So, I'm curious: Creativity has a disruptive manifestation on thoughts as well. Ideas, all of them ( wit, insight, retorts) come out of nowhere into the stream of thought. They arrive unbidden. Now, they don't land like boulders as you put it, but they do disrupt and are not consciously generated. The just are, and suddenly so.
You're demonstrably a highly creative person. How do the arrival of your own creative insights differ from the landing of your boulders? Is it similar? Gentler? A skipping stone across your mind? Something different altogether? What is your experience there?
Fwiw, I've shovelled three-hundred AI-embedded Substack posts into the maw of AI and asked it to imitate me. For the near term, the results are not worrying, although there are similarities. I'm open to being concerned eventually, then horrified, then, perversely, delighted.
Makes me wonder what a frictionless world would look like? Seamless Sameness? And what would we be without the uniqueness of our quirks, habits, self-exhibited uniqueness? We stare at the water of ocean, river or stream because of its natural complexity. We become aware of a person because of the qualities that we encounter in them that make their personhood interpretable,
as what we find when we watch them and “read” them.
If “you can’t judge a book by its cover” then we can’t judge each other when AI “covers for us” and our originality disappears, quips, quirks, misspellings and all.
AI may perform perfectly for us, but does AI have “personality” that exhibits a “self”?
Your authenticity is noted in your unabashedly sharing the qualities that make you “you”. Long live the realism that connects us in our self owned imperfections.
You are touching on the deepest problem I worry about these days - the true distinction between humans and AI. And perhaps I most frequently think about whether AI can be "creative" the way a physicist, like Einstein, can come up with a breakthrough, like the theory of relativity. This theory required Einstein to accept the fact that in some circumstances (traveling near the speed of light), the world's most accepted physical theory - Newton's laws of motion - were not accurate. Could AI have come up with it and opposed the vast amount of "conventional wisdom"? I don't think so... in any case, loved your article ... chewing a cow with ice cream and oysters.
Love it! I want to delve into this topic, meticulously and swift(ly). The stream metaphor hits home. AI writing it too metronomically calibrated, too Allegro. But, it does not have to face the boulders dropped into its stream, say, the way a Tourette’s tic might toc up yours. Or muddy it up. But I wonder if Grok can track the relative use of “benignant” over the past couple of years? Is it skyrocketing? Churchill dropped one in a famous speech. Try this: “For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished. No one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands, and better days.” Let your stream be like the Mississippi. Not even a big boulder can get you down. Let it roll on down, all the way to New Orleans where I’m sure there’s gonna be a party awaiting!
I feel like you are waving a White Flag just because AI has the appearance of being threatening in diminishing our originality and authenticity by becoming so capable of doing such. But the humanity of creating as an individual needs to manifest in a world that is fearless of such, and I cannot ever see using AI to create with, as creating content is where all the fun is. I am not going to change my approach to creating because others need this invention to create for them.
So, I'm curious: Creativity has a disruptive manifestation on thoughts as well. Ideas, all of them ( wit, insight, retorts) come out of nowhere into the stream of thought. They arrive unbidden. Now, they don't land like boulders as you put it, but they do disrupt and are not consciously generated. The just are, and suddenly so.
You're demonstrably a highly creative person. How do the arrival of your own creative insights differ from the landing of your boulders? Is it similar? Gentler? A skipping stone across your mind? Something different altogether? What is your experience there?
Fwiw, I've shovelled three-hundred AI-embedded Substack posts into the maw of AI and asked it to imitate me. For the near term, the results are not worrying, although there are similarities. I'm open to being concerned eventually, then horrified, then, perversely, delighted.
Makes me wonder what a frictionless world would look like? Seamless Sameness? And what would we be without the uniqueness of our quirks, habits, self-exhibited uniqueness? We stare at the water of ocean, river or stream because of its natural complexity. We become aware of a person because of the qualities that we encounter in them that make their personhood interpretable,
as what we find when we watch them and “read” them.
If “you can’t judge a book by its cover” then we can’t judge each other when AI “covers for us” and our originality disappears, quips, quirks, misspellings and all.
AI may perform perfectly for us, but does AI have “personality” that exhibits a “self”?
Your authenticity is noted in your unabashedly sharing the qualities that make you “you”. Long live the realism that connects us in our self owned imperfections.
I am not going to insert imperfections. I hate reading unedited work (excepting texts, comments, casual emails etc).
I’m not letting the machines degrade my work.
You are touching on the deepest problem I worry about these days - the true distinction between humans and AI. And perhaps I most frequently think about whether AI can be "creative" the way a physicist, like Einstein, can come up with a breakthrough, like the theory of relativity. This theory required Einstein to accept the fact that in some circumstances (traveling near the speed of light), the world's most accepted physical theory - Newton's laws of motion - were not accurate. Could AI have come up with it and opposed the vast amount of "conventional wisdom"? I don't think so... in any case, loved your article ... chewing a cow with ice cream and oysters.
Thank you, Norm!!
Love it! I want to delve into this topic, meticulously and swift(ly). The stream metaphor hits home. AI writing it too metronomically calibrated, too Allegro. But, it does not have to face the boulders dropped into its stream, say, the way a Tourette’s tic might toc up yours. Or muddy it up. But I wonder if Grok can track the relative use of “benignant” over the past couple of years? Is it skyrocketing? Churchill dropped one in a famous speech. Try this: “For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished. No one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands, and better days.” Let your stream be like the Mississippi. Not even a big boulder can get you down. Let it roll on down, all the way to New Orleans where I’m sure there’s gonna be a party awaiting!
I feel like you are waving a White Flag just because AI has the appearance of being threatening in diminishing our originality and authenticity by becoming so capable of doing such. But the humanity of creating as an individual needs to manifest in a world that is fearless of such, and I cannot ever see using AI to create with, as creating content is where all the fun is. I am not going to change my approach to creating because others need this invention to create for them.