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Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

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Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#171

Post by keiferski »

awongh wrote: post #167
keiferski wrote: post #138

Not to be intentionally contrarian, but I have thought a lot about this: I think good fiction is actually the antithesis of AI, fundamentally. LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output. This can give you some creative results, but it is ultimately kind of limited. I cannot imagine that prompting an AI a thousand times would give you something truly original in the way many high-quality fi…

> LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output In terms of how writers think about creativity this doesn’t reflect reality- there’s the old writer’s saying that there are only 7 stories (and other variations of this idea) and that writing is about creatively remixing these well-worn ideas. The LLM’s capability to write acceptable fiction and nonfiction is coming soon if it’s not already here…

This is a bit like saying “there are only five fundamental flavors” and everything is some combination of them.

Maybe, but that has basically zero effect on the experience of actually eating food. Just because the form may be the same doesn’t mean an LLM will be able to supply original content.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#172

Post by keiferski »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #170
snakeboy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And therefore, if an AI had more data that mirrors that experience in some way would it be sufficiently creative to create something "truly original"? An important distinction seems to lie in a human having original experiences to draw from, while an AI has only "data that mirrors" experiences.

ChatGPT has had more conversations than you or I have. And it's conversed with people from a wider range of backgrounds in a wider range of situations.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#173

Post by rahimnathwani »

keiferski wrote: post #172
rahimnathwani wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has had more conversations than you or I have. And it's conversed with people from a wider range of backgrounds in a wider range of situations.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

Yes, of course.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#174

Post by awongh »

keiferski wrote: post #171
awongh wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output In terms of how writers think about creativity this doesn’t reflect reality- there’s the old writer’s saying that there are only 7 stories (and other variations of this idea) and that writing is about creatively remixing these well-worn ideas. The LLM’s capability to write acceptable fiction and nonfiction is coming soon if it’s not already here…

This is a bit like saying “there are only five fundamental flavors” and everything is some combination of them. Maybe, but that has basically zero effect on the experience of actually eating food. Just because the form may be the same doesn’t mean an LLM will be able to supply original content.

I’m not sure I understand the analogy. You could say that the reason why artificial flavors work in food is because we know how to recreate flavors from first principle chemistry. The dislike of the artificialness of cheetos also doesn’t stop many many people from eating them.

I would say human made slop writing isn’t any better or worse quality than LLM writing.

Knowing if it was made by a real person makes a difference to me, but I also know it won’t to everyone.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#175

Post by lordnacho »

keiferski wrote: post #172
rahimnathwani wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has had more conversations than you or I have. And it's conversed with people from a wider range of backgrounds in a wider range of situations.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

That's what we all did in school, didn't we?

Nobody did any original research, you didn't discover gravity, and you didn't participate in any historically significant events.

Yet we say that people who have been through education know about such things.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#176

Post by whilenot-dev »

jackbrookes wrote: post #155
keiferski wrote: post #138

Not to be intentionally contrarian, but I have thought a lot about this: I think good fiction is actually the antithesis of AI, fundamentally. LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output. This can give you some creative results, but it is ultimately kind of limited. I cannot imagine that prompting an AI a thousand times would give you something truly original in the way many high-quality fi…

> LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output > The magic and absurdity of life is a necessary thing to create such works. These two points seem slightly conflicting. Why if a human is truly more creative than AI, must it experience "the magic and absurdity of life" if it can be creative without "combining things into output"? Is a creative human then just not splicing and recombining their…

I think you're just neglecting the fact that LLMs only exist in the virtual world, whereas we're interacting with a world that's richer and has much more to offer. The virtual world is still just a mere subset of our world, but whether we want to perceive it as such is up to each individual. It certainly feels like you're conflating digital with analog, and a digital signal can still only approximate an analog one.

I still doubt that we have the knowledge to describe all of our human desires as mere results of our brain interacting with the nervous system either. There are many processes going on besides analysis and synthesis. If I plan on doing something extraordinary, I don't only sit there, think, and try to rearrange some pieces from memory. I'll go look around, touch, taste, re-explore and expand the perception my environment has to offer. Further, my perception can vary by the minute and I could even try to bring in a touch of chance whenever I feel like.

Wittgenstein's "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" might be fitting here, yet language still continues to evolve.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#177

Post by lordnacho »

keiferski wrote: post #138

Not to be intentionally contrarian, but I have thought a lot about this: I think good fiction is actually the antithesis of AI, fundamentally. LLMs are really only capable of combining different things into output. This can give you some creative results, but it is ultimately kind of limited. I cannot imagine that prompting an AI a thousand times would give you something truly original in the way many high-quality fi…

So now we'll have to investigate what "original" means?

From what I can see, AI is absolutely able to create new work. Things that are not in the dataset, but look like they could be. This is pretty much what generalising means, they can make a wide variety of things that aren't actually in the original set but can hide in that set pretty well.

When you are an original piece of culture, what do you mean by it?

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#178

Post by vitorfblima »

keiferski wrote: post #172
rahimnathwani wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT has had more conversations than you or I have. And it's conversed with people from a wider range of backgrounds in a wider range of situations.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

He probably could tell you something about it, based on other people's experiences. Doesn't mean he would actually know what he was talking about.

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#179

Post by keiferski »

vitorfblima wrote: post #178
keiferski wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

He probably could tell you something about it, based on other people's experiences. Doesn't mean he would actually know what he was talking about.

He could tell you a collection of descriptions. Not actual knowledge firsthand.

Does reading an infinite number of cookbooks mean you know what the ingredients in each taste like?

Re: Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop

#180

Post by keiferski »

lordnacho wrote: post #175
keiferski wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Can you tell me what it feels like to eat a hamburger by asking a thousand people about it?

That's what we all did in school, didn't we? Nobody did any original research, you didn't discover gravity, and you didn't participate in any historically significant events. Yet we say that people who have been through education know about such things.

That is descriptive knowledge. Not firsthand qualia.

You may know every detail of the American Civil War, from every book ever written on the topic. You may read every journal from every person that wrote one about it.

You do not have firsthand knowledge of what it was like to participate in the war. Any assumption of that knowledge is a (false) generalization of what you think a person “would have thought or felt” based on contemporary ideas of the personality, psychology, etc. Reading a journal entry about a soldier seeing his comrade killed is not equivalent to actually having that experience yourself.

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