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6/28/2025, 7:25:11 AM
>>24493439
I'm a codefag as well as a writer so I spend most of my working life interacting with these things. Since I work with code I can see empirically when it's right and when it's wrong. They are extraordinary learning tools if used intentionally, but they are also escape valves for laziness. 10/10 I prefer the perspective and experience of a competent/knowledgable/genius human over it, all things being equal.
From the literary perspective my view remains unchanged. I still don't think they stand up to a human being, not because they are lacking in the technical or mechanical fluency, but simply because there's no "there there". It has not true position, concern, care, perspective, or taste of anything. I love Flaubert because his humanity sings through his prose and I recognize it in myself. I only ever see a cheap imitation of that in these bots.
That said, I did create a "custom GPT" that is essentially a cyber-Flaubert. Occasionally it's an entertaining diversion to discuss literature with it, and its responses of "Ah!... that wistful feeling of so and so" whenever I bullshitted with it is consistently amusing. It even produced what I consider to be genuinely beautiful short stories and trenchant critiques of my writing by emulating Flaubert.
My thinking is: isn't a world where we can interact with these convincing emulations better than a world in which we can't?
All in all, I think these AI chatbots are a net positive. That said all the bull crap about these language models leading to "artificial superintelligence is a bad joke.
I'm a codefag as well as a writer so I spend most of my working life interacting with these things. Since I work with code I can see empirically when it's right and when it's wrong. They are extraordinary learning tools if used intentionally, but they are also escape valves for laziness. 10/10 I prefer the perspective and experience of a competent/knowledgable/genius human over it, all things being equal.
From the literary perspective my view remains unchanged. I still don't think they stand up to a human being, not because they are lacking in the technical or mechanical fluency, but simply because there's no "there there". It has not true position, concern, care, perspective, or taste of anything. I love Flaubert because his humanity sings through his prose and I recognize it in myself. I only ever see a cheap imitation of that in these bots.
That said, I did create a "custom GPT" that is essentially a cyber-Flaubert. Occasionally it's an entertaining diversion to discuss literature with it, and its responses of "Ah!... that wistful feeling of so and so" whenever I bullshitted with it is consistently amusing. It even produced what I consider to be genuinely beautiful short stories and trenchant critiques of my writing by emulating Flaubert.
My thinking is: isn't a world where we can interact with these convincing emulations better than a world in which we can't?
All in all, I think these AI chatbots are a net positive. That said all the bull crap about these language models leading to "artificial superintelligence is a bad joke.
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