#113: What if AI could never truly capture all that makes you so uniquely HUMAN?
A different take on the worries of AI & LLMs replacing human artists
Hello, my friends.
I hope you are well today. As well as one can be in times such as these. I want to share this with you. I found this piece by Ted Chiang very comforting and reassuring. It’s all about the many reasons why AI may never truly replace writers, novelists, poets, and artists of all kinds.
Give it a read, and let me know your thoughts.
It’s so strange to be living in the world of Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. I remember when I was in high school reading Michio Kaku and Ray Kurzweil and hearing little glimmers of what the world might look like in the far-off age of 2029 and beyond.
It’s so wild to think how close it all is and how much is already here.
I remember even back in 2015, nearly ten years ago now, I was doing a graduate summer program at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and an article came out about the dangers of LLMs and what the future might look like as they become more sophisticated. The threat it might pose to writers and creatives everywhere. I remember feeling so terrified.
Was I about to be replaced by a machine?
I wondered this frequently.
Eventually, I made peace with whatever may come and decided that I would go on writing anyway. If a computer can do it better, quicker, and with more accuracy, so be it! But nothing and nobody will ever be able to perfectly replicate my unique voice and style and propensity to make delightful errors (lol), but me. Just as nobody will ever be able to replicate your unique voice and patterns and style and all the things that make you, you! Nobody can ever be you, but YOU.
It sounds trite or cliché, but most trite and cliché things have a lot of truth in them!! The many choices that only you make when creating your work that make it so unique and so special and so human will always be uniquely yours, and nobody can ever take that away from you.
This I believe and hold to be true.
I think as we go forward, it will be a lot about the conscious choice of the customer, the person giving their time and attention. I hope that people will choose things made by human beings and will preference supporting, monetarily or with their time, attention, or other resources, art, and creations of all kinds that are made by human beings, not machines.
One thing that helped me to feel a bit sane when thinking of all of this was that I began to think of myself as a carpenter.
Sure, there will be factories mass-producing wooden chairs and tables and so on, but my metaphorical chairs will take time, the process will be made with love, and my unique carvings and style could never be mass-produced because only I know what I’m going to do next and it’s often a surprise, even to myself — if that makes sense.
It might be idealistic, but it’s kept me sane all these years, imagining myself at the flea market of life selling my little handmade artisanal creations as an alternative to the mass-produced work of the machine. I wonder what keeps you sane.
How do you think of it?
Anywho, Ted Chiang, an author who I love, says all of this in a much more scientific and research-based way, as befitting his background and pedigree in academia.
He’s a genius, and I truly love and respect his work so much. I’d give what he has to say a read. He gave me words I’ve been looking for and validated a suspicion I’ve long since held: nothing can ever truly replace a human being. Humans are irreplicable. Anything that comes close is only a flimsy imitation of the wonders of the real thing.
=)
For further reading by Ted Chiang after this piece: Exhalation: Stories (2019) Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) The second one includes the story “Story of Your Life,” which inspired the film Arrival (2016)! One of my all-time favorite movies!
Anywho, okay, this note is getting a bit long now, hehe, another human trait — verbosity!!!
See you in the comments, my friends!! Also, how are you doing today? What are you reading? What’s helping? What’s bringing you peace, comfort, reassurance, resolve, or maybe even inspiration? ❤
I welcome all thoughts below. Love you!
