Blogs generating algorithms, algorithms generating blogs.....
It is 2:14 pm and I’m sitting at this not-too-raggedy couch that I pulled into my van for free from a neighbor. My laptop sits atop a Vermont Organic Tomatoes cardboard box that I scored at my local food coop. I need the extra height to type without slouching because beneath that box is a low round table that has been in this old Catholic grade school building for the last 30 years. And I have a bad back.
The point is, I’m working from my studio in Montpelier, Vermont at a very specific time and place. I'm human but I’m dead. Creatively dead inside. At this moment.
I just consumed way too much TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and the nail in the coffin - messing around with ChatGPT and all the news. If you haven’t heard, this a new AI program has been released and it's calling for the jobs of marketers, writers, creatives, coders, teachers, policy writers, desk attendants and ya know, most likely, babysitters.
The dystopian feeling is that of singularity of creative thought. The MarvelDisneyItsCornMonoculture.
The concept of the death of creative and analytic thought has consumed me for the last 48 hours. Now I feel compelled to respond and fight off the creeping despair.
There is a lot of uncanniness about the writing produced by ChatGPT. The hidden creep behind the AI's spitting off the dome is that the writing from this bot are presented in a vacuum flavored vanilla. No errors. No references. No sense of place, taste, repetition for emphasis, personality.
And unfortunately, its blandness and correctness is kind of cute.
BTW, I hate cute writing, especially in journalism. I just read a Time magazine in a dentist's office and I had to rinse and spit afterwards, the tone of the articles was so very twee. But I could tell there was a heavy handed writer at the other end, laboring for density and aspartame tarts of phrase.
All these things I’ve referenced in this blog- my place at the table, my opinions hard and soft, my mistakes, my weaknesses. They add the human touch. And what makes a human touch?
Admittedly, I haven't had much of a taste for “the human touch” in art. Why I continue to watch the popular Netflix show Wednesday I don’t know. Here we have a talented lead actress stretching to the limits of banality, robotic cynicism, and gothic disassociation from emotion that her lines may have well been written by a computer. Tim Burton, the director, has put his creative ingredients through a blander.
Ok. I didn’t finish that thought. I've digressed. There’s something AI can’t do. Leave you hanging. Incomplete turns. Winding roads. Rambling. Ramping and releasing. Associative hyperbolic non-sequiturs that burn with a flare.
Could it be that AI will usher in a renaissance of human art? Things that only flawed, broken, unfinished, challenged humans could make. Immediate, unrehearsed and untethered?
Or are we looking at a short narrow hallway with a door of singularity at the end?
It would only be fair to let the ChatGPT weigh in on this. Here's the question: How could AI bring about an artistic renaissance of flavorful, flawed, and instinct-filled writing?
Response:
It is difficult to say exactly how AI could bring about a renaissance of artistic writing, but one potential way is through the use of AI language models that are trained on large amounts of text data. This could allow the AI to generate text that is more varied and expressive, potentially leading to more interesting and creative writing. Additionally, the use of AI could help writers to overcome writer's block and find new inspiration for their work. However, it is important to note that the use of AI in writing would not necessarily guarantee the creation of high-quality, artistic writing, as the human element of creativity and artistic expression would still be necessary.
You hear that? We're (kinda) necessary!
To arms, creatives, fight the oppressive autocorrect! Unleash the ee cummings weirdness within you and turn the Seuss loose. Break tha English language n rebuild it to match your unique mental physique. K?
In the end, we might be thankful bloggers and essayists. Originality of voice still might mean something. We humans, ya know? Don't forget it.
They will tell you that the algorithm is all that matters to drive eyeballs through the internet. SEO and such. So now that algorithm has your job as a professional marketer and blogger. Well I'm here to tell you the future is in the flawed reality, the non-optimized.
So here comes the artist in me. Trying to get by through manufacturing and sales of an educational cardboard pinball machine kit.
Buy a dang PinBox 3000, build a DIY cardboard pinball kit, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are a human with a voice, choice, vision, creative impetus and will to tinker with gravity all your own, no matter how wonky and weird.
Hows that for a promotional blog? Stick that in your algorithm!