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When trains first ran, it caused great moral upheaval. Old men waving their canes at the machines. Photographs were seen as a cheap alternative for "real" paint

When trains first ran, it caused great moral upheaval. Old men waving their canes at the machines. Photographs were seen as a cheap alternative for "real" paintings. What causes the outrage at these models and their output? Is it fear? Notice how critics often deem it necessary to use disparaging remarks: "soulless, no insight or deeper meaning which we find in quality writing, completely cliched, ignoble, phony"

chitowneats 5y ago
Not everything is meant to be automated.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Notice how critics often deem it necessary to use disparaging remarks: Sounds like the job of a critic.
Bodell 5y ago
Well I’m not speaking for everyone, but since I think I’m the only one who used the word “phony” here, I’ll speak for myself. I used that word not to disparage the tech (the tech I simply called worthless, as it’s not worth even discussing) but the person writing the article. If I were her family I do not believe I would ever speak to her agin until she retracted her product advertising in which she shamelessly used her sisters death to help sell. Her words are what I found disgusting. I’m also 31 and obviously into tech to be here, so not an old man waving sticks at trains. What bizarre assumptions you have.
- antiterra 5y ago
  After a period of significant novelty, GPT-3 reveals itself to be something other than a magical fountain of ingenuity. However, ‘useless’ is going too far when talking about it as a writing tool. It can serve a similar purpose as generative games and techniques such as ‘exquisite cadaver’ or free writing. One of the difficult things to do in art is to make something that makes some kind of sense but doesn’t simply follow an obvious logical path. Robert Frost put this as ‘no surprise for the writer, [then] no surprise for the reader.’ These leaps, or ‘illogical conclusions’ occupy a non-polynomial space of endless parameters. It’s like a traveling salesman problem where we aren’t sure where the salesman wants to be or how he traveled, until he has made it to his destination. Generative AI can help search the problem space.
- fouc 5y ago
  you're really harping on the "product advertising" angle. If you dropped that angle completely, if you didn't think this was about that at all, would you still be mad? Why?
emodendroket 5y ago
I mean the author ultimately agrees right. It's not like she keeps the first iteration and calls it a day, satisfied that she's eulogized her sister. Without the central conceit of her fleshing out the piece more in response to each generated prompt, I don't think it would be worth reading.
TomSwirly 5y ago
> What causes the outrage at these models and their output? What "outrage"? The AI was pretty bad, bad enough the writer used almost none of the AI's words in the end. I think that's about as much "outrage" as you're seeing here - "not very good".

chitowneats 5y ago

Not everything is meant to be automated.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> Notice how critics often deem it necessary to use disparaging remarks: Sounds like the job of a critic.

Bodell 5y ago

Well I’m not speaking for everyone, but since I think I’m the only one who used the word “phony” here, I’ll speak for myself. I used that word not to disparage the tech (the tech I simply called worthless, as it’s not worth even discussing) but the person writing the article. If I were her family I do not believe I would ever speak to her agin until she retracted her product advertising in which she shamelessly used her sisters death to help sell. Her words are what I found disgusting. I’m also 31 and obviously into tech to be here, so not an old man waving sticks at trains. What bizarre assumptions you have.

antiterra 5y ago
After a period of significant novelty, GPT-3 reveals itself to be something other than a magical fountain of ingenuity. However, ‘useless’ is going too far when talking about it as a writing tool. It can serve a similar purpose as generative games and techniques such as ‘exquisite cadaver’ or free writing. One of the difficult things to do in art is to make something that makes some kind of sense but doesn’t simply follow an obvious logical path. Robert Frost put this as ‘no surprise for the writer, [then] no surprise for the reader.’ These leaps, or ‘illogical conclusions’ occupy a non-polynomial space of endless parameters. It’s like a traveling salesman problem where we aren’t sure where the salesman wants to be or how he traveled, until he has made it to his destination. Generative AI can help search the problem space.
fouc 5y ago
you're really harping on the "product advertising" angle. If you dropped that angle completely, if you didn't think this was about that at all, would you still be mad? Why?

emodendroket 5y ago

I mean the author ultimately agrees right. It's not like she keeps the first iteration and calls it a day, satisfied that she's eulogized her sister. Without the central conceit of her fleshing out the piece more in response to each generated prompt, I don't think it would be worth reading.

TomSwirly 5y ago

> What causes the outrage at these models and their output? What "outrage"? The AI was pretty bad, bad enough the writer used almost none of the AI's words in the end. I think that's about as much "outrage" as you're seeing here - "not very good".