I hardly know what to think about it all really. I'm intrigued by the idea there's such a thing as autistic writing. But would most definitely not like to be 'outed' by a LLM such a personal thing about my identity. Not that I keep the fact I'm autistic secret by any means, I'm openly so. But I do like to be in control of how I share the information. Otherwise it feels pretty objectifying.
I agree. I want to have control over what I share about myself. If invasive things can be gleaned from writing that's not autobiographical in any way, shape, or form (like a fictional essay), that's troubling.
There are many of these diagnostic models based on AI now. It doesn't need to involve writing samples. There are ones based on voice analysis, body language, EEG patterns, etc. The implications are frightening since diagnosis will no longer require the active participation or consent of the patient. The diagnostic process won't need to be initiated by a doctor. The diagnosis will be deemed reliable based on assurances of whoever wrote the AI. I don't want to game out the implications here but i really don't see any upside. It's against privacy, autonomy and might lead to discrimination in various forms as other commenters noted.
This is definitely worrying knowing that the job market is already so dependent on AI; having it scan resumes and such. I think what you said about employers demanding writing samples as a condition of employment probably isn't too far off.
I lack in imagination so much that every time I read about a different application for AI it blows my mind - the implications of this are so far reaching! And mostly not in a positive way 😳
As an olde-fashioned Gutenberg Man, I personally will have nothing to do with AI or LLMs, although they will impinge on my daily life. I just won't use it/Them, voluntarily. And that somehow goes double for any creative work. Why? Long story. Suffice: I have certain values and they're grounded in pro-carbon blob forms of life over anything silicon-based.
The 90% thing you cite kinda creeps the eff outta me. Yes, there could be some upside to this, but all in all, I find all this loathsome. Not that I have completely put all eight fingers and two thumbs on the issue; my misgivings are still inchoate and largely intuitive. I WANT to read our neurodiversities. I want nothing to flatten. I love human weirdness and consider myself an arch-weirdo and damned proud of it. My value system says: Nature and evolution gave us these brains in this particular world, and we ought to read and write non-machine texts, carbon and all.
For the life of me, I can't get a grip on college students cheating with AI. It seems the most massive point of education has been missed. I have a friend who reads a lot of Economics, and he told me a long time ago that a university degree was largely seen as "signaling" to potential employers that, yep, here's someone who spent the money, attended classes, listened and bowed to authority, and has demonstrated some ability to think. I long suspected this was true, and no doubt it's even gotten worse.
Skip ahead: why not have a machine live your life for you? I mean every aspect. Think of the "efficiency." Think of the savings!
Many years ago I found an old user-friendly AI-ish site called something like "I Write Like..." You just cut and pasted sample of your writing and the algorithm told you who you write like. I pasted in a few paragraphs of one essay I'd recently written: I write like David Foster Wallace. Thanks, very flattered, but I do not write like him. DFW's WAY better than me. I sent in another essay: I write like HP Lovecraft. No, I don't. And you, algorithm, were only responding - I highly suspect - to a few odd words and phrases I had copped from HPL himself.
I suspect there's a far, far, FAR better version of this "I Write Like..." thing out there today. But frankly, I'd be too intimidated to see what It "thinks". Your reportage only adds to my feeling of the dizzying unheimlich here.
I can't believe I'm admitting to this, but after I sent my comment I thought, I wonder who my comment "writes like"? So I found that website and pasted my "As an olde-fashioned Gutenberg man...dizzying unheimlich here" thing into the Machine.
Turns out I write like Cory Doctorow. Naw, but thanks. Sorta, maybe. Not really. At most I'd like to think Cory's style has infected mine on some subconscious level. I like that guy a lot. I just don't "feel" like I write like him.
I wonder - but absolutely will not check this out - if I inserted my comment into the Autism Detector LLM...would it ping back, "You're autistic! Have a nice day!" (Followed by all kinds of suggestions for professional help, none of which I would be able to afford? Nor would I want any "help" anyway. Would it help pay the utility bills? No? Ok, then I'm outta here.)
Why wouldn't I actually go through with this little experiment were it of no-cost easy avail? Because I personally don't care what It "thinks." (It doesn't think. Does NOT. The problem is: other carbon blobs will insist It Knows, with who knows what consequences.)
Robert! If you wrote a book with your take on various things... tea, e-readers, the meaning of life, croquet... anything really, I would read it eagerly. Your comments are always so interesting. Do you already publish your writing online? If not, have you considered starting a Substack newsletter?
I sought out a writing tool to tell me who I write like (not sure if it's the same one you used) and fed it a bit of my book manuscript. It spit out: Vladimir Nabokov. I suspected some magic 8 ball mechanism might be at play there. So then I pulled some different manuscript paragraphs, and this time got: Anne Rice. LOL.
Laura- thanks for the good vibes. (Nabokov!) I used to blog pretty heavily from around 2010 to 2016, when...something...happened around Nov of that year to kinda kill my spirit.
You're about the 20th person who's urged me to Substack. I looked at their site: its EASY! It takes "15 minutes."
Now: here's the problem: all things having to do with "user name" "password" "two-step authentication" - much less linking to some damned "payment system" - will make me break down and cry. After 15 minutes, I will NOT be set up on Substack to write, but will be writhing on the floor, wailing and gnashing, desperate for my Happy Space and not even close to being "all set up." And it's somehow my fault. Why? Because this stuff is ease-the-pease-a-roonie for everyone else. Like: everyone else, seriously. Something's most definitely very Wrong with me.
Wait: Do you want us to store that information here, here, or here? What? Just show me where to click so this will all end...it's not ending...next page...more "personal data"...Who would remember the ID code for my password for "this device"...Oh, that's right: there are passwords stored somewhere now. Do I need a password to find them? Where do I begin to look? No, not there. Not there, either...The idea of giving up is startin' to look pretty darned sweet...What if I've sustained some sort of brain damage from having to deal with something loosely linked under the rubric "Internet Security"? Because that's always how I feel: after 2 hours, I'm ready to call some Hotline for psychological meltdown.
If something's "only 15 minutes" I know it will take me a grueling 4 hours, minimum. If at all. Bet on: not at all. Let it ride. Put on my headstone: He never Got With It, Digitally.
If I finally succeed after 90 minutes of trying to figure out that they want me to use my camera on my phone (I don't use my camera for anything) to take a pic of a QR code on my laptop screen - what? are we in some sort of dystopian HELL now? WTF? Will Roko's Basilisk be dogging me with a red-hot pea shooter for all this? - and for what, why, (the Russians? Cambridge Analytica Zuckerberg types?) how does Google worm its way in..I thought this was Apple? What's this payment system called Splice or whatever? They want my bank number? (Anxiety attack...hyperventilating...) I don't know what or how the Chrome password...it's written down in some stack of papers over there is it still there? or... why? WHY? Why must I do this before that and do I want to "personalize" it? What does that even ENTAIL? Does anyone read the terms and agreements or should I move on to the next step? Wait: what and why is this the next step? What have I just done? Can I undo it? Yes, that's my town on a map...how did I get here? I just wanted to write about James Joyce...Etc, etc, etc.
It's always been this way for me: the entire workings of the digital world activate some sort of anxiety for me. I mean seriously: it's like I'm missing a gene or something for all this. Wait: Ah! after 20 minutes I realize they want to send a secret code to my phone, which is technically an "iPhone"...which I forgot. It's certainly not an iPad. To me, it's that annoying thing I'm forced to own in this world, because that's simply the way things are done. It's my "goddamned phone" which I literally forgot is technically an "IPhone".
That's how cemented-in my Gutenberg sensibilities are. Going from me and physical books (soooo comfortable!) to these digital gadgets is like the transition from 2D to 3D in Flatland for me: another, mysterious world. And it never gets better. But it's where everyone else lives. I always feel like a Visitor. And that I will need my 3D-land parking validated through some six-factor authentication, notarized by some hacker-looking guy named Chet, with earrings and tattoos who works for Google/Alphabet/Facebook/LinkedIn/Apple/Meta/Netflix/Big Bro Inc: ya know, he makes more money in a week than I see in a year and I don't understand ANY of it.
Other than that, I'm fine.
I wish "I Write Like" would just spit out the truth: I feed in some text by me and it comes back, "You write like another unpublished hack named Cyrus Q. Prolixman of Fort Lee, New Jersey. Maybe get the Chicago Manual of Style? Have a nice day."
That's certainly overwhelming, I can understand why you wouldn't want to go through it! Because I would love to read your writing on James Joyce, I wonder if there's a way I can set a newsletter up for you using a new email account I create for this, hand you the reins, and then you can change both passwords (Substack and email account) and take it from there. Having gone through it myself, I know some of the prompts are optional (you don't have to provide information to receive payments, for instance, if you never turn on paid subscriptions). If I was able to do that, would you want me to? No pressure at all. It's completely fine if you decline, I won't be offended!
Somehow I managed to get a Substack started yesterday. As the opening salvos prompted me, the initial post is about my digital cluelessness and myriad anxieties around it. It was ARDUOUS. Which is sheer embarrassment to admit.
I was just looking at a vertiginous amount of things I still need to "set up" and all that. Most of the lit on this links it to being an old person, and I cop to it: verily, I say unto ye: I am olde. But I always had this problem, even when "young."
Sorry to have taken up so much space in your comments section. In fact I used my digital I-wouldn't-know-how-to-start-a-Substack harangue-comment to you as part of my initial post. Why? Well, you were about the 20th person to tell me, "You should start a Substack."
Even though it's up it's still inchoate. I have someone as a paid subscriber and I don't think I even have that set up yet. See: I don't even know for sure.
I have you to thank, I think, Ms. Moore, for being the straw that broke, etc. To say you're the "bee's knees" would seem appropriately apt here, 'cuz the phrase is so dated. I will always be from Some Other Planet.
I look forward to having something up about Joyce soon there. I will continue to follow you in your Discovery phase of the Autism mind.
Yay! I look forward to reading it! I'm happy to have been the final straw. And no apologies, you're always welcome to take up space in these comments. Because guess what? There's endless real estate here!
I hardly know what to think about it all really. I'm intrigued by the idea there's such a thing as autistic writing. But would most definitely not like to be 'outed' by a LLM such a personal thing about my identity. Not that I keep the fact I'm autistic secret by any means, I'm openly so. But I do like to be in control of how I share the information. Otherwise it feels pretty objectifying.
I agree. I want to have control over what I share about myself. If invasive things can be gleaned from writing that's not autobiographical in any way, shape, or form (like a fictional essay), that's troubling.
There are many of these diagnostic models based on AI now. It doesn't need to involve writing samples. There are ones based on voice analysis, body language, EEG patterns, etc. The implications are frightening since diagnosis will no longer require the active participation or consent of the patient. The diagnostic process won't need to be initiated by a doctor. The diagnosis will be deemed reliable based on assurances of whoever wrote the AI. I don't want to game out the implications here but i really don't see any upside. It's against privacy, autonomy and might lead to discrimination in various forms as other commenters noted.
I didn't realize the scope of the public biomarkers that are being used... body language? Wow. I agree, frightening. Thanks for commenting.
Yes I've been following this research for a while now. I'm worried about some of the developments.
This is definitely worrying knowing that the job market is already so dependent on AI; having it scan resumes and such. I think what you said about employers demanding writing samples as a condition of employment probably isn't too far off.
Ack. Brave new world out there.
I lack in imagination so much that every time I read about a different application for AI it blows my mind - the implications of this are so far reaching! And mostly not in a positive way 😳
I know. I try not to think about what the world will be like when my kids are transitioning to adulthood, because it really stresses me out.
As an olde-fashioned Gutenberg Man, I personally will have nothing to do with AI or LLMs, although they will impinge on my daily life. I just won't use it/Them, voluntarily. And that somehow goes double for any creative work. Why? Long story. Suffice: I have certain values and they're grounded in pro-carbon blob forms of life over anything silicon-based.
The 90% thing you cite kinda creeps the eff outta me. Yes, there could be some upside to this, but all in all, I find all this loathsome. Not that I have completely put all eight fingers and two thumbs on the issue; my misgivings are still inchoate and largely intuitive. I WANT to read our neurodiversities. I want nothing to flatten. I love human weirdness and consider myself an arch-weirdo and damned proud of it. My value system says: Nature and evolution gave us these brains in this particular world, and we ought to read and write non-machine texts, carbon and all.
For the life of me, I can't get a grip on college students cheating with AI. It seems the most massive point of education has been missed. I have a friend who reads a lot of Economics, and he told me a long time ago that a university degree was largely seen as "signaling" to potential employers that, yep, here's someone who spent the money, attended classes, listened and bowed to authority, and has demonstrated some ability to think. I long suspected this was true, and no doubt it's even gotten worse.
Skip ahead: why not have a machine live your life for you? I mean every aspect. Think of the "efficiency." Think of the savings!
Many years ago I found an old user-friendly AI-ish site called something like "I Write Like..." You just cut and pasted sample of your writing and the algorithm told you who you write like. I pasted in a few paragraphs of one essay I'd recently written: I write like David Foster Wallace. Thanks, very flattered, but I do not write like him. DFW's WAY better than me. I sent in another essay: I write like HP Lovecraft. No, I don't. And you, algorithm, were only responding - I highly suspect - to a few odd words and phrases I had copped from HPL himself.
I suspect there's a far, far, FAR better version of this "I Write Like..." thing out there today. But frankly, I'd be too intimidated to see what It "thinks". Your reportage only adds to my feeling of the dizzying unheimlich here.
I can't believe I'm admitting to this, but after I sent my comment I thought, I wonder who my comment "writes like"? So I found that website and pasted my "As an olde-fashioned Gutenberg man...dizzying unheimlich here" thing into the Machine.
Turns out I write like Cory Doctorow. Naw, but thanks. Sorta, maybe. Not really. At most I'd like to think Cory's style has infected mine on some subconscious level. I like that guy a lot. I just don't "feel" like I write like him.
I wonder - but absolutely will not check this out - if I inserted my comment into the Autism Detector LLM...would it ping back, "You're autistic! Have a nice day!" (Followed by all kinds of suggestions for professional help, none of which I would be able to afford? Nor would I want any "help" anyway. Would it help pay the utility bills? No? Ok, then I'm outta here.)
Why wouldn't I actually go through with this little experiment were it of no-cost easy avail? Because I personally don't care what It "thinks." (It doesn't think. Does NOT. The problem is: other carbon blobs will insist It Knows, with who knows what consequences.)
Robert! If you wrote a book with your take on various things... tea, e-readers, the meaning of life, croquet... anything really, I would read it eagerly. Your comments are always so interesting. Do you already publish your writing online? If not, have you considered starting a Substack newsletter?
I sought out a writing tool to tell me who I write like (not sure if it's the same one you used) and fed it a bit of my book manuscript. It spit out: Vladimir Nabokov. I suspected some magic 8 ball mechanism might be at play there. So then I pulled some different manuscript paragraphs, and this time got: Anne Rice. LOL.
Laura- thanks for the good vibes. (Nabokov!) I used to blog pretty heavily from around 2010 to 2016, when...something...happened around Nov of that year to kinda kill my spirit.
You're about the 20th person who's urged me to Substack. I looked at their site: its EASY! It takes "15 minutes."
Now: here's the problem: all things having to do with "user name" "password" "two-step authentication" - much less linking to some damned "payment system" - will make me break down and cry. After 15 minutes, I will NOT be set up on Substack to write, but will be writhing on the floor, wailing and gnashing, desperate for my Happy Space and not even close to being "all set up." And it's somehow my fault. Why? Because this stuff is ease-the-pease-a-roonie for everyone else. Like: everyone else, seriously. Something's most definitely very Wrong with me.
Wait: Do you want us to store that information here, here, or here? What? Just show me where to click so this will all end...it's not ending...next page...more "personal data"...Who would remember the ID code for my password for "this device"...Oh, that's right: there are passwords stored somewhere now. Do I need a password to find them? Where do I begin to look? No, not there. Not there, either...The idea of giving up is startin' to look pretty darned sweet...What if I've sustained some sort of brain damage from having to deal with something loosely linked under the rubric "Internet Security"? Because that's always how I feel: after 2 hours, I'm ready to call some Hotline for psychological meltdown.
If something's "only 15 minutes" I know it will take me a grueling 4 hours, minimum. If at all. Bet on: not at all. Let it ride. Put on my headstone: He never Got With It, Digitally.
If I finally succeed after 90 minutes of trying to figure out that they want me to use my camera on my phone (I don't use my camera for anything) to take a pic of a QR code on my laptop screen - what? are we in some sort of dystopian HELL now? WTF? Will Roko's Basilisk be dogging me with a red-hot pea shooter for all this? - and for what, why, (the Russians? Cambridge Analytica Zuckerberg types?) how does Google worm its way in..I thought this was Apple? What's this payment system called Splice or whatever? They want my bank number? (Anxiety attack...hyperventilating...) I don't know what or how the Chrome password...it's written down in some stack of papers over there is it still there? or... why? WHY? Why must I do this before that and do I want to "personalize" it? What does that even ENTAIL? Does anyone read the terms and agreements or should I move on to the next step? Wait: what and why is this the next step? What have I just done? Can I undo it? Yes, that's my town on a map...how did I get here? I just wanted to write about James Joyce...Etc, etc, etc.
It's always been this way for me: the entire workings of the digital world activate some sort of anxiety for me. I mean seriously: it's like I'm missing a gene or something for all this. Wait: Ah! after 20 minutes I realize they want to send a secret code to my phone, which is technically an "iPhone"...which I forgot. It's certainly not an iPad. To me, it's that annoying thing I'm forced to own in this world, because that's simply the way things are done. It's my "goddamned phone" which I literally forgot is technically an "IPhone".
That's how cemented-in my Gutenberg sensibilities are. Going from me and physical books (soooo comfortable!) to these digital gadgets is like the transition from 2D to 3D in Flatland for me: another, mysterious world. And it never gets better. But it's where everyone else lives. I always feel like a Visitor. And that I will need my 3D-land parking validated through some six-factor authentication, notarized by some hacker-looking guy named Chet, with earrings and tattoos who works for Google/Alphabet/Facebook/LinkedIn/Apple/Meta/Netflix/Big Bro Inc: ya know, he makes more money in a week than I see in a year and I don't understand ANY of it.
Other than that, I'm fine.
I wish "I Write Like" would just spit out the truth: I feed in some text by me and it comes back, "You write like another unpublished hack named Cyrus Q. Prolixman of Fort Lee, New Jersey. Maybe get the Chicago Manual of Style? Have a nice day."
That's certainly overwhelming, I can understand why you wouldn't want to go through it! Because I would love to read your writing on James Joyce, I wonder if there's a way I can set a newsletter up for you using a new email account I create for this, hand you the reins, and then you can change both passwords (Substack and email account) and take it from there. Having gone through it myself, I know some of the prompts are optional (you don't have to provide information to receive payments, for instance, if you never turn on paid subscriptions). If I was able to do that, would you want me to? No pressure at all. It's completely fine if you decline, I won't be offended!
My gads you're just the sweetest lady.
Somehow I managed to get a Substack started yesterday. As the opening salvos prompted me, the initial post is about my digital cluelessness and myriad anxieties around it. It was ARDUOUS. Which is sheer embarrassment to admit.
I was just looking at a vertiginous amount of things I still need to "set up" and all that. Most of the lit on this links it to being an old person, and I cop to it: verily, I say unto ye: I am olde. But I always had this problem, even when "young."
Sorry to have taken up so much space in your comments section. In fact I used my digital I-wouldn't-know-how-to-start-a-Substack harangue-comment to you as part of my initial post. Why? Well, you were about the 20th person to tell me, "You should start a Substack."
Even though it's up it's still inchoate. I have someone as a paid subscriber and I don't think I even have that set up yet. See: I don't even know for sure.
I have you to thank, I think, Ms. Moore, for being the straw that broke, etc. To say you're the "bee's knees" would seem appropriately apt here, 'cuz the phrase is so dated. I will always be from Some Other Planet.
I look forward to having something up about Joyce soon there. I will continue to follow you in your Discovery phase of the Autism mind.
Yay! I look forward to reading it! I'm happy to have been the final straw. And no apologies, you're always welcome to take up space in these comments. Because guess what? There's endless real estate here!
Wow I wonder what it was picking up on. Fascinating thanks
Thanks for commenting!