Why I'm no longer writing stories with AI
storiesby.ai
storiesby.ai
I get their point, completely, but not sure why their hopes were so high here.
Almost every person in the US has a device in their pocket capable of unlimited, free learning, of anything and everything. Instead we mainly use them for selfies, porn, and memes.
Don't you see the warning in the writer's words?
All the marketing for iOS and Android talked about a computer in your pocket allowing for all kinds of creation. Then they locked everything down to the point until there's no computer left, just a $1000 passive consumption machine with a nice camera. Actual computer-phones like the full-Linux Nokia N900 failed. The selfie machines won.
Commercial products leveraging AI are headed the same way. For every GH Copilot there will be 100 SaaS products offering better ways to maximize engagement with your blogspam or write a better VC deck.
That’s not what we do though, let’s be honest here. The traffic speaks volumes. Everything goes to bullshit and porn. And because of that, that’s where the money is.
Not everything is corporates’ fault.
This is nonsense. Have you seen Obsidian.md and its plugin ecosystem for not just writing but a (ahem) bicycle for the mind?
Have you run VSCode against a remote code-server from the park, coding all day on 5G and still having a pretty full battery?
Have you use Affinity's content creation suite with the Pencil 2?
What about M365 Office?
All this works on a full size full quality keyboard with a touchpad and 13" touch screen on an iPad that also cheerfully works with a USB-C cable or dock to also drive an external 4K screen with stage manager, full two screen windowing manager, and other things like hardwire Ethernet.
You can do much of that from an iPhone 14 Pro Max as well. Obsidian.MD and M365 Office both work fine with a full size bluetooth keyboard/charge stand, along with mobile Xbox cloud gaming with a Razer kishi controller and Plex of my own content at home, over HDMI to a hotel TV.
https://www.cultofmac.com/721704/why-you-should-add-a-second...
Everything you are describing besides Affinity suite is remote software running on a dumb client. Not exactly the lofty visions of the future that these companies allude to in their marketing. 10 years after the first iPad, the current crop of commercials literally call it "not a computer".
Termux offers an arguably rich Linux userland, with over 2,500 packages (2,581 listed as I write this). That's still a small fraction of the total number of Debian packages, which now exceeds 57,000, but the tools which are available are a highly useful set and includes numerous scripting languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, Node.js, etc.) and compilers, along with several repositories associated with those tools. All told, Termux is far more than a toy.
But ...
... it's still hampered by numerous Android limitations:
- No root access unless your device is rootable (and rooted).
- No multi-user capabilities or security.
- Limited to the default Android filesystem limitations (including being locked out of most of the filesystem), and limited filesystem permissions capabilities.
- Subject to Android's process-management and process-reaping "features", which mean your shell session(s) may be killed off at any time.
- Limited on-board keyboard support. Even with an external bluetooth keyboard there are quirks and issues.
I can do, and do do quite a bit with the system. It remains limited and crippled in numerous ways though I can often avoid the sharpest of edges.
There's no full-fledged equivalent on iOS, and many years of attempting to provide even a fraction of Termux's capabilities (through ISH) seems to be running into even steeper headwinds than Termux has had to deal with.
Also for writing, even today you don't really know if an author has used a ghost writer to help them.
True, but the odds are overwhelming that the ghost writer was human.
But, yes, that would be an option. Honestly, though, if this sort of future actually comes to pass, I think I'll have much larger problems to find ways to handle first.
"it is something that we should never devalue."
not sure when that come into the equation? People have been creating crap before generative AI. It seems to me like the author doesn't like the process of creation using generative AI techniques. For some people, generative AI allows them to express their art. So, there you go.
Humans will continue to produce valuable art, with or without generative AI. Until a computer and the brain are indistinguishable, the expression of thought will be valuable in it of itself. I think, therefore I am. We are far from having "thinking" machines--whatever that may even be. We don't understand consciousness and the goal posts for what is AI / AIG keep moving.
With that said, we know what the end-state may be. Singularity for instance, would be a game-changer.
While I think that "singularity" is just wild-eyed fantasy, if it ever happens then that will be the point at which humans are extinct.
Well yeah, one of the fundamental discoveries of nihilism. Our purpose is that which we make ourselves.
You can be totally distracted from your real existence for 90% of you life, you won’t need anything else. Just have “20 hot wives” or whatever superficial thing makes you happy.
There was no direct selection pressure that coordinated the development of your ability to understand evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology is a side effect of intelligence. Breaking past our darwinian purpose is a side effect of our meta understanding of evolutionary biology and intelligence. As someone else said we, to a limited extend, can make our own purpose.
Fair enough, but I absolutely see humans as being more special than machines. What interests me in a story, art, poem, whatever, is that it's a human communication. Even if a machine can do it technically as well, or better, I want the human one, not the computed one.
A world where everything is generated by a machine is a dystopian world, in my view.
I guess we are different in this case, as I primarily read something for its content, rather than its author (although the author is often a good proxy for the quality of the content). A world where I can instantly generate whatever content I want is a utopia for me, rather than a dystopia.
And I don't want to deny you that. My fear is that your preference will be the only choice. One person's heaven can indeed be another person's hell.
But at least a lot of those people will be trying to express something even if all AI can give them is an approximation of what they would make if they had the talent.
But that just makes the issue more important. I don't want to lose what little meaningful art is actually left. Art serves a critically important social function, and if that art is no longer from people, that function is no longer served.
Is a world where you already know what the content is, and thus there won't be any point in taking it in.
And we have to do this to some degree to simply navigate the world of content. I already filter for action films or documentaries depending on my mood.
Sure, a world where I have to already know the entire script for a film to have it appear is (while technically astonishing) not great for me individually, one where I can say I want a new Poirot and get it is incredible.
Humans are the ones who created the very AI that you're talking about. The AI is not an act of nature but something made real by human creativity.
I don't understand why you (and others) think this is an important point, though. Let's say, for the sake of argument, not just that you're correct, but that we're not even made of flesh. That we're actual robots called "humans".
I don't see how that changes anything. I'd still prefer "human" communication over communication from a different machine pretending to be "human".
Why? Because what others of my species/model feels and thinks has a unique importance and meaning to me, and having fake versions of that communication around reduces my connection to others of my species/model and devalues the society of them that I am a part of.
Can you explain why exactly? Is it a religious view? Seems to me we're just meat robots.
Yeah. What have humans ever done for us?
Except for roads. And buildings. And infrastructure and machines.
Art is a way in which we grapple with such questions. I am yet to see a surprising contriubtion by an AI.
I'd imagine that you'd prioritize saving a human child from a fire over saving a machine or a meat based robot. Why?
My point is your composition or substrate or whatever is irrelevant.
> Can you explain why exactly?
Because humans designed and built machines before machines could design and build humans.
The content may be entertaining, emotional, and compelling. But I just won't view it the same way, because I am not in communion with an AI the same way I would be with a conscious, mindful human. There's no space for meaning because half of the author-reader relationship is missing.
A cynical mind would suggest I am seeking not the communion itself, but the rewards such a communion provides and they're probably right. If you lie and claim a human wrote it (and it is otherwise indistinguishable from human work), I will probably appreciate the work the same way I would a human-written work.
If AI were a conscious being, I don't think I'd mind that they aren't human, the same way I wouldn't mind reading the work of a space alien. There would still be a mind on the other end. But until and if that ever happens, if I know about it, I don't think it'll ever be the same for me.
In contrast, a new virtual world for GTA 8 -- I don't care if that is from an AI or a human. I feel like either could be just as immersive as the other.
I certainly don't find things particularly meaningful in the folds of a terrain, the placement of trees, or the exact shape of a background building. This is all 'canvas' and I pretty much assume a computer did most of the work with humans doing some combination of providing input and output to the program. If AI took this over entirely, I don't think it would change anything.
However, placing particular buildings, terrain features, or what-have-you can be meaningful. A bar next to a church may be cliché, but if a human did it, there is meaning to be had; if an AI did it, it's just two buildings and either a coincidence or the same cliché that the AI has learned.
Put another way, I think virtual worlds function as both canvas and art. AI handling the canvas doesn't change anything for me. AI handling the art, does.
I agree entirely -- as long as the AI, or space alien, wasn't pretending to be human or replace humans.
You’re not a machine, you’re part of an ecosystem, you’re like a plant, but for some reason you can move around more freely than a plant so you think you’re detached from the earth and that you’re some software running in hardware but you’re not, you’re integrated into the biosphere. Is the planet a machine ? Maybe, but comparing ourselves to machines is just an analogy to help us understand ourselves.
A human can go into space but not for long, even when we do go we need to take the environment , at least the atmospheric conditions with us to survive. While man has walked on the the moon, we never touched another planet with our own hands.
Most people can distinguish good writing from that which is merely serviceable, but un-engaging. Reading the latter is like a slow death if its in book form or attempting to be literary fiction.
For news articles and other stuff that's being automated, it's replacing what is already a heavily templated process. The writing there is fine. It's not what I'd call interesting though. That's the difference an actual writer can make.
Sure, but you're talking about the current reality of AI written content, there may very well be very engaging content in the future by AI.
I mean that's cool, but have you seen life itself? What about conscious matter that can observe itself? The goodness of AI is relative to us, the one that invented it. By some definition we will always be better than it because we created the damn thing in the first place.
Seeing ChatGPT and saying we're not that special is just utterly wrong to me. Even if it is true, accepting that as a fact is dangerous, if not traitorous in some way — reminds me of the Adventists in The Three-Body Problem (massive spoiler ahead) having such a low opinion of humanity that they would rather be destroyed by an alien race.
/philosophical rant I keep coming back to and I need someone smarter to expand upon
But here's the problem. This saying: "Humans are not special" is completely true. To deny this idea is to deny the truth.
Ultimately to save ourselves, our culture must engage in self deception. We must trick ourselves into believing that AI content is inferior and thereby maintain economic demand for content not created by AI. I can see it happening as a mass hysteria similar to how the public was resistant against "new coke" (https://www.damninteresting.com/the-american-gustation-crisi...)
You will see that many people, including people on HN, are already doing this. There's a large cohort of people generating huge adamant denial on the potential of AI.
The OP is sort of being a bit too honest with himself, most people who flat out refuse to acknowledge AI will do so with the idea that AI is inferior and will always be that way.
That's your truth. Humans get to decide what humans consider special. Your perspective is fair: humans are not special to you.
But they are certainly special to me and most other humans. That's my truth. That's not denying some objective truth, because "specialness" isn't an objective thing that can be measured. It's, effectively, an opinion.
You and I measure "specialness" differently.
But even if I agreed with you (and I could easily argue your side of this debate), it still wouldn't affect my attitude towards AI pretending to be human. Humans don't have to be special in some grand sense to consider that problematic.
Well then let's talk about what I mean by "special".
If I gave you some art whether it's written, drawn or filmed and I asked you to tell me whether this "art" was created by a human and an AI, and you have trouble identifying the difference... then objectively speaking humans are no longer special. That is the definition I am using here.
There's no point in making up "opinions" and discussing those because they will always be different. Thus when communicating we are always talking about a shared reality. That includes the "term" special. I have defined what I mean by "special" here concretely so we can keep the conversation consistent rather then diverge onto branches according to our own personal definitions of "special".
>Humans don't have to be special in some grand sense to consider that problematic.
I never said it wasn't problematic. I said it was truth. The truth is the problem. Being honest and aware of reality is the intrinsic problem here. Being delusional is the cure.
I would. Concerts are pretty bad, people go for the atmosphere or the drugs, strictly speaking the actual music is usually objectively worse than the studio recordings for the same tracks.
It's coming through the speakers either way, the artists are not my friends, I do not care.
What do you think EDM concerts are? They're all prerecorded, the DJ most of the time doesn't actually do anything up there on the stand. And yet people go to these concerts, because it's about the music itself, not who makes it.
> What if I tell you that this page ,including all our comments, is entirely created by LLMs?
So what? If it's good content, it's good content. I've had debates with ChatGPT on a variety of issues and sometimes it brings up a good points that I hadn't considered before on the topic, so if HN were entirely AI driven, it doesn't really matter either. Hell, solipsism is entirely built on the notion that no one besides oneself is real, this would simply be an extension of that concept.
If you're a writer try not to use AI or have the gallantry to say so if you do. Who's/how work is done is not a fading question
This sentimental, out of breath tone of this beleaguered experimenter could be in AI or a hippie drugster called Larry in Ashbury park SF who's also taking a step back.
I don't think there was ever there in there, and you've just tired yourself out. That's it. There'no cosmic reveal here.
Folks can we get grounded in life, politics, and AI? The hyper emotional whiplash of breezy predictions is nonsense.
In pure scientific reasoning I agree the models need to be able to encode logic somehow.
In any event, by mashing things up you might concede that these models can at least encourage human creativity
Unfortunately, if the idea behind Moloch [1] has any credibility (which I think the collection action problem does) someone else will _by the nature of the beast_ continue doing so.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
I think your wording suggests that it isn't actually useful except as a gimmick, whereas it sounds like OP is if anything upset that it is too effective and might someday replace humans.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everyth...
A recent thread on HN was about 75% percent of Hollywood movies that got lost forever. A story i am writing for almost a week, alongside with GPT of course, introduces the holy trinity of the computer internet, which solves this problem. This will get published in a day or two.
The problem of the Holy Trinity of the Computer Internet, cannot be solved by the machine, and it is not solved by humans either. I had to use a powerful statistical engine, like GPT, to really tackle this problem effectively, to put the words in a perfect sequence. GPT enables a sentence to be written, in a perfect average way, so perfect average it seems like super-average.
It’s a bit odd to see this from a writer that joined substack 10 months ago. When it was already famous for associating online blog writing with subscription fees, locking content behind paywalls and so on. Which was too big of a change from the more open wordpress/blogspot/etc. norm for someone to claim ignorance.
So I don’t quite buy this anti-capitalist rant, the writer even set up a custom domain name with their substack account, so they clearly understood, implicitly accepting a more monetary blogging system at the very least.
There are a lot of greedy people in this world, who probably are mostly self-interested to an unattractive degree, though the folks who are fine associating with them when convenient and denounce them when inconvenient are not any better.
A blogging service provides utility. It enables this writer to publish their content, and they've obviously decided that the paid service is better than alternatives. They are expressing concern that AI will replace people current paid to create things, because it's cheaper and will make people more money. The two situations seem completely different to me, I'm not sure I understand your comparison.
The writer was fine with associating their online blog writing with subscription fees, locking content behind paywalls and so on 10 months ago.
So they were fine with monetization in a scenario when it benefited them, and against when the scenario, AI assisted writing, wasn’t as favourable for them.
> You are saying that because the writer signed up to a paid blogging service, and paid for their own domain, their opinion on how AI may replace humans is not valid?
This is nonsense, personal opinions can neither be valid nor invalid by definition.
If they are fine with more expensive AI replacing humans, instead of cheaper AI, then that seems to be an even more objectionable position?
I doubt they have such bizarre views. But it’s possible the writer could have incoherent thoughts.
For me, the most sensible reading is that they’re against any monetization of AI writing period. Not that they’re fine with AI writing if it’s beyond what most people can afford.
I am not sure if you are being willfully obtuse, serious, or comedic here, but you made me smile either way, thank you.
Yes. So what? Not every business is identical. Some businesses are more greedy and ruthless than others. Some provide more societal benefits than others.
Why not declaim directly at the shady businesses?
This was written in the context of your analogy of different businesses competing.
I think this person just only liked it before everyone else was doing it