Loved this article that makes the case for the modern-day luddite. The author calls for a new kind of visionary:
The kind of visionaries we need now are those who see precisely how certain technologies are causing harm and who resist them when necessary.
Lessons from history are worth remembering and learning from:
In the 1800s, entrepreneurs used technology to justify imposing a new mode of work: the factory system. In the 2000s, CEOs used technology to justify imposing a new mode of work: algorithmically organized gig labor, in which pay is lower and protections scarce.
In the 1800s, hosiers and factory owners used automation less to overtly replace workers than to deskill them and drive down their wages. Digital media bosses, call center operators and studio executives are using AI in much the same way.
Met my friend H for coffee recently and found her perspective as a linguist particularly interesting. H thinks that LLMs will greatly reduce the number of writers producing original writing because the incentives to do so will begin to diminish. As such, what the model spews in the form of creative writing will become increasingly mundane over time. The flashes of brilliance that makes classic writing what it is will become just about impossible to come by. Like H, I have a hard time believing that an AI will be able to come up with something original that has the zing of Mark Twain's comments about his own death
‘I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about, I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration.’
There is a certain je ne sais quoi about Twain's writing that cannot be captured, bottled and made into an essence that one can add to pedestrian writing to elevate it into something it is never going to be. Maybe that is exactly the thing we need to pursue and with greater zeal than ever before - imbue our own writing with something special even if it is not of the highest caliber, atleast unique and irreproducibly our own.
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