Nick Cave on ChatGPT
theredhandfiles.com
theredhandfiles.com
The negative scenario is that the forces that brought us here have no real counterforce and will continue dissolving pre-existing norms and values, with totally uncertain outcomes
It’s already easy to generate mediocre work, and humans decide what gets popular, whether it’s the audience or the people choosing what gets made or distributed.
Movie scripts have been getting more superficial and less original, so if an AI writes a Spider-man movie and no one can tell, it will be because we’ve met in the middle.
Nick Cave - correctly so - says that you can't write if you haven't experienced something to write about and you need to have an inner self that experiences things to do that in the first place.
But AI being trained on a vast amount of human writing, writing that was the consequence of the life experience of millions of selves, could be considered - if not a 'self' - as having experienced all the digested human experiences.
The mockery - the pastiche effect - is the result of asking ChatGPT to write something in the style of 'Nick Cave'. I bet it would read the same if you asked anyone to write something 'in the style of...'.
I don't honestly know.
Consider that, if the AI "actually" has experienced all the digested human experiences, the vast majority of them -- even those, in the phase space of human experiences, "close" to Nick Cave, that the AI might utilize in order to seem most like Nick Cave -- are not those of Nick Cave, and detract from the machine's ability to authentically impersonate Nick Cave just as Nick Cave's writings add to that ability.
But, like, I don't think it actually has experienced all that stuff! Don't fall into the trap of thinking that human language correctly encapsulates (or even comprises!) human thought. You'd be in good company -- great philosophers like Bertrand Russell made that error, too. But human language is a messy abstraction for Something Else that's going on while we think. I can read inspiring or evocative words, but I don't really think that even the most vivid description can give me the visceral experiential knowledge of what it's like to climb Everest, or whatever. I can, however, read a lot about Everest and the experience of climbing it, and then write something that might trick readers into thinking I speak from firsthand experience. I suspect that this is closer to what the AI is doing.
I read this sentiment on HN before and I doubt it. If it’s indistinguishable (ignore for now the qualifier “on the surface”) then what distinguishes it? No true songwriter?
I just dunno if it is a useful way to think about song writing or other art creation.
I have a machine on my desktop that composes lyrics in the style of any artist living or dead. There are maybe a few hundred people alive who can do better. There is certainly no-one I know that can do even remotely as good.
It is a miracle.
It is the pinnacle of a hundred years of AI and IT research.
It deserves respect not ridicule.
Hyperbole, much?
In addition I disagree. On the surface the results are awesome. When you dig in a bit, especially in your field of expertise, it's utter superficial bullshit.
Edit: Added paragraph to be compliant with HN guidelines.
What's it like to have such a lack of emotional connection to others and yourself that you genuinely can't distinguish between AI generated word salad and real artistry by real humans? As Nick Cave said in his letter, a big part of the value of art isn't in coming up with words that vaguely sound like they have meaning, but in sharing emotions with your fellow humans, allowing for a genuine connection in the process. If you get that same feeling of connection from your machine on your desktop maybe your standards are a bit low?
The source of the words might matter for you, but it is the projection of those words into my own psyche that has the affect on me.
I can give you a machine that will print a Certificate of Authenticity for any experience you desire.