The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'brain lighting up Earth in magnifying glass.'
The Limits of ChatGPT
My mom has an invention she's been working on for some time. The other night, she told me that she plans to use AI to generate promotional copy for her invention. This seems like a good use for AI. But if you're looking for writing with more substance, AI isn't quite there yet. Today I asked ChatGPT to 'write a paragraph about the relationship between consciousness and the writing process.' Here's what it came up with:
The relationship between consciousness and the writing process is complex and multifaceted. Consciousness is the awareness of one's surroundings and the ability to process information, and it plays a crucial role in the writing process. A writer's ability to tap into their consciousness and bring their thoughts and ideas to the page is essential for successful writing. Writing can also be a means of exploring and understanding one's own consciousness, as the act of putting thoughts into words can bring clarity to one's own thinking. However, writing can also involve a state of "flow" where the writer loses themselves in the act of writing and becomes less conscious of their surroundings. This state of flow can be beneficial for the creative process, but it can also lead to the writer producing work that is not fully conscious or reflective of their intended meaning. Overall, consciousness and the writing process are intimately connected, and a writer's ability to navigate the interplay between the two is key to successful writing.
On the surface, this paragraph sounds fine and reasonable. Soon, most of the internet might consist of this manner of fine and reasonable drivel. There are already armies of content producers lining up to insert stuff like this into their production processes. But the content itself is mostly fluff, devoid of anything resembling meaningful insight.
The first big problem with the ChatGPT paragraph is that it defined consciousness in a way that doesn't track with my understanding. Consciousness is somewhat more than environmental awareness and information processing. It's interesting that the bot mentioned the flow state, but strange that this state was described as making one less conscious of one's surroundings. If I wrote a paragraph like this, I'd delete it later because it says so little.
Here's a good quote from a blog post about the value of writing beyond AI:
Even when these tools exist, they are not a replacement for writing. Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out.
No Substitute
Although I use AI on a daily basis to generate images for the web, this is no substitute for the manual production of visual art. As a writer, I may someday find a place for AI in my workflow, but the tech probably won't ever serve as a substitute for the writing process. There are major differences between good human writing and good AI writing, but these differences can be subtle, involving depth and nuance. Sadly, I'm not convinced general audiences care about depth and nuance.
Unlike many writers, I'm not concerned about losing contracts to AI. My primary occupation is summarizing news reports about corruption and cover-ups for wanttoknow.info. This job requires deep knowledge of events and the connections between them, and I highly doubt any tech company would be willing to program this stuff into one of their bots. Also, the org I work for has quality standards that AI can't yet meet.
As a scifi novelist, my work is already competing with countless low-quality stories written mostly by computer programs. What my books offer that these mass market fictions lack is layers and layers of symbolism and commentary on societal issues. At some point, I might experiment with AI assisted novel writing, but only if I can do so in a way that preserves the value my writing process creates.
It's true that AI is changing the landscape of professional writing. The lowest paid workers will be replaced by bots, which will write bad promotional copy that will be eerily similar to the bad copy we're all used to seeing. I haven't run across many news stories that seem authored by AI, but I expect that to change in the next couple of years.
Here on Hive, I'm reading posts more carefully and refusing to vote for writing that seems bot-written. Rest assured, if you're reading something by me, I will clearly indicate any areas where AI played a part, and will continue writing content the old-fashioned way, because I love the writing process.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.