was about to write about this in my own comment, but it was already too long and exhausting. As I've seen someone else say: if everyone can "make" (prompt) dozens of their favorite franchise "fanbase movie/book/work", no one will watch/read any of it other than their own. And it will all be bland, bad, and shallow.
What a wonderfully thoughtful post. Sadly, you are spot on. I'm ashamed to admit this, but, since AI has allowed anybody in their dog to write a novel, and publish it on Amazon, I have stopped reading new authors. I used to love to explore authors I had never read before or who were new to the industry. But now it seems as if any new author I read, has turned out a crap nove--most likely generated by AI. I just don't have the time to suss out the horrible content from the good content. Hence, I now only read novelists whom I have read in the past, and no they turn out quality product. This is really sad, and as a creative myself, I do feel bad about not reading new authors anymore. Before AI, I would get the occasional poorly written novel. Now, it seems as if every new author I read has cranked out less than stellar work.
Vicki, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. It is chilling that the environment has caused you to stop looking at new writers. That is precisely what the disinformation tactic known as "flooding the zone with s*&t" is designed to accomplish. People just accept bad work as the norm and stop looking, OR go back to relying on traditional gatekeepers of content, which is against the whole point of Substack, to break out of those channels!
This is where people who laud AI don't understand the greatest limiting factor of people doing bad things with any tool has always been they're not that capable. I've worked against terrorists, a lot of them don't pull much off in the way of harm simply because they're idiots.
AI takes that limitation away. People think of AI and terrorism when it comes to designing bioweapons, and fair enough--that IS a scary worst case scenario. AI-writing boosters are ignoring what happens when hacks get hold of something that elevates their writing from crap to mediocre-to-decent range. There are a lot more hacks with nothing interesting to say who are would-be writers than there are terrorists. They will crowd out good but unknown voices.
None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag everyone who took time to write a reply when I get it up.
>>That is precisely what the disinformation tactic known as "flooding the zone with s*&t" is designed to accomplish. People just accept bad work as the norm and stop looking, OR go back to relying on traditional gatekeepers of content, <<
Thank you for your detailed response. To be clear: NO ONE does MY gatekeeping for me; I make up my own mind about what I read and don't read. My only point was that I no longer have time to sift through the fiction writers who only see AI as a quick way to make a fast buck by publishing a s**t-ton of books and hoping that if they flood the market with enough books, enough people will buy.
I am not at all opposed to AI; I use it in my buisness to improve efficiencies. However, I do NOT use it in my writing, podcasting, or video production.
Just wanted to clarify. You seeemd to take my comment to imply that I am, somehow, a non-thinking, follow-the-pack person. It is helpful not to make judgements when one does not know enough about a person.
Vicki, didn't say you are a follow-the-pack person. I said AI has chilled the environment, which according to you was making it too hard to sort the crap from the good writing in Amazon books. The pollution effect of AI has already manifested in personal content choices.
As AI makes this problem worse across a lot of channels, not just Kindle books, the problem of drowning in bad content will become more severe--and here is another example of how AI will be used to pollute news channels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGdkrc9i2Y--I'm interviewing the CounterCloud person now.
A lot of people in general, which is not to say you in particular, will be strapped for time and feel compelled to rely on traditional media gatekeepers. If that is what the median content consumer does, Substack as a platform, but also democracy in general, may be in trouble.
So forgive this is a repeat for some of you. If you liked or commented on my response to Hamish's piece, I expanded it to a full length article including some audio from AI and a look at AI generated propaganda I'd been working on. https://technoskeptic.substack.com/p/is-ai-an-opportunity-for-writers More recently, was pleased by recent news that NY Times (though it doesn't have credibility it once had) has sued OpenAI for training ChatGPT on copyrighted material. We always strongly suspected it was going on, and the suit may give creators some more leverage. Still, NY Times is not a charity, they're only going to stand up for NY Times content. That means the AI models are going to be even more dependent on training data created by people who can't afford to launch a massive lawsuit. That's everything that you and I write. So at best, the NY Times action is only a delay.
The "automation of agriculture", i.e. agribusiness, has led to monocultures, folks not knowing where their food comes from, supply chain issues, still many folks going hungry at the end of the day and many other problems. As with all "advances" we humans create we would be wise to hold it loosely and with humility, understanding we are but one being on this expansive planet.
Thanks for bringing this up. Another terrible point lofted by the article. There is so much bad stuff here, I couldn't address it all in my own comment.
We have finally found a way to circumvent copyright, evade plagiarism accusations, and get rid of the nasty competition of millions of real, thinking, intelligent writers. All with one simple act of connecting dumb machines (hardware), adding one simple dumb software (harvesting, extracting and blending all together), and one simple grammar adjustment dumb software.
Bonus: enforced unification of writing and understanding, removing the communicative function of the language.
Next stage: disbanding all schools and holding teachers liable for disrupting the operation of artificial intelligence.
But lets remember AI is not so easy to produce. Takes money, lots of computing power, and lots of near slave labor in digital sweatshops to parce bad data. It was made so accessible maybe so that everyone feels like it's free, but it isn't. It can be fought. It can be banned. It can be regulated.
You still need to generate, curate, edit and discriminate with the AI generated stuff. I think demand for people who can think will go through the roof.
It won't. Because it takes only one (or half) thinking person per mid-sized corporation to edit AI stuff on a daily basis. Even AI can edit AI stuff, today. So, sorry to burst your bubble, but our bosses will keep the title of "thinking person of the company" to themselves. Even if they're not the brightest, as we very well know they aren't.
Orwell’s “1984” presciently foretold ALL of this. It’s no longer a work of fiction. Demand for people who can think “only what we want them to think” will rise. But never go through the roof. We feeble-minded humans are not asking “who are the they” who are leading this AI juggernaut. That’s problematic.
Yes it's interesting all this but I find it quite terrifying. I don't like to think I am a luddite but I supposedly am. I don't have a TV or mobile phone been getting by alright until now.
Texting and mobile phones have been the downfall of human relationships. I literally have friends whom I have known for decades-- I was even maid of honor and several of their weddings-- who refused to meet in person or even have a telephone conversation. All they want to do is text or email. It's so sad that people in society have decided they are far too busy to put in the work friendships. My mom, who has sadly passed about 6 years ago, had the right idea: she refused to text anyone, because she said if the relationship was important enough, they would make the effort to have a real conversation via phone or in person. Man, I miss her.
Nothing wrong with being a luddite. I think they are, to their core, more genuinely happy and authentic then all the rest who truly believe human connection can be made through a tweet or Meta post.
I’m one of your people, Jenny. Thanks for being one of mine.
Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians.
-----
Writers make money on substack with paid subscriptions.
substack prefers that the "market" decides what people want to read, not creepy leftist censors that are addicted to endlesss outrage and moral panics.
Hi Hamish, you are correct that AI is here to stay, and that Substack is Resistance. You are horribly wrong with your cheerleading of corporations using ill considered technology to gut human civilisation with the fish knife of labour cost reduction.
The Luddites were visionaries, and they were right. Big Agriculture has depleted Earth's topsoil, emptied our oceans of fish, clearcut our forests, and urbanised our population beyond the capacity of the planet to support us, pushing us over a tipping point where societal collapse will take place in 40-60 years. Technological corporations are a virus that is killing off the host.
Famines are not caused by scale of farming technology, they are caused by politics. In the 1930s, Stalin created the Holodomor by destroying the small-medium scale Kulak class of farmers, by stealing their land, and creating "State Capitalist", collectivised, mega farms. 5-10 million died. Every family lost 2-3 people.
AI is a job killer for writers. Only Stephen King, celebrity memoir writers, and the owners of companies like Substack and Scrivener will survive AI. Substack and Scrivener are like the people selling shovels and work pants in the gold rushes of the 1800s, who were the only locals to make money. Writers are the modern day gold rush miners. Millions of us toiling away in poverty, while the stock market takes a bull run. The word "panhandler" has evolved to emphasise my point. No matter how I beg, I can't get a job as a journalist, because the media outlets are using AI. And I wear Levi's. History can be cruel.
Unfortunately, you are also wrong about content and culture. The "culture" of America is 90% Harlequin Romances, Hallmark Greeting Cards, and, to bring back your agriculture example, McDonalds. I will never use AI, for the same reason I will never eat a McDonalds hamburger. Because they are both empty calories, and their purpose is to siphon money out of my pocket, and resistance out of my soul.
Actually, no one really has any idea of the consequences of this tsunami of AI. What we do know, however, is that it is being driven by the ambitions of tech entrepreneurs regardless of any ethical or humanitarian considerations. That does not bode well.
We use Writer at my work and for the most part, it's a Grammarly tool on steriods. There is a generative AI aspect but it's mostly software that helps companies help their writers keep the same tone and voice, use predefined words (e.g. "used" instead of "utilized") rather than jargon. I'm a novelist who primarily writes historical fiction so I rarely use contractions, but at work when I'm scripting videos (I teach social media and AI for a software firm) we use a casual voice. Writer has helped me add in all the necessary contractions that I just wouldn't have on my own. It's a very good tool, IMHO.
It's not a bad thing for us to become better writers. And AI is here to stay. Writers who learn to harness it to become better will end up prevailing. For the most part, generative AI churns out formulaic, cliched stories and sentences. It's also often wrong or short-sighted. I personally don't believe it will take the place of true human creativity, especially not at this point.
human beings have long churned out "formulaic, cliched stories and sentences...(and are) often wrong or short-sighted" and it gets duly swallowed and followed - AI looks to do it better
I find your use of the agriculture comparison interesting, because while agriculture did provide people with jobs and such, it also rapidly destroyed the environment and reduced the overall quality and nutritional value of food. It also artificially inflated the prices of organic food produced by local farmers. I see something similar being possible with AI-generated content. But instead of environmental destruction, the destruction will be spiritual.
Oh gosh are you so, so right Alicen. “The destruction will be spiritual.” YES!!! It’s already happening, right? Thank you for adding that to the conversation here.
I am not someone who can be 'put in a box.' People have trouble understanding my writing and speaking. Very agile/quicksilver brain when my meds. are running low.
Top up the meds. then yes I am like most other people.
I am a reader..zillions of books a year. The diversity of writers is astounding/thoughts/feelings/history. Can AI SEE the vision in my head when I write? I don't think so.
Fritz. You make me sound like the MOST stupid person on the planet.
I have lived in 4 different Country's. Born in Sri Lanka to British colonial idiots.
I also lived in the US for 23yrs of 2 dimensional people who spout out Buddhism etc as though it is the answer to everything. I am BI-polar.
Last year I suffered from the most devastating depression I have ever had. Covid happened and I saw it for what it is..........people like the US meddling in warfare and bio-weapons. Destruction of the environment in which the US is one of the worlds leaders. There will be more covids.
I could go on and on to describe what I have seen in all 4 countries and believe me the US and Little Britain were the worst AND still are.
I have NEVER in my life been susceptible to the 'status quo.'
Don't fucking tell me about Buddhism.....I have seen this religion (Theravada Buddhism) in Sri Lanka. Same as Myanmar.
Buddhist priest committing atrocities on simple people.
Please do not give me this American shit. People come over too SL and think they are getting the real thing.. Bollocks.
I have no country or religion. I exist that is the most important to me and I have empathy which right now is killing me.
Americans on the whole are mindless people.
Most of you think all Buddhists are the same..........with regard to Islam too. There are different sects of ALL religions and I dislike them all.
Why is the US falling apart? Most of you have NEVER had a mind of your own. I have been called a 'commie'/'pinko' in the US because I wanted healthcare for everyone. Not one other country has called me this.
You are dying from NOT taking notice while you fed your greed!
Just FYI - Many of the clinical trials for "big pharma depression drugs" have been modified to suppress the bad outcomes to get FDA approval. Info just now being uncovered after 3 decades.
Overuse of prescribed medications is a problem, but their existence is not. I'm glad for you that breathing exercises/meditation are sufficient to control your issues, but don't make that call for everyone, please.
Just wanted to let you know I subscribed to your Substack, because you seem like a reasonable person who has experienced many things and come through the other side. I'd like to read more about it, should you ever choose to continue with your writing. I mainly keep to very silly topics here, but the conversation that took place as a result of this post has me reconsidering my focus. Thank you.
I am interested to know your thoughts about computers and the Internet when they started to become the norm. I remember when I was in school and my math teacher said we had to memorize all the formulas because you won't have a calculator in your pocket, yet now we do. I do say this with respect and am truly trying to understand your position better. My husband is wholly against AI and I'm in the school of thought that we should learn about it and see what it can do so we can easily transition with it like we have with all the other technologies that have come about and changed our world.
I hated arithmetic (the only subject that required actual attention) and am grateful for computers doing the computing...but in this and other modern developments, AI looking like a huge one, are we losing the ability to think? Math was hard and I have seldom used it in RL, yet it was good for my lazy brain to have to learn it.
YES!!! Our education is definitely SHIT!!! I graduated in 2000 and I was not set up to be an adult by any stretch. I think the only reason I prospered is because my dad owned his own business so I grew up working AND he had a huge love of technology and computers, so I've been on a computer since I was 7.
I'm going to check out your writings - sounds interesting.
On that - gene editiing. Here's a thought - and again - I mean no disrespect. I have the BRCA2 gene mutation. I have had to go through some surgery at this point and they are pushing more on me. However, in the EU, they have already been looking at editing out this gene. If you don't know what it does, it raises your cancer markers - especially that of breast and ovarian - to massive chances - basically my risks are HIGH. I have been excited for gene editing because they could literally remove this gene and make my body safe again.
They are also using AI for my mamograms to look for potential problems before they get bad.
I also feel that if they feed all the data points into the AI systems, they will be able to cure diseases and help people faster.
Now I also understand your points about giving Hitler AI (or someone like him) the ability to access the AI technology - and I agree it would be the end of humanity. If we were to find ways to regulate access to systems that can potentially be harmful, I think we could find ways to make sure total annihilation isn't in our near future.
"With a one-sentence prompt and 20 seconds of thought, one can now get ChatGPT to turn out an essay that rivals something an experienced writer might have taken days to produce"
I'm going to have to strongly disagree with that. It's very obvious when publications are using AI to produce work, and they're getting lowest-common-denominator stuff that's very obviously crafted by AI.
They're replacing writers, sure, but the work is garbage.
One problem, as I see it, is that “the work” of AI is becoming more sophisticated and “less garbage.” Hell, Sports Illustrated got smacked down only because some intuitive readers questioned some of the articles. Humans, we, are losing our ability to think deeply and morally about all things like this. Which is JUST where the billionaire autocrats want us. We are sheep being led to a slaughter we cannot yet even imagine. But it’s coming. “Whether we like it or not doesn’t matter.” Apparently.
Jordan Peterson said we must learn how to write in order to learn how to think. Some of us will continue to think, and it will pay off.
I am, therefore I think.
indeed
Kert! Totally agree! I actually mention in this article how technology is the great “fire” -- it can help is or burn us
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-beauty-of-good-and-evil
The elites are releasing AI into the world. It’s up to us whether we use it or we let it uses us.
The elites are using it and hyping it up. And I'm not sure we can stop their efforts to use us and control us.
Re: a machine like ChatGPT producing content through associating words from the multi giagbytes of content it scans through in seconds.
Yes, it puts a piece of content together. But it doesn't have an impulse to create content or a goal in doing so. One then has to question the goals of the people providing the training material for the machine
Beyond the fire, the Phoenix.
Are we really "losing our ability to think deeply and morally about things"? A broad sweeping glance at human history tells me that we have ALWAYS had a tenuous relationship with thinking deeply and morally about things. When commerce was used to justify the kidnapping, torture, rape and dehumanisation my people from the 1600s onwards and a whole field of science grew out of it from the 1700s onwards, dedicated to maintaining racial hierarchy (talk less of religion), I would say morality and deep thinking was lacking then. When clergy justified dehumanisation and racial segregation in as late as 1970s in US and 1990s in South Africa, I would say morality and deep thinking was lacking then too. There are many many other instances from antiquity until today of moral depravity and shallow thinking. I'm incredibly unconvinced that it worse now.
I don’t disagree at all with anything you say here—it’s all so so true and so sad and so insane. If anything, perhaps the terms used in my response could be interpreted differently—“losing one’s ability to think deeply and morally about things” (which is still where I think we are and are moving closer to, as a species, generalization though it still is), should not be mistaken for “CHOOSING to not think deeply or morally about things.” The examples you site are examples of man’s never-ceasing inhumanity to man (“man” used intentionally). THOSE “men” are adept at justification, manipulation, power-mongering, and cult-like persuasion. Moral depravity and shallow thinking all, yes. And as you factor in tools (like technology) and habits (like a lack of deep reading, love for deep books and history, an all-too-easy way to select the kind of news you want to hear on the internet, in short clips no less), the minds of the masses are losing skills and abilities to “think deeply and morally.” Losing them out of lack of use—or worse, apathy. Or even worse yet, an active choice to not think or feel compassion toward others. This is also why I’m worried that AI will be used as a tool towards terror when immoral leaders (men) learn how to wield it for their benefit. Would you agree with this way of thinking about it all?
Yes, I understand where you are coming from.
How do you think today (and the future) compares to the European Dark Ages or the time before The West had the printing press? At that time powerful men were also controlling knowledge production.
Also, I wonder if the decimation of indigenous ways of knowledge via colonisation has also disconnected many from the ability or access to the tools to develop "deep thinking".
Well it really does get worse before it gets better. It's sort like a beavers life 1 damn thing
after another.
Der Ukraine-ANGRIFFS-Krieg ist wieder so eine SCHLACHTBANK! Wir alle wissen darob, sind jedoch zu feige und korrupt den Dreckschweinen auf ihre schmutzigen Finger zu hauen.
The "elites" have been laying this path for a very long time, back to Babylon or even before, perhaps. The entire education and allopathic "health care" systems were designed by the cabal, and of course all the entertainment , news, and historical narratives are of their creation. Discerning reality through all the noise is the main challenge.
Humanity has been domesticated to serve their needs and will be culled when technology is able to fully service them. That's their plan, anyway. But I'm pretty certain it will be derailed as synthetic systems of great complexity are ultimately fragile, and exploiting one weak link can take it all down.
"Nothing can stop us now". Richard Day - The Day Tapes -1969 on YT.
ai doesn't have the feeling that we have when we write..... Our brains will turn to mush of we do not use them!!!
But was that good writing or was that writing that was pedestrian? Isn't that why the quote of "1 million monkeys with Typewriters and Shakespeare" resonant?
It may well come upon us—but I firmly believe that the soul of the human writer will never be copied (emulated possibly, but a true and sensitive reader will notice the lack of true soul in any genre).
It lacks human warmth. No one will ever truly connect to a piece of writing generated by something that doesn't know what it is to love or to suffer.
oh I dunno - people aren't all that perceptive (consider the once & future president of orange hue...and people have read & loved soulless garbage since cuneiform days)
Sadly true
MEOWWW !!!
Yes, it's like listening to a carefully surveyed-for- buttons Hillary Clinton speech. No human warmth!
More like listening to a word salad from El Jefe Del Mar A Lardo.
Thank you @TCinLA! We cannot even imagine how AI will become weaponized. But it will. And to have HIM at the governmental levers at such a young and impressionistic stage in AI development is unfathomable. When other’s talk about his next potential tenure as “the end of democracy,” well, with AI as a weapon at his disposal, his path toward absolute power and control becomes inevitable.
WOW I hope you're wrong bit I wouldn't put it past him.
I’m sorry you weren’t equipped to understand his speech. It is actually quite nuanced and may of the speeches not at all “dark and hateful,” which was what they “were” according to most media outlets that one listens to instead of hearing things straight from him and trying to understand.
No, this isn’t sarcasm, haha. Have a nice day.
Maybe you should read:
https://www.amazon.com/Win-Bigly-Persuasion-World-Matter/dp/0735219710
...to make sense of what seems to be a word salad to you
You don't know me, do you?
I wanted to ask: "should I?"
Then I read your last post and got my answer: there is absolutely no reason why I would want to.
[That] got the leftard w0keb0tzzz involved in the discussion.
I love it!
To be fair, the leftard w0keb0tz are probably just AI chat bots!
You just had to drag your little fears into this with the bad Hillary Clinton simile. Are you using AI (Absent Intelligence) to look for needed human warmth? Try Elon and his X to get all cozy.
You just had to PROJECT your mental dysfunctions, you just had to DEFLECT and GASLIGHT.
You are going to take a ton of crap for using HRC, but the point is valid. She's a perfectly warm human, betrayed by her speech writers at almost every turn.
Clinton is a sociopath and a liar/manipulator. The D-party cargo cult zombies are lost deep within their echo chambers, propaganda, brainwashing.
Aren’t YOU the fun one at the party.
Thank you. This is the best observation so far. This is EXACTLY spot on.
HAL was pretty convincing, and that was 50 years ago.
They will if the machine generating the writing is pulling from the work of millions of people who know what it is to love or suffer. Plagiarism has certainly moved people in the past…it will do so when a machine does it as well.
Lovely thinking Kristina, those who read beyond the gutter press tend to be discerning...
Give it time. We used to be able to spot trolls and bots but they’ve gotten better - - well, let’s say more effective in disguise- - over time.
AI is too stupid to solve a CAPTCHA puzzle. The problem is not that AI is so good, it's that we accept too little. It's that too many people endeavor to speak the usual platitudes rather than develop their own thoughts. For such people AI is a wonder. For the rest of us, it is a bad joke.
https://sezwhom.substack.com/p/this-is-a-test
Don't give it time to get embedded! It needs to have a stake driven through its heart. We are retarded in our common sense human intelligence the last thing we need is AI.
We live in hope.
I am very much afraid we have lost our ability to detect the garbage as our societies become zombified by electronic gadgetry and AI where humanist interfacing dies a cold and lonely death.
You’re right but the thing with AI (or so I’m told) is that it gets smarter and better with time. Right now it doesn’t produce very high quality content. It might be indiscernible in a couple years.
Animation and CGI have made huge leaps in the past few decades, and yet no matter how realistic they get, you won't mistake them for real life. I think the same applies with AI. There will always be an uncanny valley.
Google’s latest phone feature they are touting HIGHLY (as if it is a good thing—and again, something we aren’t questioning) is the ability to alter photos to make it look as if everyone is smiling, or jumping higher, or cut out of the picture altogether because they were in the background and not wanted in the photo. THOSE photos are not real! But they get taken as real—‘cuz that’s the point. Scott, your faith, though I would want to be one to believe it as well, is faulty. Humans are quickly losing the ability and skill (and certainly the energy and desire) to discern reality and truth from manipulation.
I have faith in both writers and in readers. I'm sorry that you do not. I do not find anything productive in doomerism.
Great points here, but I'm still unconvinced that humans are losing their ability to discern reality and truth at a higher rate than ever before. I think the 24/7 newscycle most of us see, including social media, makes the loss more obvious, all at once. History features some true dumbasses who did the same thing. Still, it's upsetting.
So true. Watching the trailers for "Masters of the Air," in which all the aerial scenes are done CGI after watching "Battle of Britain," where all the aerial scenes were done with actual people flying actual airplanes - the CGI is so obvious because airplanes never fly that smoothly and uniformly (as I learned too well, taking photos of them from other airplanes). CGI is always obvious, no matter the topic, since too often the person creating it has no real idea of what the "reality" is of what they're doing - like ChatGPT trying to "write what it knows."
it's early days
CGI has been on the scene for 65 years. It’s been 10,000 years since the agricultural revolution. If your definition of “never” means “in my lifetime”, then you have a maybe at best. But “never” is a very long time.
I disagree wholeheartedly. People, apparently much less perceptible than you, ARE being fooled daily with AI, CGI, green screens and other high tech methods. Ever watch the 1997 movie Wag the Dog? Go ahead and claim it's all "fiction". They've been fooling people for the past 30 YEARS, at least, and have gotten EXTREMELY GOOD in the past decade.
https://youtu.be/Ws-mhts2KlA?si=R6yRgbGI2flRMJRP
What is that video about?
5th Generation Warfare - Psy-ops
Here's a 3yr old US.Army recruitment video. "Could you be a Psychological Operations Soldier?"
https://youtu.be/PC7mFkxNT7g?si=aM8lfvGOdDKE7gKS
Late to the party here... I agree with @Scott Hines - AI's reasoning is on a knife's edge and there are no boundaries and no real understanding of a conversation or material it regurgitates. I would argue that original content will become more sought after and more in demand as the AI material becomes mainstream.
We are told that it gets smarter and better with time. It is a good marketing ploy.
Came here to say exactly this. The syntax and structure of ChatGPT produced content is repetitive and obvious. Sure, it will probably develop enough to the point where it can recreate human nuance, but not at this point in time (in my opinion).
Just wait until next month, Mia. It will.
THEN what?
Of course it will. And yes, soon. I agree with the people protesting it, with the writers who fear their jobs. Unfortunately technology has always driven our society because money has always driven our society. Most people are too scared to do anything about it so we instead succumb to the loss. What would your solution be?
Is there a solution? I’m not certain there is. I think it’s more along the lines of cultivating a relationship with people who have the ability to “see things as they really are,” then make the necessary adaptations together (which sometimes means resistance), that serve to keep the embers of morals, ethics, compassion, kindness, and love glowing. For that to happen, we don’t need any technology. Just good old fashion connection.
Actually, in this binary view is where the folly usually lies.
When one sees things as they are, they also begin to embrace the inherent duality in everything, and that the duality in everything is where the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are never separate but are always intertwined with one another.
When one cannot see things for what they are, however, they begin to employ a subjective view of the world. From then on the common view becomes a binary view in which the object of observation is deemed as good or bad relative to the position from which it is being examined.
For instance, modern science will have you believe that viruses are bad. But in a different context, examining transitions and mutations that led to development of our species, all of the sudden viruses are deemed as essential integrative pieces of a large (w)holistic puzzle.
So here. Technology and AI, in essence, are neither good nor bad. It's what humans do with them, and most importantly, the underlying awareness that guides their usage or lack thereof.
And herein lies the rub.
https://kingofhearts.substack.com/p/to-think-or-not-to-be
Agree completely. And man being man, he shall always find ways to hurt others, including non-human forms, with the aforementioned “rub.” It’s all in the rub.
Folks living in decentralized units not exceeding the Dunbar's #.
{...Just good old fashion connection...} ...of genuine humans, not contaminated by MSM, plasmids or graphene swirling in their bloodstream.
Darwin explained the biological basis of human morals*, social cooperation and altruism. More recent cognitive scientists discovered the areas of the brain [enlarged in modern humans aprx 50,000 years ago] that enable INHIBITION of non-cooperative/non-altruistic personality traits. Evolutionary psychologists determined that contemplative-renunciate religion was kind of like a software upgrade that emerged after the Bronze Age collapse that increased INHIBITION and enabled widespread social cooperation in the increasingly complex agrarian city states.
Each failure of an old social form in cultural evolution results in new adaptations that increase survival. The transition to a new social form is usually messy, violent and chaotic (Bronze Age collapse, Industrial revolution and so forth).
-----
* Peter Richerson, PhD ecology, UC Davis, quotes Darwin (as an example of group selection hypothesis and the neurobiology of sympathy in "primeval times"):
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were
[--->] always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good,
would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
Well said. I wholeheartedly agree.
The only way I want to "connect" with brainwashed "leftsts" that endlessly regurgitate mindless, cheap slogans is to tell them the truth: they are shallow, uninformed, low IQ assholes.
And yes, they will probably be mostly replaced with AI b0t scriptz.
And you know that how?
Wow, again, you must be a joy at parties.
Maybe 20% of an audience is sophisticated enough and pay close enough attention to detect the tone of AI and as our dumbing down continues that percentage will fall and AI will get better. We’ll be reading it every day and will mostly not notice.
In a world full of AI it isn't about the writing, it's about the Writing.
In conclusion, remember that writing isn't just the words, it's the passion.
-- AI drivel is hard to miss.
AI will excel at using subjective-emotive narratives and rhetoric to manipulate readers, like a sociopathic liar on steroids.
AI will have a much harder time with rational and meta-rational narratives, beyond superficial jargon.
It reminds me of that line in the first Jurassic Park...
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should...”
I am not against it, I just don't think the people in charge of building it are as smart as they think they are. And yet we will all have to live with the consequences of their possibly criminal incompetence. We know they lied and stole IP, they have admitted to that, so I am not feeling warm and fuzzy about these flim-flam tech bros and their bloated egos.
10,000 BC: "This stone thing you're showing me is terrible. It'll never cut a hide much less bring down a running animal."
200,000 bc
I als took issue with the quote about how wonderful the world has been since the Industrial Revolution. Where instead of slaving away in one’s own farm fields, one could slave away in a factory or coal mine for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, again, for the comfort of the elite. For decades until labor unions. Which initiated their own problematic rise.
And to say NOTHING about what actually happened to farming and FOOD production!
“Prior to the industrial revolution, more than two-thirds of a country’s labor force had to work in agriculture to be able to feed its entire population. Since the automation of agriculture, that share has fallen to less than 5%. And yet we have abundant food and more jobs to do than ever. Today, many people have the kind of work and prosperity that their great-grandparents could only have imagined.“
We are EATING WORSE THAN WE EVER HAVE BEFORE, eating mass-produced, industrialized, processed pseudo-food substitutes and POISONS, which have destroyed our health AND environment;
And…THE FARMERS THAT ARE LEFT ARE WORSE OFF THAN EVER BEFORE, barely making ends meet, eaten out of business by ruthless industrialized BIG-FARMA “farming” and the government lobbyists and policies that symbiotically live with the industrial farms.
YES, all caps, I AM YELLING!!!!!!!!!!
Well said.
Thank you
I've been part of and around the AI writing community for a while, and I can't agree that all of the work that comes from AI, or is powered by it, is garbage. There is garbage in the mix, as there was in print before AI came along. (Okay, there probably is more garbage in the mix.) These machines are becoming better and better at producing high-quality writing, especially with good prompting (ChatGPT) or improved features (Sudowrite).
Human deskilling as writing becomes easier, now that is a concern. New writers not doing the drudge work that allowed us to tell good writing from bad writing, now that is a concern too. And a huge imbalance with regard to income (as described here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/opinion/audiobooks-spotify-streaming-algorithm.html) is also a big concern. But the quality of AI writing in itself won't be a solid argument for long. If it is in late 2023, it won't be by mid-2024.
When people write from their own experience it shows. The brain is a super fancy network, from a physiological standpoint, (and that's without counting the inhabiting spirit). Right now, AI doesn't 'experience'. Maybe someday it will come close, but that's probably a long way off.
I think the greater challenge will be in long reads or deeply researched articles where writers will need to cite more sources than before. Or, they might fall into a trap where the source is really an AI that aggregated suspect information.
It's going to be a big change for sure. Glad I read from many trusted and maybe not government-trusted sources to get information about a variety of topics.
I agree with you, but I also agree that "now" is an important qualifier here. The technology will improve over time, and that is what concerns and depresses me at the moment. Whether or not there turns out to be a hard limit, like the speed of light, beyond which it will never be able to go remains to be seen.
Thing is, do the users of the garbage know it's garbage and if they do, do they care?
Working in the GenAI sector, I can say that AI-generated texts are a mere starting point. The whole thing about "voice" is that it cannot nail, and when it does, the risk of turning out to be tone-deaf is very real. I use GPT (not Bard - that's just Google rinse and repeat) for brainstorming, but when it comes to creation, you better write for yourself. However, an interesting use of GPT is to critique your writing, which I've found to be useful.
How dare you write: “ Whether you’re for or against this development ultimately doesn’t matter.” It DOES matter, and it SHOULD matter. Saying that gives a moral pass to technocrats like Musk and Altman—and all their ilk. It’s akin to what was said by the moral skeptics after the race for the nuclear bomb, “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.” It is obvious one of the major characteristics of our human species is that we cannot learn from the past. [btw, this post response was not written with any AI influence!]
Couldn't agree more. Finally a comment not praising this BS. This was so ridiculously optimistic that it made me want to puke.
It almost reeks of apologistic pablum.
“Here, take this. And trust me. It tastes horrible but in the long run, you’ll come to like it. Whether you’re for it or against it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s doing it.” Even as it harms you.
Like big p-harm-a drugs. It tastes like poison, but poison is good! (ahem).
What a wonderful euphemism for mRNA-shots and the current government's and WHO's propaganda-machinery for the world-wide gene-therapeutic interventions...🤣🤣🤣
IT companies typically don't commit suicide by making public statements that their business model is wrong.
What substack is saying is that the don't want to do censorship, they want free speech and to give readers/subscribers choice so that the "market" will sort out what writing is best.
Generally, the moral panics of the "left" are irrelevant to that model.
BINGO !!
But, if a service or product of a global corporation is widely accepted and sought-after by huge swaths of the populace, they have full freedom to make ANY moronic public statement (including future implementation of any abhorrent plans) without having to fear that their stock-value changes even in the slightest way. THAT is (terrifying) power !!
"How dare you."
Is that Greta???
You should have used some of the time you spent learning "woke" and new age babble to study the ugly reality of silicon valley.
Substack is just using standard tech marketing jargon here.
:-) :-) I'm laughing because I am normally averse to being emotionally manipulated but I was taken in by this article, probably because my essays are all about human hope and connection and it was what I needed to hear. But Kert is right, that one sentence about my opinion on the subject not mattering did cause me discomfort. It certainly wasn't a very nice thing to say!
I guess you both will enjoy my full comment on this piece of trash published by Substack. I addressed this part and also a few others, but ended up getting tired before finishing all the points I had to disagree with. This is maybe the worst take on IA I"ve seen the whole year. And amazingly, it comes by the end of the year, and is so not updated in many aspects.
My feelings too
I'm astonished to see that the Chief Writing Officer of Substack isn't even making a case for writers getting paid in the AI age. We're all supposed to live on "relationships," I guess. They used to call it "exposure."
Exactly! The guy talked about social media like it would be the new bitcoin or something. Sickening.
incoherent gibberish. people make money on substack with paid subscriptions.
substack prefers that the "market" decides what people want to read, not creepy leftist censors that are addicted to endlesss outrage and moral panics.
in that context, AI is, as he said, irrelevant.
I was referring to professional writing in general, not to Substack specifically (where paid subscribers are less than 10% of the readership BTW). Hamish McKenzie seems unconcerned that writers will be paid close to zero for content creation in the future, even though Substack is styled as a "home for great writers."
incoherent gibberish. substack gives writers the capability of charging for subscriptions. if your writing is garbage/boring/whatever you probably won't have paid subscribers.
What do you write? You seem to hate anything progressive or different and talk in tired old anti leftist tropes. Time to wake up and see reality out there.
I share your fury, but I don’t think that was the point of the comment. It means “whether you want it or not doesn’t change whether AI will take over the landscape”.
But I agree that it is infuriating that society at large has not been willing to take the time to have the conversations about the implications of such an abrupt and unregulated use of this kind of technology.
I saw his point Jason—but thank you for the elementary school lesson. That one sentence is exactly what autocrats and dictators and fascists want for the populace to believe: in order to make “what is coming” more palatable if not inevitable. In the end, it’s about money, power, and control. It’s ALWAYS about money, power, and control. And when you control language, how and when and by whom it is used, you control it all. (George Orwell RIP please—I have a feeling he’s turning over in his grave saying “See, what did I tell you??? But you didn’t listen.”)
I honestly can’t stop thinking about Orwell ...
Orwell was a critic of leftist totalitarianism (Stalin).
Large parts of the “left” are now totalitarian. Brainwashed by worse propaganda than this nonsensical tech marketing jargon.
There is very little the real left now. It's mainstream middle of the way politics. Not the wonderfully exciting 'left' of old. That was Aabout the people, the commoners, determining their lives, rather than the capitalistic monster that we have to endure now.
My people and my human
Your condescending tone is entirely unwarranted and unnecessary. I was not talking down in any way. I pointed out something that seemed to be taken a different way in what you posted. And in rereading your original comment I still don’t see what I mentioned acknowledged. If that upsets you, express it like a grown adult and consider the way your own words present your ideas rather than lashing out at anybody who dares read what you wrote the exact way you wrote it.
Yes it is always about money, power, and control. But this is not just a fight against autocrats. This is a battle against individual greed as well. Which is why it does not matter whether or not you agree with it; the forces of individual greed at scale in the hyper-individualistic society we have already built makes it a losing battle.
And to be abundantly clear, it is a battle I still fight in daily, knowing the end result is futile.
But you're wrong dude. If you're against AI, don't think it is futile to be so. This tech isn't a god-given gospel or something like that. It isn't cheap. It isn't easily replicable. It takes a lot of money, A LOT of computing power, and A LOT of near-slave labor in far away digital sweatshops parcing bad data (to prep the algorithm "meals") to make a single iteration of any AI. This could easily be banned or regulated, if so we wish, and many wish.
Many wish, and I am among them. But I also know many more wish for exactly what we are building, because they refuse to see the damage. Just like we do with food production. Just like we did for decades and largely still do wit global warming. Just like we did with the introduction of social media as suicide rates skyrocketed. And even if we ban it for commercial use, governments will still develop it behind closed doors and leverage it in ways we’ll remain oblivious to, because they put themselves at risk to not do so.
When I say it is futile I do not mean I wont keep fighting. But im not going to pretend to be oblivious to the historical patterns of humanity either.
In the subspace of AI writing, the tools to defrock the priest are still with us; but it is not general outrage or philosophic opposition that will expose the toxic babble it now creates. An "innocent example" is gently derided on my post recent "Division."
If humans are going to control culture despite AI, then they must subject scurvy examples of AI to a persistently heavy dose of irony, debilitating critique, and serious deconstruction. Otherwise, the mass of Internet readers and viewers will easily succumb to the Newspeak of AI.
Didn’t want to be condescending at all. So my apologies. As long as you, as well, see how I might take your attempt at “mansplaining” his intentions to me, as condescending too. We are on the same team, Jason. For Hamish to write “whether we are for it or against it doesn’t matter” could have been written by any dictator at any of their moments in the sun.
Fair enough. Perhaps the idea of “the march isn’t stopping” can be shared in a way that doesn’t allow a subtext of blindly embracing it rather than trying to shape it.
I would say there is a place for both the conversation of “this technology is coming at us like a steamroller” alongside “these are all of the societal problems we should expect with it and should therefore not be complacent in its arrival”. Fight it. And also don’t be caught off guard as it gets its foothold. We can both accept that a missile is inbound so we can take the necessary precautions AND object to its deployment/further use.
A perfect response--thank you! Totally agree.
how soon until AI chides us for our childish passion
You're both right. Agree to agree.
And America has all!
Cuz we’re the lucky ones, right?
“How dare you”.
Is that you, Greta?
I share your fury. But whenever was the common person given a chance to make a decision about 'advances' in technology. I am old enough to remember protests about the 'bomb'. The nuclear bomb. The protests made no difference. The technology was adopted and kept.
agreed Kert... as humans (imperfect, natural beings) it’s clearly not possible for us to comprehend or even see the full scale of ramifications here so this article is, at best, complacent optimism...
"at best" (and you're too kind)
“Complacent optimism.” I love that Sara! Spot on!!!
Thank you for this reply (from someone who quitted a very-well-[aid job as a protest against ai)
You are brave for the act of protest, thank you. I see it and honor it. We need more like you in our world—because it DID matter to you!
What it's saying is "Resistance Is Futile" the motto of the Borg.
I totally agree. Well said.
On first reading, I was wondering why you were all fire and brimstone and then I went up and did read that paragraph again, including that laughable idea that it is "proven" - which to any thinking programmer is a good laugh.
Although I don't quite understand your reference to the nukular topic (Could you maybe elaborate what you mean there?)
Greta, is that you?????
So much is basically wrong with your blather, but you are correct that the OP is little more than standard silicon valley tech marketing jargon.
You are wrong about what matters. You are confusing what matters to YOU and the unhumane nature of technological and neoliberal disruption in general, which your PERSONAL VALUES and concern trolling won’t change, at all.
The human species exists because it evolved the ability to learn, cooperatively.
You yourself have probably lost the ability to learn to transcend your confirmation biases, but that doesn’t mean other people are stuck being brainwashed by propaganda.
I don't believe this is true, at least for young writers. For established careerists, yes AI will prove to be useful, but that's because we have already "paid our dues" through difficult jobs that AI promises to destroy.
While painful, the jobs of interns writing repetitive earnings reports, transcribing interviews for the boss, or aggregating information are already going the way of the dinosaurs. Those jobs are how many young people (think 20-25 years old) get their foot in the door at major organizations. They are often rewarded with titles like Reporter, Staff Writer or Creative Associate, which go a long way towards building the infrastructure of a career.
My first job out of college was transcribing interviews, then I cut B-roll, and eventually I was promoted to produce a 3-minute internet television show. Eventually, layoffs got me, but that experience was critical to parlay into another internship that eventually led to my first full-time job and the beginnings of a career.
In our AI-driven world, I would not have been needed to transcribe those interviews or cut the B-roll, so I doubt I would have ever gotten the opportunity to learn from mentors and bolster my portfolio.
Apologies for being a wet blanket, but I think AI optimists tend to be mid-career and forget about the jobs they had to do when they were 22.
23 year old here. I can’t get a writing job as is, despite two degrees and an internship under my belt. The last thing I want is AI taking what’s left of the starter jobs 😂
You are correct. The only people who don't fear the impact of AI are either like you said those who are established or those technocrats that will profit from it. As for the rest of us, we should fight against it's use in replacing human creatives. It's a soul-less technology that ultimately will be allowed to repress and destroy human to human connections.
This established author used the fact I am the most successful author at my publisher (a smallish place that takes the time to try and do things right) to get them to put a clause in their author's contract in the section where the author certifies the manuscript is their sole work, that they will now certify that no AI writing tool was used in production of the manuscript at any point in development.
As it should be. Most Illustration and Cartoonist organizations have also adapted such policies. Unfortunately though, there are some trade organizations (like the AIGA) that haven't and are allowing graphic designers to figuratively cut their own throats with AI use. One would also think that the various middle men businesses (like Creative Circle) who make their living from placing creatives into jobs would also take a stand against this but alas that are only helping to speed up their own demise.
100% spot on E.R. Thank you!!!
Well said Kevin. You’re not a wet-blanket, but a teller of truth. AI optimists can’t see the forest for the trees. They are enamored with this slick and sexy new toy—plus they have likely personally invested. It’s a venture capitalistic swamp where, once again, only the billionaire-class can profit while the rest of us wallow in poverty—a poverty that includes emotional, psychological, moral, and cognitive poverty.
There is so much waste, inefficiency and nonsense in the intellectual machinery of jmost organizations that AI could potentially fix that would devastate the white collar workforce far beyond “writers”.
If the AIs were only trained on out-of-copyright or freely released works it wouldn't be so bad, but the way many (all?) are trained on copyrighted books, artworks and so on (without permission) is morally and legally dubious.
Before you know it the meatsacks will be ground up as a fuel source for the AI generators to churn out endless content to fill social media platforms with interacting AI chatbots that Heaven-send every human (that hasn't been ground up for energy). Ah, then we'll be sorry.
that science fiction has already been written...
Say it LOUDER Karl!!! Spot on.
But apparently it doesn’t matter if we are for it or against it.
"With a one-sentence prompt and 20 seconds of thought, one can now get ChatGPT to turn out an essay that rivals something an experienced writer might have taken days to produce." Yes, this must be why I've had three clients come to me in the past month with stuff their techbros had "written" using ChatGPT, asking me to rewrite it because it's unusable.
"If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, AI will be a jumbo jet."
I agree. Cumbersome, bloated, unsustainable and terrible for the planet.
It has its uses. Like getting people out of Integral memorization. :P
Well I hope it works out this way but as is my want (see name of magazine) I am skeptical! As it is, a great deal of reader attention is taken up by substandard fare, readers who are not professional media critics and may not realize that high quality content has been displaced by low quality content. For want of a formal term, call it the BuzzFeed effect.
It is not that AI can't help already excellent creators be more creative. It is that it will also help the mass of people who aren't particularly good at creating. And would not have even tried before AI, pump out more and more mediocre sludge, greatly increasing the "noise to signal" ratio in the wrong direction for the people who are talented writers but struggle to stand out.
There are tens of thousands of talented writers and tens of thousands of companies selling good products who never got the attention or sales they deserved because they were not at the right place and the right time.
The volume of content being put out in content channels thanks to AI augmentation will make finding that right place and right time for great creators far harder, IMHO.
I truly hope I am wrong. I would love to see a creative revolution powered by AI, I just don't believe it's going to happen. I believe AI will be an extension of the trend that saw thousands of newspapers and magazines across the US shut down in last 30 years. I personally worked at three of them. I personally have had an editor I worked with kill himself after that happened.
For me, anyone proclaiming a glorious and widespread creative future is going to have to bring some receipts before I buy into the latest iteration of techno utopianism.
So deeply reflective and honest. Thank you!
Sadly, and I know you know this already, you are not wrong. There are no receipts save for those generated by AI itself. We cannot even grasp the consequences of what has already been unleashed let alone who will come to be blamed when those consequences are fully realized.
Kert, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a bit of a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag you all when I get it up.
Thank you, Art! I’ll look forward to it. Again, I agree completely with you re: the initial intentions of the founders of the Substack platform. I was an early adopter as a reader and writer. And I trust as well they are strong enough to read, listen to, and respond appropriately to constructive criticism. As a “for profit” organization specializing within the digital landscape, Substack is susceptible to the same provocative promises of AI as any other capitalistic company. But because they make their money from the efforts of their contributing writers (us!) who charge for subscriptions (I don’t, btw--never will!), it also behooves them to be 100% transparent in how they utilize AI in their organization. I have no doubt AI “has written” innumerable blog post and blog responses--on a platform the founders want to highlight as a space for human connection, they better quickly put safeguards, policies, and procedures in place when AI takes over their own brand so that I can trust that when I send a “like” to a writer, it’s to a person with a beating heart.
BTW Kert you might find this episode of our podcast of particular interest. Kentaro is both an expert technologist and a Buddhist who sees the downsides of techno-utopianism. He's also just agreed to become a regular contributor and advisor to The Technoskeptic. https://technoskeptic.substack.com/p/geek-heresy-author-kentaro-toyama
The censorship-industrial-complex is attacking substack, again:
https://www.racket.news/p/tireless-busybodies-again-target
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Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians.
There is a lot I don't agree with Taibbi on. But on this he is 100% correct. The hell with Katz' censorious impulses.
I have yet to see any "utopia" from anything created by the Silly Con Valley bros, other than a computer makes "all writing is rewriting" easier to do.
TCinLA, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag everyone who took time to write a reply when I get it up.
Yes, no one should take me as an opponent of Hamish for my disagreement with him regarding who all is allowed onto Substack.
Thanks for covering this topic! I was about to write about this in my own comment, but it was already too long and exhausting. As I've seen someone else say: if everyone can "make" (prompt) dozens of their favorite franchise "fanbase movie/book/work", no one will watch/read any of it other than their own. And it will all be bland, bad, and shallow.
What a wonderfully thoughtful post. Sadly, you are spot on. I'm ashamed to admit this, but, since AI has allowed anybody in their dog to write a novel, and publish it on Amazon, I have stopped reading new authors. I used to love to explore authors I had never read before or who were new to the industry. But now it seems as if any new author I read, has turned out a crap nove--most likely generated by AI. I just don't have the time to suss out the horrible content from the good content. Hence, I now only read novelists whom I have read in the past, and no they turn out quality product. This is really sad, and as a creative myself, I do feel bad about not reading new authors anymore. Before AI, I would get the occasional poorly written novel. Now, it seems as if every new author I read has cranked out less than stellar work.
Vicki, between your thoughtful response and the likes I got for what I considered a throwaway comment, I’m persuaded that I struck a nerve and I should expand my comment out to a short editorial on The Technoskeptic. It is chilling that the environment has caused you to stop looking at new writers. That is precisely what the disinformation tactic known as "flooding the zone with s*&t" is designed to accomplish. People just accept bad work as the norm and stop looking, OR go back to relying on traditional gatekeepers of content, which is against the whole point of Substack, to break out of those channels!
This is where people who laud AI don't understand the greatest limiting factor of people doing bad things with any tool has always been they're not that capable. I've worked against terrorists, a lot of them don't pull much off in the way of harm simply because they're idiots.
AI takes that limitation away. People think of AI and terrorism when it comes to designing bioweapons, and fair enough--that IS a scary worst case scenario. AI-writing boosters are ignoring what happens when hacks get hold of something that elevates their writing from crap to mediocre-to-decent range. There are a lot more hacks with nothing interesting to say who are would-be writers than there are terrorists. They will crowd out good but unknown voices.
None of us would be here if we didn’t think Substack was a great platform, and Hamish as a founder has done us all a service. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the way AI will play out when it comes to whether it is a net boon or detraction to writing. I’ll tag everyone who took time to write a reply when I get it up.
>>That is precisely what the disinformation tactic known as "flooding the zone with s*&t" is designed to accomplish. People just accept bad work as the norm and stop looking, OR go back to relying on traditional gatekeepers of content, <<
Thank you for your detailed response. To be clear: NO ONE does MY gatekeeping for me; I make up my own mind about what I read and don't read. My only point was that I no longer have time to sift through the fiction writers who only see AI as a quick way to make a fast buck by publishing a s**t-ton of books and hoping that if they flood the market with enough books, enough people will buy.
I am not at all opposed to AI; I use it in my buisness to improve efficiencies. However, I do NOT use it in my writing, podcasting, or video production.
Just wanted to clarify. You seeemd to take my comment to imply that I am, somehow, a non-thinking, follow-the-pack person. It is helpful not to make judgements when one does not know enough about a person.
Vicki, didn't say you are a follow-the-pack person. I said AI has chilled the environment, which according to you was making it too hard to sort the crap from the good writing in Amazon books. The pollution effect of AI has already manifested in personal content choices.
As AI makes this problem worse across a lot of channels, not just Kindle books, the problem of drowning in bad content will become more severe--and here is another example of how AI will be used to pollute news channels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGdkrc9i2Y--I'm interviewing the CounterCloud person now.
A lot of people in general, which is not to say you in particular, will be strapped for time and feel compelled to rely on traditional media gatekeepers. If that is what the median content consumer does, Substack as a platform, but also democracy in general, may be in trouble.
So forgive this is a repeat for some of you. If you liked or commented on my response to Hamish's piece, I expanded it to a full length article including some audio from AI and a look at AI generated propaganda I'd been working on. https://technoskeptic.substack.com/p/is-ai-an-opportunity-for-writers More recently, was pleased by recent news that NY Times (though it doesn't have credibility it once had) has sued OpenAI for training ChatGPT on copyrighted material. We always strongly suspected it was going on, and the suit may give creators some more leverage. Still, NY Times is not a charity, they're only going to stand up for NY Times content. That means the AI models are going to be even more dependent on training data created by people who can't afford to launch a massive lawsuit. That's everything that you and I write. So at best, the NY Times action is only a delay.
The "automation of agriculture", i.e. agribusiness, has led to monocultures, folks not knowing where their food comes from, supply chain issues, still many folks going hungry at the end of the day and many other problems. As with all "advances" we humans create we would be wise to hold it loosely and with humility, understanding we are but one being on this expansive planet.
Thanks for bringing this up. Another terrible point lofted by the article. There is so much bad stuff here, I couldn't address it all in my own comment.
(again)
"creatives" and the PMC (Ehrenreich) are products of the managerial corporate-state.
now the globalist elites are eating their children (the "creatives")
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MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
The censorship-industrial-complex is attacking substack, again:
https://www.racket.news/p/tireless-busybodies-again-target
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Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians that are addicted to endless outrage and moral panics.
Say it loud and proud anne! And never, ever stop. Amen.
We have finally found a way to circumvent copyright, evade plagiarism accusations, and get rid of the nasty competition of millions of real, thinking, intelligent writers. All with one simple act of connecting dumb machines (hardware), adding one simple dumb software (harvesting, extracting and blending all together), and one simple grammar adjustment dumb software.
Bonus: enforced unification of writing and understanding, removing the communicative function of the language.
Next stage: disbanding all schools and holding teachers liable for disrupting the operation of artificial intelligence.
I enjoy your satire!
But lets remember AI is not so easy to produce. Takes money, lots of computing power, and lots of near slave labor in digital sweatshops to parce bad data. It was made so accessible maybe so that everyone feels like it's free, but it isn't. It can be fought. It can be banned. It can be regulated.
Oh, my, that was a cry for help to save the humanity, not satire ;-)
I started a reply to your comment, but it turned out a bit too long:
https://thepathishere.substack.com/p/ai-progress-or-disaster
You still need to generate, curate, edit and discriminate with the AI generated stuff. I think demand for people who can think will go through the roof.
It won't. Because it takes only one (or half) thinking person per mid-sized corporation to edit AI stuff on a daily basis. Even AI can edit AI stuff, today. So, sorry to burst your bubble, but our bosses will keep the title of "thinking person of the company" to themselves. Even if they're not the brightest, as we very well know they aren't.
....and after the 'thinking' people are no longer useful?
Correct!!!
Orwell’s “1984” presciently foretold ALL of this. It’s no longer a work of fiction. Demand for people who can think “only what we want them to think” will rise. But never go through the roof. We feeble-minded humans are not asking “who are the they” who are leading this AI juggernaut. That’s problematic.
Yes it's interesting all this but I find it quite terrifying. I don't like to think I am a luddite but I supposedly am. I don't have a TV or mobile phone been getting by alright until now.
Texting and mobile phones have been the downfall of human relationships. I literally have friends whom I have known for decades-- I was even maid of honor and several of their weddings-- who refused to meet in person or even have a telephone conversation. All they want to do is text or email. It's so sad that people in society have decided they are far too busy to put in the work friendships. My mom, who has sadly passed about 6 years ago, had the right idea: she refused to text anyone, because she said if the relationship was important enough, they would make the effort to have a real conversation via phone or in person. Man, I miss her.
Nothing wrong with being a luddite. I think they are, to their core, more genuinely happy and authentic then all the rest who truly believe human connection can be made through a tweet or Meta post.
I’m one of your people, Jenny. Thanks for being one of mine.
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
The censorship-industrial-complex is attacking substack, again:
https://www.racket.news/p/tireless-busybodies-again-target
-----
Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians.
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Writers make money on substack with paid subscriptions.
substack prefers that the "market" decides what people want to read, not creepy leftist censors that are addicted to endlesss outrage and moral panics.
in that context, AI is, as he said, irrelevant.
Again, Orwell was a critic of leftist totalitarianism.
Most of the “creatives” in question are already totalitarian, postmodern neo-Marxists., the children of the managerial corporate-state.
The censorship-industrial-complex is attacking substack, again:
https://www.racket.news/p/tireless-busybodies-again-target
-----
Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians.
That's when the world economy implodes.
Hi Hamish, you are correct that AI is here to stay, and that Substack is Resistance. You are horribly wrong with your cheerleading of corporations using ill considered technology to gut human civilisation with the fish knife of labour cost reduction.
The Luddites were visionaries, and they were right. Big Agriculture has depleted Earth's topsoil, emptied our oceans of fish, clearcut our forests, and urbanised our population beyond the capacity of the planet to support us, pushing us over a tipping point where societal collapse will take place in 40-60 years. Technological corporations are a virus that is killing off the host.
Famines are not caused by scale of farming technology, they are caused by politics. In the 1930s, Stalin created the Holodomor by destroying the small-medium scale Kulak class of farmers, by stealing their land, and creating "State Capitalist", collectivised, mega farms. 5-10 million died. Every family lost 2-3 people.
AI is a job killer for writers. Only Stephen King, celebrity memoir writers, and the owners of companies like Substack and Scrivener will survive AI. Substack and Scrivener are like the people selling shovels and work pants in the gold rushes of the 1800s, who were the only locals to make money. Writers are the modern day gold rush miners. Millions of us toiling away in poverty, while the stock market takes a bull run. The word "panhandler" has evolved to emphasise my point. No matter how I beg, I can't get a job as a journalist, because the media outlets are using AI. And I wear Levi's. History can be cruel.
Unfortunately, you are also wrong about content and culture. The "culture" of America is 90% Harlequin Romances, Hallmark Greeting Cards, and, to bring back your agriculture example, McDonalds. I will never use AI, for the same reason I will never eat a McDonalds hamburger. Because they are both empty calories, and their purpose is to siphon money out of my pocket, and resistance out of my soul.
Amen Ben. Incredibly said, argued, and rationalized. Thank you for these thoughts.
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
The censorship-industrial-complex is attacking substack, again:
https://www.racket.news/p/tireless-busybodies-again-target
-----
Substack is pro-free-speech and so far has refused to bow down to creepy leftist totalitarians that are addicted to moral panics and endless outrage.
Actually, no one really has any idea of the consequences of this tsunami of AI. What we do know, however, is that it is being driven by the ambitions of tech entrepreneurs regardless of any ethical or humanitarian considerations. That does not bode well.
God, SPOT ON John. Thank you. Things are definitely not boding well.
World becomes a little more unnatural every day!
It is something I can feel!
My senses cry out!
Like digital music!
It pains my sense of well being
Is it live or memorex.
AI will be used for evil they’re not even hiding this fact!
We use Writer at my work and for the most part, it's a Grammarly tool on steriods. There is a generative AI aspect but it's mostly software that helps companies help their writers keep the same tone and voice, use predefined words (e.g. "used" instead of "utilized") rather than jargon. I'm a novelist who primarily writes historical fiction so I rarely use contractions, but at work when I'm scripting videos (I teach social media and AI for a software firm) we use a casual voice. Writer has helped me add in all the necessary contractions that I just wouldn't have on my own. It's a very good tool, IMHO.
It's not a bad thing for us to become better writers. And AI is here to stay. Writers who learn to harness it to become better will end up prevailing. For the most part, generative AI churns out formulaic, cliched stories and sentences. It's also often wrong or short-sighted. I personally don't believe it will take the place of true human creativity, especially not at this point.
human beings have long churned out "formulaic, cliched stories and sentences...(and are) often wrong or short-sighted" and it gets duly swallowed and followed - AI looks to do it better
Well, the AI was trained on all of that formulaic stuff that we’ve been churning out for centuries, right? It will take a bit for it to become better.
This is super encouraging, thank you.
I find your use of the agriculture comparison interesting, because while agriculture did provide people with jobs and such, it also rapidly destroyed the environment and reduced the overall quality and nutritional value of food. It also artificially inflated the prices of organic food produced by local farmers. I see something similar being possible with AI-generated content. But instead of environmental destruction, the destruction will be spiritual.
It is a telling comparison, yes.
Oh gosh are you so, so right Alicen. “The destruction will be spiritual.” YES!!! It’s already happening, right? Thank you for adding that to the conversation here.
No one can replace me.
Ai is not just a Trojan Horse but the greatest Danger that Humanity has ever faced.
The same people who invest in WAR are investing into AI.
The powers that be always and ever are dehumanizing Humanity.
AI is their tool.
Worse... AI is designed not only to replace writers or workers... but to control them via Automated IOB Robotics.
AI is modern Slavery at best... a digital Quantum Holocaust.
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/quantum-fascism-a-glitch-in-the-matrix
I am not sure anyone can replace me either.
I am not someone who can be 'put in a box.' People have trouble understanding my writing and speaking. Very agile/quicksilver brain when my meds. are running low.
Top up the meds. then yes I am like most other people.
I am a reader..zillions of books a year. The diversity of writers is astounding/thoughts/feelings/history. Can AI SEE the vision in my head when I write? I don't think so.
Maybe you should scrab the Meds and start learning Qi Gong...
ZEN.
Maybe you should read this:
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/zen-anarchy-and-freedom
Try this one...
Learn Buddhist Breathing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o-e5VMVlsY
Maybe you should leave me alone to be the person I am?
I do.
But you have to ask yourself this Question:
Are you the Person you are?
Because if you need Meds that is a clear no.
I am speaking because I know.
Just trying to help.
Fritz. You make me sound like the MOST stupid person on the planet.
I have lived in 4 different Country's. Born in Sri Lanka to British colonial idiots.
I also lived in the US for 23yrs of 2 dimensional people who spout out Buddhism etc as though it is the answer to everything. I am BI-polar.
Last year I suffered from the most devastating depression I have ever had. Covid happened and I saw it for what it is..........people like the US meddling in warfare and bio-weapons. Destruction of the environment in which the US is one of the worlds leaders. There will be more covids.
I could go on and on to describe what I have seen in all 4 countries and believe me the US and Little Britain were the worst AND still are.
I have NEVER in my life been susceptible to the 'status quo.'
Don't fucking tell me about Buddhism.....I have seen this religion (Theravada Buddhism) in Sri Lanka. Same as Myanmar.
Buddhist priest committing atrocities on simple people.
Please do not give me this American shit. People come over too SL and think they are getting the real thing.. Bollocks.
I have no country or religion. I exist that is the most important to me and I have empathy which right now is killing me.
Americans on the whole are mindless people.
Most of you think all Buddhists are the same..........with regard to Islam too. There are different sects of ALL religions and I dislike them all.
Why is the US falling apart? Most of you have NEVER had a mind of your own. I have been called a 'commie'/'pinko' in the US because I wanted healthcare for everyone. Not one other country has called me this.
You are dying from NOT taking notice while you fed your greed!
DO not tell me about breathing/Zen etc.
Work on yourselves and read books.
Well said. Go girl!
Just FYI - Many of the clinical trials for "big pharma depression drugs" have been modified to suppress the bad outcomes to get FDA approval. Info just now being uncovered after 3 decades.
See David Chapman (metarationality.com) on the corruption of authentic/indigenous Buddhism by "western buddhism" (european utopianism).
(Chapman is an AI scientist and tantric Buddhist.)
"I have no country or religion. I exist that is the most important to me and I have empathy which right now is killing me."..
These are things we have in Common..
And I also been living in the UK China Hk Malaysia and so on.
I am talking ybout breathing exercise NOT from a Buddhist perspective but from a Kung Fu Perspective.
I studies Wing Chun Hung Gar Qi Gung and Ba Gua Zheng.
There are many forms of Buddhism which are stupid.
ZEN however is not and it requires no believe.
It comes straight out of Martial Art training.
ZEN is the way to become Buddha... as it should be.
YOU are the center of ZEN because you exist.
And that you have Empathy is what makes you Human... I salute this.
We are living is a world that is dehumanized by design.
AI is a tool for dehumanization.
I write about this all along.
We are beeing herded like cattle and been told that we are wrong...
We are not... and you are not...
That is what I try to say.
Overuse of prescribed medications is a problem, but their existence is not. I'm glad for you that breathing exercises/meditation are sufficient to control your issues, but don't make that call for everyone, please.
Time Truth and love... these are the greatest remedies.
Fear is the greatest enemy.
I don't tell people what to do.
Thank you.
Just wanted to let you know I subscribed to your Substack, because you seem like a reasonable person who has experienced many things and come through the other side. I'd like to read more about it, should you ever choose to continue with your writing. I mainly keep to very silly topics here, but the conversation that took place as a result of this post has me reconsidering my focus. Thank you.
What's this IOB you speak of?
Internet of Bodies
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/klaus-schwab-darpa-harvard-elon-musk
I am interested to know your thoughts about computers and the Internet when they started to become the norm. I remember when I was in school and my math teacher said we had to memorize all the formulas because you won't have a calculator in your pocket, yet now we do. I do say this with respect and am truly trying to understand your position better. My husband is wholly against AI and I'm in the school of thought that we should learn about it and see what it can do so we can easily transition with it like we have with all the other technologies that have come about and changed our world.
I hated arithmetic (the only subject that required actual attention) and am grateful for computers doing the computing...but in this and other modern developments, AI looking like a huge one, are we losing the ability to think? Math was hard and I have seldom used it in RL, yet it was good for my lazy brain to have to learn it.
"like we have with all the other technologies that have come about and changed our world"
They usually made the world worse for most people and better for only few people. Most exceptions are in medicine.
IOB = Internet of Bodies.
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/klaus-schwab-darpa-harvard-elon-musk
I have studied IT in the beginning of the 90's.
I helped building the Internet as I see it as the greatest Innovation ever.
However we do not educate our own.
Our Education is shit because we been held back by 500 years... by the same people who promote AI now.
My work resulted in a Patent that clearly states that we can go faster than the speed of light.
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/faster-than-the-speed-of-light
So yes I am all for Technology as long as it benefits Humanity.
However... AI does not in any way benefit Humanity.
AI STARLINK Nanotechnology Gene editing Technology.
These technologies are destructive to Humanity.
Give AI say to Adolf Hitler... what happens next?
A Quantum Holocaust.
AI in the wrong hands is the end of Humanity.
This is a fact.
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/creating-a-problem-for-a-solution
YES!!! Our education is definitely SHIT!!! I graduated in 2000 and I was not set up to be an adult by any stretch. I think the only reason I prospered is because my dad owned his own business so I grew up working AND he had a huge love of technology and computers, so I've been on a computer since I was 7.
I'm going to check out your writings - sounds interesting.
On that - gene editiing. Here's a thought - and again - I mean no disrespect. I have the BRCA2 gene mutation. I have had to go through some surgery at this point and they are pushing more on me. However, in the EU, they have already been looking at editing out this gene. If you don't know what it does, it raises your cancer markers - especially that of breast and ovarian - to massive chances - basically my risks are HIGH. I have been excited for gene editing because they could literally remove this gene and make my body safe again.
They are also using AI for my mamograms to look for potential problems before they get bad.
I also feel that if they feed all the data points into the AI systems, they will be able to cure diseases and help people faster.
Now I also understand your points about giving Hitler AI (or someone like him) the ability to access the AI technology - and I agree it would be the end of humanity. If we were to find ways to regulate access to systems that can potentially be harmful, I think we could find ways to make sure total annihilation isn't in our near future.
AI cannot be regulated... that is my point.
It is like raising a pack of wolves in the hope they become vegetarian.
Here is what AI has in it for us
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/klaus-schwab-darpa-harvard-elon-musk