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The End of an Era

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Re: The End of an Era

#411

Post by wredcoll »

pibaker wrote: post #320
bsenftner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, someone else understands that writing is not the goal, the entire point of all of this is our communications between one another and this market for narrative stories is a nice departure and it does convey important knowledge and moral lessons that larger society needs. But it is an indirection, an indirection to the mission of communicating solutions to how to live as a human and that is why we care, why th…

I'd like to live in a world where people only make art to serve a higher purpose. But we don't live in that world and never did. Before we had slop we had pulp — formulaic, low effort writing full of cliches of romance, lust, crime and adventure broke college students could churn out en masse to make a living. I'd also recommend having a look at the books published by this article's author. I will admit that I have n…

I agree, any book that is liked by more than one other person is a crime against artistry and a moral failing.

Re: The End of an Era

#412

Post by Exoristos »

Matumio wrote: post #384
kriro wrote: post #211

""" Another prediction is that MOST readers will care about machine-vs-meat as much as they currently care about publishing imprints, which is to say almost none. """ This does not align with what I see in the fiction book space at all. At least in the communities that I frequent (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) there is no AI publication that I am aware of that is good. And readers react allergically to any notion of AI in…

> Writing is art and art requires a human soul for lack of a better word. I think it's the other way around. The human soul requires the art. Or rather it craves the process of creating art, more than art-the-trade-item. When image generation was new, someone raged: "They want to build a genie to grant them wishes, and their wish is that nobody ever has to make art again." > As for proving that you wrote it...yeah th…

It's both; humans and human activity are immanently mutual; humans are for humans.

Re: The End of an Era

#413

Post by AnimalMuppet »

burningChrome wrote: post #410
ACCount37 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen way too much humanslop to be able to reject LLM slop outright. There are areas where the average of LLM slop already beats the average of humanslop by a sizeable margin.

The interesting thing for me is that I have a very easy time of identifying AIslop. Have I been conditioned to simply ignore or accept humanslop? Is that the direction this is all going? That at some point we will simply accept both as a product of the human existence?

We shouldn't. Slop is slop. But there are a couple of differences:

AI slop can be more annoying to read. I mean, some human slop is as annoying as AI slop, but not all of it.

AIs can produce slop far faster than humans, so that the majority of slop at the moment is AI slop.

Re: The End of an Era

#414

Post by bananaflag »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #333
kriro wrote: post #211

""" Another prediction is that MOST readers will care about machine-vs-meat as much as they currently care about publishing imprints, which is to say almost none. """ This does not align with what I see in the fiction book space at all. At least in the communities that I frequent (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) there is no AI publication that I am aware of that is good. And readers react allergically to any notion of AI in…

Honestly I feel like I've already lived this when CGI began eating practical effects in movies. Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again but by then it was the norm and people's complaints don't have much teeth. Of course the best CGI back in the day was the CGI you didn't even notice was there. same with AI. when it's bad (and these days it's often bad) you notice, but then you don't not…

> Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again

What do you mean by "it got worse again"? Why did CGI tech get worse?

Re: The End of an Era

#415

Post by monkeywork »

gorbachev wrote: post #397
monkeywork wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again - did you even read the article you are commenting on? The author gives an example of a novel that had a huge advance offered on it and then pulled because of AI concerns... in order to get to the point of having the offer a bunch of competent writers, editors etc didn't notice.

Oh, yes, because one example makes this generally true. I'm sorry, but I have about 1M counter examples.

no, you don't have 1M counter examples. I'd also wager the vast majority of examples that you do have are on older models of LLMs that have been vastly surpassed in capabilities in the last 6 months.

You are essentially talking out a hole on the bottom half of your body.

Re: The End of an Era

#416

Post by ratelimitsteve »

the article talks about AI books winning awards and AI books on bestseller charts, but can any one of us think of a book they genuinely enjoyed that was written by an AI? this feels less like proof that AI books are good and more like proof that awards, rankings and other accolades are rife with abuse. it's a known issue across almost all entertainment media: you start by trying to find the best media to consume but the process is so subjective and gameable that it ends up being a way to pick something arbitrarily and then declare it to be the best.

Re: The End of an Era

#417

Post by harimau777 »

fidotron wrote: post #243
harimau777 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is determined by what someone is willing to pay but value isn't. If the value from art comes from expression, then LLMs directly attack the core value of art.

Damien Hirst, among many other prominent modern and historical artists, famously employed teams of human assistants to execute the bulk of the work. In the Hirst case that extended to the spot paintings, many of which he had very limited involvement in as a direct feature of the concept of the work itself. Something tells me that doesn't alter the value of the art as expression of the intention of the artist, and not…

That's a great point! I wonder if the difference might be that, as you mentioned, Hirst's lack of direct involvement was part of his artistic message. I wonder "work where the medium is part of the message" might just be an exception to the rule? Although in general I am suspicious of whether AI art is really art, I would consider it art if using AI was part of the message. However, does that generalize to other messages that people use art to communicate?

Re: The End of an Era

#418

Post by harimau777 »

argentinian wrote: post #303
harimau777 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but you name is somewhat ironic. Argentina's most famous writer, Jorge Luis Borges, built much of his career on the idea that writing is inextricably and inherantly linked to its author.

Completely agree with Borges in that. When the author is an AI, there's no human author, the result is a mix of what information it was feed, how its algorithms work, and what does the person giving commands to the IA asks. There's some link to the person who directs the IA. I believe Borges would have loved IA.

At the very least there is no doubt in my mind that he would have used it to create something intellectually provocative! Maybe something in the spirit of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"?

Re: The End of an Era

#419

Post by julianeon »

kriro wrote: post #211

""" Another prediction is that MOST readers will care about machine-vs-meat as much as they currently care about publishing imprints, which is to say almost none. """ This does not align with what I see in the fiction book space at all. At least in the communities that I frequent (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) there is no AI publication that I am aware of that is good. And readers react allergically to any notion of AI in…

I agree about the writing. As for the cover art though: I'm indifferent. It's not an important part of the book.

In the literary world, I would call using AI sentences in your novel a felony, but I'm not sure using it in a cover would even qualify as a misdemeanor.

Re: The End of an Era

#420

Post by bsenftner »

miki123211 wrote: post #346
bsenftner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, someone else understands that writing is not the goal, the entire point of all of this is our communications between one another and this market for narrative stories is a nice departure and it does convey important knowledge and moral lessons that larger society needs. But it is an indirection, an indirection to the mission of communicating solutions to how to live as a human and that is why we care, why th…

No. I think narrative stories are a "brain hack", in the same way heavily processed food, drugs, clickbait, soap operas and TikTok are brain hacks, combined with some exclusivity status signaling games. They're just old enough to have gained a cultural cachet that more modern forms of entertainment don't yet have. Same for art, music, comedy and culture generally. There is nothing wrong with those "brain hacks", if t…

I understand where you are coming from, that brain hack is how we remember cause and effect. It's very much like the use of Jazz Hands to signal to the dullards "now is the moment you're supposed to remember and say 'oh, I liked that'" A narrative story used as a vehicle to convey moral lessons and life guidance is the Jazz Hands of our fragmented and incomplete human instruction manuals.
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