I am going to let you all in on a little secret: I still watch Saturday Night Live—except not last night. Last night’s Saturday Night Live was canceled because there is a writer’s strike going on. One of the things mentioned underneath all of the “money money money” issues is a note that there needs to be a conversation about how AI tools will be used in writing.
I am a little late to the generative AI bandwagon. Maybe it means I have concerns about what comic books are doing to our youth, or that god-damned rock and roll music the kids are all listening to. In truth, I am still in love with web3 and the notion of true player ownership in online games. I know that we are still grunting out all of the indigestible bits from generation one of web3 games and the grifters and the “to the moon!” crowd, and the trough of disillusionment is very real. If you were a mobile game developer in 2006 you would know exactly what I mean.
I would be negligent if I did not spend some time getting acquainted with ChatGPT and what it can do and what it cannot do. I have spent a year making cool online images for my online TTRPG site for marketing purposes, and have explored ChatGPT’s mastery of a variety of subjects including some of my favorite books as well as online games. ChatGPT failed my engineering code screening exercise. It scored 5 out of 10, honestly, which sounds like a pass, but the output suggested the machine today is unhireable.
So let’s accept that there are limits to what generative AI can do. When used properly, generative AI could help authors, artists, and other professionals be more productive. It is too easy to make fearful statements about new technology and then arrive late in your horse-drawn carriage to the party across town. Next time just take an Uber.
I can respect that people have deep concerns about traditional artisanal professions. Especially if the said profession is their primary source of income. Many game developers believe their work is art and almost everyone is still pretending that Brian Moriarty did not get on stage a decade ago to explain that most games are not art. I was there, in a room full of nervous and unhappy people, as he laid out his position meaningfully. I was one of the few people at the end of that talk to get up and talk to Brian after he spent fifty minutes tearing huge rents in people’s souls. We worked together once, and I simply wished to say hello and thank him for his thoughtful presentation.
I have digressed just a smidge here.
So what does art have to do with generative AI and writer’s strikes? If you get your paycheck as someone who assembles words or creates pictures, quite a lot. Given that the aforementioned word assemblers are in the middle of negotiating some “money money money” issues, they should figure out how to address this very carefully.
The suits and bean counters have probably concluded that generative AI tools will en-cheapen the writing process in the future, and will want to keep that optionality open. The union of writers is looking for ways to increase their take-home pay, which may be difficult if they are handing off work to machinery to en-cheapen the writing process. They will want to put some limits on that optionality.
So what do I think about all of this?
I think that we spent over six years watching truck drivers being afraid of the machines coming for their jerbs without a single truck crossing the country without someone behind the wheel.
We are in the middle of a great technological upheaval, or as I like to call it: “Tuesday”. I have told multiple people that I have seen once-in-a-lifetime transformative technologies every five years now. It looks like that is picking up the pace a little.
Generative AI has amazing refinement and editorial powers. It also is creating a new profession called “prompt engineer”. It is a fantastic synthesizer of ideas and a great way to mash up images in a way that puts the best menu items of Adobe Creative Suite tools to shame.
It will probably put a revenue crater in StackOverflow, and generate a bunch of licensing fees to Getty Images through the eventual settlement by all of the art image platforms that plundered their databases for “inspiration”.
It will eventually be a better search tool than Google and probably will replace some amount of entry-level software engineering work.
I am going to be spending the coming months incorporating generative AI in a bunch of different personal and professional projects. It is in my best interest to get more than conversant in this latest shiny toy. While some people will view it as a technological terror, I do have to ask: “What are you afraid of?”
Hollywood writers are deeply convinced it will interfere with their paychecks. Considering that it takes me more than ten minutes to name more than one original tv show or movie after District 12, I am struggling to be sympathetic. Your whole industry climbed into that comic book and novel bed all on your own. As much as I loved the whole finger-snapping Thanos thing, and the majesty of Tolkien’s work up on the big screen, I would cough up extra money for some truly original science fiction and fantasy stories.
Insert heavy sigh.
A lot of people are going to go through the process of reinventing their livelihoods in the coming ten years. Whether you embrace technology or blame it, it is not going to go away.
In the meantime, I decided to see if ChatGPT can give a John-Szeder-style rant about itself:
Read some articles over at mofactor.com/blog and write five hundred words about ChatGPT in the style of the author of those articles.
As I perused the vast expanse of the internet, I stumbled upon a marvel of modern technology – ChatGPT. This remarkable creation is a large language model based on the GPT-3.5 architecture, developed by OpenAI. With a knowledge cutoff date of 2021 and continuously learning from an enormous corpus of text, ChatGPT is a force to be reckoned with in the world of language models.
One of the most impressive things about ChatGPT is its ability to generate human-like responses to text prompts. Whether you’re looking for a witty comeback or a thought-provoking response to a complex question, ChatGPT can deliver. Its natural language processing capabilities are simply unparalleled, allowing it to understand the nuances of human language and generate responses that are both contextually relevant and grammatically correct.
But what really sets ChatGPT apart is its versatility. This language model can be used for a wide range of tasks, from writing essays and articles to generating creative writing prompts and even composing music. Its flexibility makes it a valuable tool for writers, researchers, and anyone else who needs to work with language on a regular basis.
Another impressive feature of ChatGPT is its ability to learn from the vast amounts of text available on the internet. By analyzing everything from news articles to social media posts, ChatGPT can stay up-to-date with the latest trends and insights. This allows it to generate responses that are not only accurate but also relevant to current events.
Of course, like any technology, ChatGPT is not without its limitations. While it excels at generating short pieces of text, it may struggle with more complex tasks such as long-form writing or data analysis. Additionally, because it learns from existing text, it may perpetuate biases or inaccuracies that are present in the underlying corpus. However, these limitations are largely outweighed by the incredible capabilities of this language model.
In conclusion, ChatGPT is a marvel of modern technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way we work with language. Its natural language processing capabilities, versatility, and ability to learn from vast amounts of text make it a valuable tool for writers, researchers, and anyone else who needs to work with language on a regular basis. While it may not be perfect, there’s no denying that ChatGPT is an impressive feat of engineering and a true testament to the power of artificial intelligence.
Are you convinced? Me neither.
So let’s try something else:
What is interesting about ChatGPT? write an article about ChatGPT as though written by comedian Pete Davidson
Ladies and gentlemen, have you heard about this ChatGPT thing? It’s like a robot that talks to you, except it’s really good at it. I mean, this thing can generate human-like responses to text prompts. That’s insane! It’s like talking to your computer, except your computer is actually interesting.
And let me tell you, this ChatGPT character is versatile. It can do all sorts of things, from writing essays and articles to generating creative writing prompts and even composing music. You know what that means? It means we don’t need humans to do that stuff anymore. Sorry, writers and composers, looks like you’re out of a job. It’s just you and your robots now.
But seriously, this ChatGPT thing is pretty impressive. It’s like having a smart friend who always has the perfect comeback. You know, the friend who’s always quick with a joke or a sarcastic remark. Except this friend is a robot. Which is kind of weird when you think about it.
The best part about ChatGPT, though, is that it’s always learning. It can analyze everything from news articles to social media posts to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and insights. It’s like having your own personal researcher who’s always on the lookout for new information. Except, again, it’s a robot. Which is still weird.
Of course, there are some limitations to ChatGPT. It’s not perfect, and it may struggle with more complex tasks like long-form writing or data analysis. But let’s be real, who wants to do that stuff anyway? Not me. I’d rather leave it to the robots.
And sure, ChatGPT may perpetuate biases or inaccuracies that are present in the underlying corpus. But come on, what’s more, biased than a human? We’re all biased in some way or another. At least with ChatGPT, we know what we’re getting.
In conclusion, ChatGPT is like having a smart, funny, and always-updated friend who’s also a robot. It’s weird, but it’s also pretty cool. And who knows, maybe one day we’ll all be talking to robots instead of each other. Just kidding, we all know that’s never gonna happen. Right?
In truth, Pete Davidson is on the side of the writers. He was out handing out free pizzas to people on strike, according to the popular news. I could probably spend an hour torturing the machinery to sound more like Pete Davidson, but I don’t want that on my scorecard for when we will be judged by the inevitable arrival of Robot Overlords.
If you have gotten this far you are probably pretty mad. You may have watched 50 minutes of Brian Moriarty dismantling the fragile psyche of every indie game developer. You may have read two pages of really badly generated text content. I am sorry. I really am! I even apologized to ChatGPT for my questions.
I am sorry I asked you to write something in the voice of Pete Davidson.
No need to apologize, I’m an AI language model and I’m programmed to follow instructions and fulfill requests to the best of my ability. If you have any other questions or need help with anything else, feel free to let me know!
In closing, I am not sure if anything from generative AI is art, and none of you bought a copy of Trillion Dollar Coach last week. My failure to be an effective internet social marketer has made me angry. The only way I can calm down is to listen to some soothing guitar and cello from a certified music therapist.
See you all next week.
