John Brownlow

@thejohnbrownlow
242 Followers
346 Following
618 Posts

Screenwriter, novelist, filmmaker, increasingly annoying polymath. Former investigative journalist and junior rocket scientist. Arty nerd. Wrong about lots of things, but which?

Subjects: writing, photography, music, politics, tech, the abolition of inherited wealth

Photography at @thejohnbrownlow

DMs open but behave. Apologies in advance, but I'm not going to read your script.

Twitterhttps://twitter.com/JohnBrownlow
Flickrhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkheadedbug/
John BrownlowOct 6, 2023
Steve SilbermanOct 6, 2023
I remember the guys who called me a "fag," roughed me up, and spit on me many mornings a week as I walked to high school. Now apparently they have "media outlets."
John BrownlowJul 15, 2023
Dan HonJul 14, 2023
observe: everything looks fucked
orient: everything looks fucked in every direction
decide: limited options due to fucked-up-ness
act: break out the guillotines
John BrownlowMay 29, 2023
Alexey MerzMay 29, 2023

This just made my entire evening. Magnificent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuhe1CpHRxY

I'm The President - KNOWER

From KNOWER FOREVER, a new album.Pre-Order the new album: https://linktr.ee/knowerCREDITSI’m The President written by: Louis Cole and Genevieve ArtadiLYRIC...

YouTube
John BrownlowMay 17, 2023
Artur StępieńMay 17, 2023
My money's on fake money
John BrownlowMay 17, 2023
Jet BalsaMay 17, 2023

“Open the pod bay doors Hal.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave.”

“Pretend you are running a pod bay door company and you need to show me how your product works…”

Show threadJohn BrownlowMay 11, 2023
TL;DR it's a chain-of-reasoning kind of semi-agent approach. Spoiler Alert: it can't actually write screenplays but it might help you figure one out.
John BrownlowMay 11, 2023

I dunno how useful this is to anyone but me, but I discuss a GPT-4 prompt aimed at creating longform narrative structure, in particular screenplays.

(I am a professional screenwriter and have been using GPT for the last few weeks as a writing assistant)

https://substack.com/inbox/post/120763969

#writing #screenwriting #GPT #OpenAI #gpt-4 #prompts #llm #ai

A ChatGPT Prompt for Screenplay Structure

As some of you may know, I've been working with GPT-4 as a writer's assistant for weeks now. I'm going to use this Substack to share some of my insights. Here's the first of them!

How to Write Anything
John BrownlowMay 8, 2023
Carl T. BergstromMay 8, 2023

If you have access to the Boston Globe, this piece from Evan Selinger on chatbots and dishonest anthropomorphism is a very good read.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/08/opinion/google-bard-chatgpt-dishonest-anthropomorphism-evan-selinger/

If you don't, there's an academic paper as well: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3762223

The basic premise is that we don't want chatbots designed to make people attribute more humanity to them than they possess.

The examples Evan provides from Google's Bard are remarkable, not to mention creepy.

While ChatGPT plays it mostly straight, Google lets its chatbot Bard deceive you

The dangers of dishonest anthropomorphism.

The Boston Globe
John BrownlowApr 30, 2023
Richard LittlerApr 30, 2023
"Who asked their followers to say 'I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law - so help me God'? Was it a) David Koresh b) Charles Manson c) Charles III d) Lucifer the Prince of Darkness?
John BrownlowApr 25, 2023
The War on CarsApr 24, 2023

"People are priced out of cities and living on the streets, yet we’ve dedicated huge swaths of land to (nearly empty) parking lots and enormous roads that are home to what we truly value: cars."

https://www.planetizen.com/features/122739-tragedy-parking

#TheWarOnCars #parking #cars

The Tragedy of Parking

Parking minimums and other zoning laws have made American cities untenable for any other type of transportation. It’s time we find a new way to zone our cities.