Oliver ReichensteinDealing with ChatGPT, I have an increasingly clear idea of how l need and want to write. It's as if *real writing* required *artificial writing* to become a solid notion. Or maybe it's along what Baudrillard said about Disney Land: it exists to make us believe that society is real. (Quoted from memory). ChatGPT made me think about the difference between real and simulated understanding. Still, I get an increasingly clear idea of what #writing needs to be. Never saw it in such strong light.
Let me try to put the idea into words: To me, writing has to be done so carefully that we feel and mean every word we express. We do not ever want to waste people's time with vague rambles or clever lies. Writing needs to be as short as possible but not shorter. And while writing is painful, especially at the beginning, when the thought is delicate and not yet clear enough, if ever possible, writing needs to be done with humor, it cannot be completed without us enjoying it either.
I worked on the latest article on Writing and AI with this strong concept in mind that I need to make sure that I write what I feel and, that at the same time I have a clear idea what I want to say and that don't get lost in 99 ideas as I usually do (ended up with 9 ideas). That I need to enjoy writing it because otherwise no one could enjoy reading it. https://ia.net/topics/the-end-of-writing-ia-on-ai I want to continue walking down that path.
Rado@reichenstein
I made this mistake of playing with an AI of sorts, you take a picture of your room and it suggest an interior design for you. A few months later, I am still having nightmares that I am living in these interiors feeling crushed and miserable by the surrounding. I wasn’t expecting that.
I made this mistake of playing with an AI of sorts, you take a picture of your room and it suggest an interior design for you. A few months later, I am still having nightmares that I am living in these interiors feeling crushed and miserable by the surrounding. I wasn’t expecting that.
@notimefortv What do you mean by "Living in these interiors feeling crushed and miserable by the surrounding"? What it showed you was nightmarish and you can't shake the images? I saw some AI images of rendered people in a Reddit community. Can't remember a single image, but the impression I had was an never ending increasingly dark nightmare of sorts that I wasn't prepared to deal with. I can't explain exactly why it was so terrifying. And I don't intend to go back there.
@reichenstein exactly. some sort of twisted imitation of organic shapes and light. I don't know why, but I don't think I have seen something so "inhuman" in it's core. at first glance pleasant and balanced, but if you look at it for more then 2 seconds it creeps you out big time. Neither chaotic like nature, nor structured like human made. Something different and personally for me deeply hostile.
@notimefortv Same. Ialways wondered why no one else sees it or points it out. It's such a horror show. Blacker than black mirror. I'm quite sure that there's something similar happening to rendered text, it's just harder to spot.
@notimefortv "I'm quite sure that it happens to rendered text but it's harder to spot" This may sound neurotic, and I might be wrong, but when it comes to images I have no doubts whatsoever.
@reichenstein I don't know, I tried talking to a few people about it and I got these strange looks and the question - why do you care so much, why so upset about it? Still can't answer this question :)
@notimefortv I touched on it in the article saying that it acts, looks and feels like cancer. I can't explain it better right now. The simple fact that it mashes and grows organic information and makes it look as crediblewhole from a far, but when you look closely it's all messed up, both for images and text is really creepy. It replicates on top of our expressions and at the same time fools us on a deeper level. It's super creepy when you dive into it.
@reichenstein that's why the text spoke to me. I never thought about it this way, but it sounds about right
@notimefortv Writing it I increasingly became aware that we need to set clear limits of what is happening. The image of language as a bridge between to bodies and not as a thing in itself that can make sense without body helps a lot. If you see images as visual communication, as a form of language and not as something completely different from text, it helps seeing the limits and the realm of AI. It's good we see this thing in its raw form with its raw edges.
geekyorganizer@reichenstein @notimefortv Time to revisit Vilém Flusser „für eine Philosophie der Fotografie“ (Towards a Philosophy of Photography)
@geekyorganizer @reichenstein
thanks, will check it out. I always considered / admitting quite arrogantly / that the only book about photography worth reading is Camera Lucida :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Lucida_(book)
thanks, will check it out. I always considered / admitting quite arrogantly / that the only book about photography worth reading is Camera Lucida :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Lucida_(book)
@geekyorganizer @notimefortv Recently read his collected essays on design. Hated it except for the opening essay. :-)
@notimefortv @reichenstein A few days ago I have read the linked article on Petapixel about photographers illustrating an article of Marcel Proust and have - as an experiment - an AI render the same images based on the text. I could not articulate it, when I read it, but „neither chaotic like nature, nor structured like human“ is exactly what I felt about the AI generated images.
djbrinkerhoffa term I keep coming back to is “metastasized reality”
It’s not *quite* right, but it gestures towards the feeling
@reichenstein I enjoyed reading your article. A lot. Thanks for sharing it, Oliver.
@konstantin Happy you enjoyed it, too.
Tobias Horvath@reichenstein Everything you just said is true and the only way forward.
Leo Aranda@reichenstein regarding that conciseness, I like Blaise Pascal’s quote which translated says something to the effect of: this is longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.
“Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” —Blaise Pascal
Davide"I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter." [Pascal]
With a rabbit-hole side of all the people who said such thing (Shout out to Locke for the honesty): https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
Moritz Zimmer@reichenstein Interesting thoughts. Thanks. My grain of salt; keeping writing as short as possible ist — IMHO — a very western and Protestant take. If you look at Buddhist writing, that needs a lot of mind beding for "us", ... it's all about repetition. Repetition for the sake of accent, repetition for the sake of plurality, repetition for the sake of memory, repetition for the sake of identification, repetition for the sake of ... the sake?
@moritzz As short as possible, but not shorter. Repetition can be a wonderful rhetoric device. To quote Buddha:
“All that we are is defined by our thoughts: it begins where our thoughts begin, it moves where our thoughts move, and it rests where our thoughts rest.”
The Elements of Rhetoric -- How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively: A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians & Preachers
Ryan N. S. Topping
@reichenstein Very nice example. Thanks for quoting it. After writing my not so musical example, I thought; think about music (lyrics). It's all about – repetition!
Kirk McElhearn@reichenstein To coin a different Frenchman, perhaps ChatGPT is the zero degree of writing, the ultimate blandness of text. The true writing without style, that Beckett sought when writing in French.
Shawn RoosLove the way you articulated this @reichenstein
@shawnroos Thank you. I am quite sure that the idea was born when I started to test ChatGPT. I didn't have a clear image of how human writing should be before trying artificial writing.
@reichenstein I have really enjoyed using it as a writing sparring partner - something I’ve always found to be either productive but awkward, or fun but unproductive.
@shawnroos I used it to discuss philosophical topics that most people I know do not want to discuss for three or four hours. Like if you need a body to understand. ChatGPT never gives up and it helped me sharpening my argument. It can also help me finding typos in English, which is a blindness I just can't shake.
@reichenstein yesterday, i tried to sketch with words. tried to be as short as possible to get the picture across. and tried to enjoy writing.
here's the result:
http://konnexus.net/article/K230125A-nightjet
here's the result:
http://konnexus.net/article/K230125A-nightjet
@konstantin Reads well. Like I was there with you. Will read more.
@reichenstein Most of it isn't worth your time. In contrast to you, most of the time I write to practice thinking straight, not for other people.
Notes similar to "nightjet" are in http://konnexus.net/life — they're closest to what's worth reading at all. Except for if you're into information machines thoughts, then http://konnexus.net/informachines is worth a look