You know how I feel about this. I don't use ChatGPT because I don't want to help it get smarter, though AI has been fed my cookbook without my consent. I know it's getting smarter without me, but I still refuse to buy into it. If writing turns into a job where you just plug directions into a bot and ask it to write a story, that's not a job I want. Just because it makes something easier, doesn't make it better. I'm not anti-tech either. I can appreciate that technology is helpful in life, but I'm also aware of the harm it does as well. I liken the rise of AI to global warming. I know I can't singlehandedly stop greenhouse gas emissions, but I do my best to limit my damage to the planet. I don't eat meat, we only have one car for our household of two, I recycle, compost, and have no kids. I've tried to make my carbon footprint as small as possible. I just think if writers fully embrace AI and ChatGPT, they can't complain when the robots take their jobs.
You know I'm right there with you! I hadn't thought before about whether my book has been loaded in there, but I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe I should ask it to write something in my own style...and I'm gonna stop that thought right there because it's just WAY too freaky.
I started writing this last night thinking that I was going to post about a couple of things I'd seen lately. Next thing I knew, I had written way too much to do that, and wasn't done yet. Obviously, this post wanted to be about a single thing after all! A human can see that quite easily, but ChatGPT has no way to make that distinction. It can't tell that it has more to say, because all it can do is regurgitate--which, as you say so well, is easier, but is not better. Everything so-called AI produces so far is just a festival of mediocrity, if it's even that good, and I'm not at all interested in that. A badly written piece by a human who is trying to put thoughts down regardless is still worth more to me than regurgitated pabulum.
The one exception to this rule for me is the AI tool that helps me break down my podcast so I can include timestamps in the show notes. Even that is far from perfect, but it does allow me to do something I couldn't do otherwise because there's only one of me. But that's really the only exception I can think of.
Just occurred to me that I use transcription software to transcribe my interviews, so I guess I AM using a robot. Dammit! It does make my job so much easier.
I'm not in that database--though I'm sure at some point everything will end up in one. I'm so sorry your book is in there, though!
And yeah, this tool transcribes, too, though I think of that less as AI and more as sound recognition, but that probably just means I'm fooling myself. It bothers me less than the "replace the writer" stuff, but even as I say that, I'm aware that transcriptionists are people, too, and that transcription software sure doesn't hear perfectly (though I look at video captions for work that are supposedly transcribed by humans, and they're often wrong, too).
The other thing I wonder about is what happens when everything is so incredibly easy, and we don't have to put forth any effort to do anything anymore, but that's probably a whole other post. (And the unintended consequence there, of course, is that if those systems ever shut down, no one will know how to do anything the "old" way anymore. What happens then? Sounds like the next dystopian Netflix series...)
Yes, we should be worried. Not only about the outcome of the heavy use of AI, but also for its provenance; stealing the words of actual writers and artist to feed its artificiality.
You know how I feel about this. I don't use ChatGPT because I don't want to help it get smarter, though AI has been fed my cookbook without my consent. I know it's getting smarter without me, but I still refuse to buy into it. If writing turns into a job where you just plug directions into a bot and ask it to write a story, that's not a job I want. Just because it makes something easier, doesn't make it better. I'm not anti-tech either. I can appreciate that technology is helpful in life, but I'm also aware of the harm it does as well. I liken the rise of AI to global warming. I know I can't singlehandedly stop greenhouse gas emissions, but I do my best to limit my damage to the planet. I don't eat meat, we only have one car for our household of two, I recycle, compost, and have no kids. I've tried to make my carbon footprint as small as possible. I just think if writers fully embrace AI and ChatGPT, they can't complain when the robots take their jobs.
You know I'm right there with you! I hadn't thought before about whether my book has been loaded in there, but I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe I should ask it to write something in my own style...and I'm gonna stop that thought right there because it's just WAY too freaky.
I started writing this last night thinking that I was going to post about a couple of things I'd seen lately. Next thing I knew, I had written way too much to do that, and wasn't done yet. Obviously, this post wanted to be about a single thing after all! A human can see that quite easily, but ChatGPT has no way to make that distinction. It can't tell that it has more to say, because all it can do is regurgitate--which, as you say so well, is easier, but is not better. Everything so-called AI produces so far is just a festival of mediocrity, if it's even that good, and I'm not at all interested in that. A badly written piece by a human who is trying to put thoughts down regardless is still worth more to me than regurgitated pabulum.
The one exception to this rule for me is the AI tool that helps me break down my podcast so I can include timestamps in the show notes. Even that is far from perfect, but it does allow me to do something I couldn't do otherwise because there's only one of me. But that's really the only exception I can think of.
The Atlantic created a database where you can check to see if your book is being used to train AI, which you can access here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/books3-database-generative-ai-training-copyright-infringement/675363/
Just occurred to me that I use transcription software to transcribe my interviews, so I guess I AM using a robot. Dammit! It does make my job so much easier.
I'm not in that database--though I'm sure at some point everything will end up in one. I'm so sorry your book is in there, though!
And yeah, this tool transcribes, too, though I think of that less as AI and more as sound recognition, but that probably just means I'm fooling myself. It bothers me less than the "replace the writer" stuff, but even as I say that, I'm aware that transcriptionists are people, too, and that transcription software sure doesn't hear perfectly (though I look at video captions for work that are supposedly transcribed by humans, and they're often wrong, too).
The other thing I wonder about is what happens when everything is so incredibly easy, and we don't have to put forth any effort to do anything anymore, but that's probably a whole other post. (And the unintended consequence there, of course, is that if those systems ever shut down, no one will know how to do anything the "old" way anymore. What happens then? Sounds like the next dystopian Netflix series...)
Have you seen WALL-E? 😁
I sure have—and I think it’s one hell of a cautionary tale. Not least because it’s not farfetched at all.
Yes, we should be worried. Not only about the outcome of the heavy use of AI, but also for its provenance; stealing the words of actual writers and artist to feed its artificiality.
It’s both, for sure.