13 Comments

All tools are dangerous.

AI is a tool.

AI is dangerous.

Beauty is heart speaking to heart.

AI has no heart.

AI is heartless.

Etc

eTc

etC

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Matt to be honest I didn't read the whole article to be honest but I know one thing. You have read an old poem of mine and I have been reading your work for a while now and love it. Its your own experiences as a real person and we can compare like I.E getting caught with a knife in school while I got caught with shriekens, throwing knifes and ninja swords. But the real life human experiences of feelings and anxiety of a real life sitiuation is real!!! I grew up in nothern Ireland and on a night out I knew I could not be outspoken on a night out or suffer anxiety for what may happen for example to my family. An AI bot cannot convey that amount of feelings or reality but instead copies a mash of writing about somethimg that really doesnt have feeling. Our millennial generation is currently believing this bullshit and AI is constantly misquoting like wikkipedia as its made up from a collection of programmers bullshit and personallities and can be tweaked by all who install it into servers. Reaility is only at a whim of who has the fastest servers!!! Our world of true creativity is about to ve ruined for the next 5-10 years, just watch black mirrors and add your own education & views. It will take us that long to recover I fear. Love your work Matt think i may publish offline before returning here got 3 books to push out so returned to Ireland. Good luck boyo!!!

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I write because I love to do it. Maybe I might use AI in the future as an aide, just as in my music sometimes I use a rhyming dictionary or a thesaurus. I will definitely use it for research, but my writing will come from my muse, from my heart, because it is the creation I get pleasure from. But that's just me.

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I've been looking to be comforted about this topic, and this post gave me that, Matt! Thanks for writing it. I've had self sabotaging thoughts that some of my friends probably just think I'm using AI since I didn't share my writing online until recently at age 33, and it could have seemed all-of-a-sudden. Although I haven't done much of my own research and evaluation, I keep coming back to the sense that it has to be obvious when things are generated by a machine. Even if they get better, I agree, we are far from AI accomplishing any real nuance, detail, irony, paradox, metaphorical thinking, emotional intelligence and humor, underlying messages, etc. etc. etc. I also agree it doesn't have to be the enemy. Great point to value it as a useful tool when used correctly.

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Ehhh, I favor analog writing, personally. I don't know about AI, but I prefer to interact with the creator if possible to keep the conversation going. To each their own, though.

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Matt may I intoduce an old pal called Gerry Cinnamon.

Hes nae AI but he's a bit Aye, if you ken what i mean.

This ones called "Canter" - belters good too, but a canter is content for man and horseee!!

This is the beginning of the rest of your life

You better start movin' like you're running out of time

The realization coming over your mind

That it should be a canter

If you could just find the answer

You know it could be a canter

If you were just a wee bit less of a wanker

More than half ae' the time

This is the beginning of the rest of your life

You better start graftin' 'cause you're running out of time

The roof is on fire and it's raining outside

But it should be a canter

If you could just find the answer

You know it could be a canter

If you were just a wee bit less of a wanker

More than half ae' the time

Because the hardest part of the game

Isn't even playing the game

It's caring enough to care about the things that you're daein'

Oh, it's a wee crying shame

Here comes the rain

This is the beginning of the rest of your life

You better start graftin' 'cause you're running out of time

The roof is on fire and it's raining outside

But it should be a canter

If you could just find the answer

You know it could be a canter

If you were just a wee bit less of a wanker

More than half ae' the time

They tell you it's no easy

They tell you that it's hard

They say it's impossible to mend a broken heart

The lead role in a tragedy pretending that it's art

And it's hard to see the finish when you don't know where to start

I could write a stanza and put you in a song

Detail all the times when you were right and I was wrong

Flashbacks to the only place I've felt like I belong

You'll never be a king when you're acting like a pawn

Because the hardest of the game

Isn't even playing the game

It's caring enough to care about playin' the game

Oh, it's a wee crying shame

Here comes the rain

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And for some whacky reason I've been selected to mark English papers on ESOL sheffield in England for the June exams 2023 and the first thing im doing is inputting exams papers into backwards AI Apps to cath out Plagiarism. But one day using AI all papers will show as using AI influence, even if not but incredibly written articles that are that well rounded they could not have possibly been wittien by a human. Like google and Amazon data services (which both our goverments US/UK run on) will one day come down to processing power, not real creativity. Heck even blogs/posts/articles on social media are written by AI (with 2-3 human bullet points) and not the human experts, like its even too much data for humans to moderate which is why ALL blue chip companies like facebook/instgram etc use bot moderators and no humans so not even governments or authorities can get an answer. Like here is different but have you ever spoken to a human from ebay/google/Microsoft/amaxon..... etc.

No because 80% of company communications are copy/paste or bots.

We need to ger a handle on this, simply to improve customer service... let alone creative writing. Love your shit Matt !!!

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"Let purist be pursists". - Love this perspective! I'm skeptical of any position that emphasizes some form of purity. I'm much more interested in strange amalgamations and uncanny intermingling.

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This is true. With reasonable guardrails, AI is a tool. What humans do with it matters, but it’s still a tool.

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May 14, 2023·edited May 14, 2023

Ok Matt, I read the one in my email after reading the one here on substack. I may not be a careful enough reader, or my memory is poor or both those things but I couldn't pick up much of a difference. At a few points in the email one I felt some wording may have been changed, I felt there might have been a little less flow but i couldn't be sure. Is there a difference. I know what the letters AI stand for, I'm an educator so I hear the rumblings about essays being written by some sort of AI but I have no up close and personal experience of it. Is it possible to take one of your newsletters, feed it into something (what the thing is I don't know) and get an output that mimics your style? You know Matt, I'm just shy of 70, I lived more than half my life without computers, have revered the written word, in particular, the novel with as near religious devotion as a non religious person can muster. The subtle effects of a great novel can last years, can ride along in the back of your mind, informing your worldview and understanding of human motivation, interaction and relationship in a profoundly elemental way. Am I against AI? What a pointless question. What would be the point of being for or against such a thing? Will AI eventually produce something of great beauty? Maybe. Will AI produce a work of fiction that in all its aspects resembles the soul of a great writer? I have no idea. But if it does I'll be the first one to have a read and see if it meets my standards. Like the rest of you I am 100 percent human. We long for connection, recognition and relationship. With other humans. It is inherent in each word we commit to the page. We are, each of us hovering between these lines as we commit them to the page. Will AI master the intangible? It is the heart and the soul of where you and I thrive. It is not easily mimicked but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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McDoubles are made by human hands - actual food is made by nature (or G*d if you believe). I don't mind or care about AI either - but I think you got the food metaphors in reverse. AI stuff really sort of is like McDonalds - an attempt to make a creative product by putting together various basic parts and some not-so-basic.

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