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> the very same prompt that triggers a mediocre book today will trigger a good book tomorrow "Good" in which sense? That people read it and/or pay for it? But

by the_af 1y ago

> the very same prompt that triggers a mediocre book today will trigger a good book tomorrow "Good" in which sense? That people read it and/or pay for it? But people already did, before LLMs: they read and paid for the most terrible, cliched, trite stuff. I mean, there are whole genres that are basically trash, before anyone even dreamed of AI (I'm pretty sure 90% of mainstream Hollywood script writers can be replaced by an LLM; they already feel like they were written by one anyway. This is not praise of LLMs, it's criticism of Hollywood!). Surely, then, a "good" book is not merely something people will read or pay for. So why would AI become "good" at it, in which sense? Reading/writing is a human activity. If you cut humans from a big part of the loop, how can the result ever be good? This isn't the same context as writing code or building apps.

andrei_says_ 1y ago
Years ago I read Luis Bunuel’s biography. When he visited Hollywood (in the 50s or maybe 60s) he made a small device out of paper which allowed him to predict the plot of the typical Hollywood movie. It was made out of a few wheels, the outer one larger than the inner ones, all attached with a pin in the middle. He had written types and characters and events on the edges of the outer wheels. He would ask you how the movie starts, what were the main characters, adjust the outer wheels containing these items and get the rest of the plot with very high accuracy. Hollywood is a home of amazing masterful artists but the suits mostly bet on what has proven to work.
- the_af 1y ago
  Haha, I didn't know that anecdote! It totally tracks with reality. I didn't mean to say the people who work in Hollywood don't know their craft, plenty of skilled people who I'm sure would produce wonderful work (and sometimes do!) if given the chance. I meant Hollywood as this machinery of algorithmic clones, as described perfectly by your anecdote about Buñuel.

by the_af 1y ago

andrei_says_ 1y ago

Years ago I read Luis Bunuel’s biography. When he visited Hollywood (in the 50s or maybe 60s) he made a small device out of paper which allowed him to predict the plot of the typical Hollywood movie. It was made out of a few wheels, the outer one larger than the inner ones, all attached with a pin in the middle. He had written types and characters and events on the edges of the outer wheels. He would ask you how the movie starts, what were the main characters, adjust the outer wheels containing these items and get the rest of the plot with very high accuracy. Hollywood is a home of amazing masterful artists but the suits mostly bet on what has proven to work.

the_af 1y ago
Haha, I didn't know that anecdote! It totally tracks with reality. I didn't mean to say the people who work in Hollywood don't know their craft, plenty of skilled people who I'm sure would produce wonderful work (and sometimes do!) if given the chance. I meant Hollywood as this machinery of algorithmic clones, as described perfectly by your anecdote about Buñuel.