I had a friend from my time living in Sag Harbor who is sadly gone from us now, Anthony “Tony” Brandt, who was married to my equally good friend, Lorraine Dusky.
You can get rid of the "Help me write Alt+H" by simply typing in the text field. It goes away. When I first saw it, I almost kicked the screen, but then I started typing, and poof. I'm sure you know this by now, but in case others don't, there it is.
This by no means changes anything about what you said. AI is an abominable development on every level I can think of, except maybe the sciences, where I'm told it is useful. And there is the whole problem. They want to sell *everyone* on using it, so that they can grotesquely maximize their revenues, instead of focusing their energy and resources on providing stuff that might actually benefit humanity.
Luring non-writers and egging them on to be writers is the worst of it, but I could spend an hour on an anti-AI screed, so I'll just shut up. Love the story about your friend and all the books. Love it. Thanks.
Indeed! They are desperate to recoup their investments and actually show a profit. Some believe AI is destined to supersede humanity and create a new order, as crazed as that sounds.
Terry, I understand and appreciate your sentiment. I sometimes feel the same way. But the fact is that neither the whole internet nor artificial intelligence will disappear. Banning it all won't work. I have been diving into AI for the last week or two. It's both awesome and terrifying. https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/merging-brains-with-ai
AI is deeply anti-human. It knows nothing, is aware of nothing, feels nothing. It’s built on scrapping data, literature, artworks, in short, everything. But it’s not sentient, just a plagiarism machine based on theft. Last month I discovered eight of my nine published novels, plus shorter works, are among countless stolen works on a pirate website which Meta used to train its own AI.
As long as we hold to what makes us human, our individual idiosyncrasies and unique takes on life, our emotions, our spirit, our kindness and community, we will endure. I believe, despite the tech bro grifter propaganda, which tries to convince us AI is ‘inevitable,’ that it is anything but inevitable.
Agree completely, and suggest that for exactly those reasons AI — the process of converting everything into nothing at all — is the perfect product for this age.
DS, have you actually used Chatgpt.com or any of the other major chatbots? I have been experimenting with it for the last week or so. It is remarkable in many respects and has the potential to enhance our humanity if steered in the right direction. A big if. I am putting together a mini-course on the pros and cons of AI. One thing's for sure. It's here to stay. Any attempt to ban it will not succeed.
AI is the latest bright shiny object for the tech bros. There is a belief that AI can do anything and do it better than humans. So we get Musk's incels using AI to kill any grant or program that has any of the "woke" words in its title including a program to bring internet to rural communities called Digital Equity Act. (equity is a no no in the Trump world of mediocre white men). We get AI generating content for RFK Jr and his bullshit MAHA movement. We get AI as a substitute for humans at the FAA, FEMA, NOAA and more. And it's all bullshit at this point. There is a future when AI can actually perform all the tasks we expect of it, but that time is not now. At this point we get all of the malevolence of Skynet merged with all of the malignant ignorance of the HAL9000.
You touch on this, but I want to underscore that AI will never be funny. And funny is a big part of what makes us human, because it relies on us to zig when the culture only zags. And AI is all zag all the time. Thank goodness. Come to think of it, maybe the RFK report was an attempt at humor?
Reminds me of Startrek’s Data whom Diana (if I remember this right) taught humor. Was very difficult for him to understand, but he eventually managed a mechanical sort of smile and even told a joke, which wasn’t funny, but still.
I’m very glad for Lucian’s article. I’ve been afraid of AI, but no longer.
In 1887, an artificial language called Esperanto was created, with the goal of becoming the language of choice, that would allow people from culture and language groups throughout the world to converse with each other. It was a noble attempt with the best of intentions, but it failed. You may still find groups who converse in it for fun, but it has no relevance to how we communicate today. Language is much more than a collection of words or phrases. The nuances of how an idea is expressed, and the feelings and emotions that prompt the speaker to select certain words or phrases, the cultural outlook that colors experiences in different parts of the world were too various for Esperanto to succeed. AI will also fail. Its capacity to collate and combine words into intelligible information may be the best yet, but until it can learn to read the human mind, it will never suffice.
Certain essential ideas can only be expressed in their own language. I enjoy reading about linguistics, though when I took a class in college about it I was totally lost. Studying a language you learn as much about the culture as you do the words and grammar, something AI can never capture.
Esperanto could also never succeed because it was designed to be a dead language. A living language constantly changes. New words appear out of seemingly nowhere. Words change meanings. Words disappear into oblivion. Immigrants integrate different words. The OED is a terrific source to see specific words’ origins and meanings over the centuries. If Esperanto *had* taken off in different countries, it would have changed when new generations added their own words until after maybe a century or so it would no longer be a common language worldwide.
"AI" is nothing more then the most recent manifestation of our culture's two most intractable problems: hubris and greed.
No LLM will ever feel the sun on its face, smell freshly baked bread or salt air, stare in wonder at the colors of flowers, dream, or delight in the company and conversation of well-read friends.
The current crop of technologists pretending it can surpass living creatures in any important way are just this generation's snake oil salesmen. Beware their wares.
In a book on Zen Buddhism given me by my favorite uncle in the 60s, was a comparison between East and West, using Lord Tennyson's, "Flower in a Crannied Wall" as an example. The Zen attitude was to 'become the flower' in order to understand it. The Western approach was to yank it out of the wall, disect it and try to learn from the disparate parts what it was and how it worked. Almost 60 years later, that still haunts me.
It’s actually kind of amazing how many times writers do NOT repeat themselves in writing a book, say … or any fairly long-form bit of literature.
I am editing a 60,000 word novel with a friend, and when we want to be sure we’re on the same page, reading the same paragraph, we type three or four words of a phrase on the page into the “find” interface in the Word program, and the computer takes us to the exact same page, because in a 60,000 word manuscript, we hardly ever have a grouping of the same four IMPORTANT words repeated. We make up 60,000 words worth of new and unique and interesting stuff. {I hope it’s interesting.}
I would have liked to have known your friend, Tony. My one weakness in life was bookstores, especially used bookstores. Not many around anymore but I have spent countless hours in them.
“He loved books, those undemanding but faithful friends.”
Forty years in IT in many different roles, for private business, for academia, and government, and have seen these fads like AI come then ignominiously fade out. I still have tee shirts from these "trend setters" that have outlasted the companies. The metaverse, virtual reality, "customer relationship management", "virtual assistants" and my personal favorite "natural language to computer code generators" they're all so close to dead that soon we'll be able to reuse their buzzwords again for the "next great trend."
What a lovely tribute to your friend and Lorraine's husband! Clearly, a machine can never compete. I'm not ready myself to draw conclusions on a technology still in its infancy, but at this early date finding genuine gains for A.I. users ftom this energy glutton seems to be a losing endeavor.
I finally got into gmail settings and was able to turn off whatever was making gmail try to finish my sentences—maddening! I would xfer my email operation to the secure Proton if I could afford it, am thinking about using Proton as a front end and shifting inactive stuff to gmail a couple times a year for storage. I never felt a need to get out of Microsoft's clutches as desperate as my wish to be rid of Alphabet's busybody OS and behavior.
Thank you! I don't understand AI, but I know it can't write or spell and doesn't have a good vocabulary. It does not seem to think faster than I do, and I'm not a particularly fast thinker. I read all the time, and like your friend, I have books all over my small house. In Berkeley I'm not the only one with piles of books on the floor. I have read most of them, and because my husband would like to have more space in the house, I am trying to get rid of some of them at the local little libraries, but that's dangerous, because where do you think about 20% of them came from?
The last time I moved I thought I needed to downsize and I sacrificed many cartons of books. It was a collection of 70 some years, and now I deeply regret letting go of them. I will be mulling about something and think, wait, I’ll check the book! I didn’t realize how much I loved having the books at hand for reference, and how much I missed living with them.
Thank you, Karen, for sharing your experience. I, too, have been trying to downsize but my books have been the biggest stumbling block. Every room is overflowing and I am loath to part with any of them.
Exactly why nine years ago we found a townhouse with a full, dry basement! How lucky am I that I can change out my books and be thought of as having purged and downsized. And I thought this up myself!
I love the stories about “Tony” Brandt. Writers of a certain age, including myself, love books. My sons told me recently they have no interest in my books, so the more I get rid of before I kick the bucket, the easier it will be for them. I am trying, not quite successfully, to stop collecting books and to give many away after reading them. This is a kind of sacrilege, I know. A friend auditing courses at Princeton says undergraduates read only about one book per class per semester. Students of the future will get AI summaries of the books we cherish, and quotes from them. A few will develop the habit of reading 12 books a year, and will be considered super-readers.
I’m sure it wasn’t your intention Lucian but this essay has given me justification for owning so many books I still haven’t read. Not sure how much time I have left to read them all. And speaking of Sag Harbor, I had my 80th birthday party last week at the American Hotel.
You can get rid of the "Help me write Alt+H" by simply typing in the text field. It goes away. When I first saw it, I almost kicked the screen, but then I started typing, and poof. I'm sure you know this by now, but in case others don't, there it is.
This by no means changes anything about what you said. AI is an abominable development on every level I can think of, except maybe the sciences, where I'm told it is useful. And there is the whole problem. They want to sell *everyone* on using it, so that they can grotesquely maximize their revenues, instead of focusing their energy and resources on providing stuff that might actually benefit humanity.
Luring non-writers and egging them on to be writers is the worst of it, but I could spend an hour on an anti-AI screed, so I'll just shut up. Love the story about your friend and all the books. Love it. Thanks.
Indeed! They are desperate to recoup their investments and actually show a profit. Some believe AI is destined to supersede humanity and create a new order, as crazed as that sounds.
AI will give us Idiocracy...take a peek inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!
🎶Youtook the words right out of my mouth🎶
Haha! Perfect!
I hate pretty much everything about these tech bros...sometimes a wish the whole internet would just implode and go away...
Terry, I understand and appreciate your sentiment. I sometimes feel the same way. But the fact is that neither the whole internet nor artificial intelligence will disappear. Banning it all won't work. I have been diving into AI for the last week or two. It's both awesome and terrifying. https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/merging-brains-with-ai
Well said, Lucian!
AI is deeply anti-human. It knows nothing, is aware of nothing, feels nothing. It’s built on scrapping data, literature, artworks, in short, everything. But it’s not sentient, just a plagiarism machine based on theft. Last month I discovered eight of my nine published novels, plus shorter works, are among countless stolen works on a pirate website which Meta used to train its own AI.
As long as we hold to what makes us human, our individual idiosyncrasies and unique takes on life, our emotions, our spirit, our kindness and community, we will endure. I believe, despite the tech bro grifter propaganda, which tries to convince us AI is ‘inevitable,’ that it is anything but inevitable.
Agree completely, and suggest that for exactly those reasons AI — the process of converting everything into nothing at all — is the perfect product for this age.
Bill, “…and then selling it back to us.”
As though there was actually "value added." -growl-
DS, have you actually used Chatgpt.com or any of the other major chatbots? I have been experimenting with it for the last week or so. It is remarkable in many respects and has the potential to enhance our humanity if steered in the right direction. A big if. I am putting together a mini-course on the pros and cons of AI. One thing's for sure. It's here to stay. Any attempt to ban it will not succeed.
AI is the latest bright shiny object for the tech bros. There is a belief that AI can do anything and do it better than humans. So we get Musk's incels using AI to kill any grant or program that has any of the "woke" words in its title including a program to bring internet to rural communities called Digital Equity Act. (equity is a no no in the Trump world of mediocre white men). We get AI generating content for RFK Jr and his bullshit MAHA movement. We get AI as a substitute for humans at the FAA, FEMA, NOAA and more. And it's all bullshit at this point. There is a future when AI can actually perform all the tasks we expect of it, but that time is not now. At this point we get all of the malevolence of Skynet merged with all of the malignant ignorance of the HAL9000.
You touch on this, but I want to underscore that AI will never be funny. And funny is a big part of what makes us human, because it relies on us to zig when the culture only zags. And AI is all zag all the time. Thank goodness. Come to think of it, maybe the RFK report was an attempt at humor?
Reminds me of Startrek’s Data whom Diana (if I remember this right) taught humor. Was very difficult for him to understand, but he eventually managed a mechanical sort of smile and even told a joke, which wasn’t funny, but still.
I’m very glad for Lucian’s article. I’ve been afraid of AI, but no longer.
I wrote/illustrated a column for the Colorado Sun, tracking AI’s impact out here. If that prospect is too scary have your bot read it for you. https://open.substack.com/pub/petermoore/p/ai-in-garbage-out?r=4g2k&utm_medium=ios
In 1887, an artificial language called Esperanto was created, with the goal of becoming the language of choice, that would allow people from culture and language groups throughout the world to converse with each other. It was a noble attempt with the best of intentions, but it failed. You may still find groups who converse in it for fun, but it has no relevance to how we communicate today. Language is much more than a collection of words or phrases. The nuances of how an idea is expressed, and the feelings and emotions that prompt the speaker to select certain words or phrases, the cultural outlook that colors experiences in different parts of the world were too various for Esperanto to succeed. AI will also fail. Its capacity to collate and combine words into intelligible information may be the best yet, but until it can learn to read the human mind, it will never suffice.
Certain essential ideas can only be expressed in their own language. I enjoy reading about linguistics, though when I took a class in college about it I was totally lost. Studying a language you learn as much about the culture as you do the words and grammar, something AI can never capture.
The nuance of how an idea is expressed…yes!
Esperanto could also never succeed because it was designed to be a dead language. A living language constantly changes. New words appear out of seemingly nowhere. Words change meanings. Words disappear into oblivion. Immigrants integrate different words. The OED is a terrific source to see specific words’ origins and meanings over the centuries. If Esperanto *had* taken off in different countries, it would have changed when new generations added their own words until after maybe a century or so it would no longer be a common language worldwide.
"AI" is nothing more then the most recent manifestation of our culture's two most intractable problems: hubris and greed.
No LLM will ever feel the sun on its face, smell freshly baked bread or salt air, stare in wonder at the colors of flowers, dream, or delight in the company and conversation of well-read friends.
The current crop of technologists pretending it can surpass living creatures in any important way are just this generation's snake oil salesmen. Beware their wares.
In a book on Zen Buddhism given me by my favorite uncle in the 60s, was a comparison between East and West, using Lord Tennyson's, "Flower in a Crannied Wall" as an example. The Zen attitude was to 'become the flower' in order to understand it. The Western approach was to yank it out of the wall, disect it and try to learn from the disparate parts what it was and how it worked. Almost 60 years later, that still haunts me.
It’s actually kind of amazing how many times writers do NOT repeat themselves in writing a book, say … or any fairly long-form bit of literature.
I am editing a 60,000 word novel with a friend, and when we want to be sure we’re on the same page, reading the same paragraph, we type three or four words of a phrase on the page into the “find” interface in the Word program, and the computer takes us to the exact same page, because in a 60,000 word manuscript, we hardly ever have a grouping of the same four IMPORTANT words repeated. We make up 60,000 words worth of new and unique and interesting stuff. {I hope it’s interesting.}
Funny how it works. …
Brilliant piece Lucian. Right to the quick.
I would have liked to have known your friend, Tony. My one weakness in life was bookstores, especially used bookstores. Not many around anymore but I have spent countless hours in them.
“He loved books, those undemanding but faithful friends.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Forty years in IT in many different roles, for private business, for academia, and government, and have seen these fads like AI come then ignominiously fade out. I still have tee shirts from these "trend setters" that have outlasted the companies. The metaverse, virtual reality, "customer relationship management", "virtual assistants" and my personal favorite "natural language to computer code generators" they're all so close to dead that soon we'll be able to reuse their buzzwords again for the "next great trend."
What a lovely tribute to your friend and Lorraine's husband! Clearly, a machine can never compete. I'm not ready myself to draw conclusions on a technology still in its infancy, but at this early date finding genuine gains for A.I. users ftom this energy glutton seems to be a losing endeavor.
I finally got into gmail settings and was able to turn off whatever was making gmail try to finish my sentences—maddening! I would xfer my email operation to the secure Proton if I could afford it, am thinking about using Proton as a front end and shifting inactive stuff to gmail a couple times a year for storage. I never felt a need to get out of Microsoft's clutches as desperate as my wish to be rid of Alphabet's busybody OS and behavior.
Thank you! I don't understand AI, but I know it can't write or spell and doesn't have a good vocabulary. It does not seem to think faster than I do, and I'm not a particularly fast thinker. I read all the time, and like your friend, I have books all over my small house. In Berkeley I'm not the only one with piles of books on the floor. I have read most of them, and because my husband would like to have more space in the house, I am trying to get rid of some of them at the local little libraries, but that's dangerous, because where do you think about 20% of them came from?
The last time I moved I thought I needed to downsize and I sacrificed many cartons of books. It was a collection of 70 some years, and now I deeply regret letting go of them. I will be mulling about something and think, wait, I’ll check the book! I didn’t realize how much I loved having the books at hand for reference, and how much I missed living with them.
Thank you, Karen, for sharing your experience. I, too, have been trying to downsize but my books have been the biggest stumbling block. Every room is overflowing and I am loath to part with any of them.
Exactly why nine years ago we found a townhouse with a full, dry basement! How lucky am I that I can change out my books and be thought of as having purged and downsized. And I thought this up myself!
I'm going to keep that as a word to the wise.
Spot on.
I love the stories about “Tony” Brandt. Writers of a certain age, including myself, love books. My sons told me recently they have no interest in my books, so the more I get rid of before I kick the bucket, the easier it will be for them. I am trying, not quite successfully, to stop collecting books and to give many away after reading them. This is a kind of sacrilege, I know. A friend auditing courses at Princeton says undergraduates read only about one book per class per semester. Students of the future will get AI summaries of the books we cherish, and quotes from them. A few will develop the habit of reading 12 books a year, and will be considered super-readers.
This analysis goes well with Oliver Sacks' 1985 NYRB essay "The President's Speech" at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/08/15/the-presidents-speech/ (reposted at https://plantainclan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Oliver-Sacks-The-PresidentS-Speech.pdf).
I’m sure it wasn’t your intention Lucian but this essay has given me justification for owning so many books I still haven’t read. Not sure how much time I have left to read them all. And speaking of Sag Harbor, I had my 80th birthday party last week at the American Hotel.
Wundaboy, you should wear the tee shirt I bought myself: "I know I am not immortal, but I keep buying books as if I were". :-)
Congratulations. The American is a nice spot. Stayed there for a classic Sag Harbor wedding many moons ago.
I highly recommend the American Hotel especially if someone else is paying!
:) $$$$$$!