"AI" & You: Training Up

Yes another post about "AI" and writing.  I mean there are now probably hundreds of thousands of thinkpieces, including one or two by me.  And I'm sure some were probably written by "AI" chatbots.  Anyway, veteran author Lawrence Block had an interesting perspective on his November newsletter.  (If you don't have Goodreads I'm not sure this will work.)

The point was that the way "AI" is training is like what he did when he was young by reading a lot of books.  Here's a quote that unlike a lot of "AI" I'm actually citing and not regurgitating as my own:

Because just what is it that AI is doing? It’s reading my work, and the work of thousands of other writers, with the goal of improving its own writing ability. I thought about it, and here’s what I realized:

That’s exactly what I started doing back in the 1950s. I read hundreds of books, everything I could get my hands on, partly because reading was a source of pleasure, but also with the intention of becoming a writer myself, and learning my craft by reading the efforts of others.

And that is a point.  A lot of authors (not just Block) tell young would-be writers to read, read, read, especially in the genre they want to write in.  When I decided to get more serious about writing, I tried to do that, first with sci-fi and then with literary fiction.  It's how I found some great books and authors.  Ironically I "discovered" Block's books when I was reading crime fiction for Chance of a Lifetime.

In a way it's true that this is what the "AI" is doing.  Only it can do it a lot faster than me or Lawrence Block in the 50s or any actual human who doesn't have superpowers.  It can basically absorb entire libraries in minutes--or maybe even seconds.

A caveat, though, is I'm sure Block paid for the books he read--or borrowed them legally from a library.  With the "AI" these techbro assholes are just stealing books--including Block's, but not mine--to feed into the "AI."  It's basically like if in the 50s Block stole the books he read to be a better writer or if I stole his books when I wanted to get better at crime fiction instead of buying them from Amazon or getting them from the library or bookstores.  The first ones I got I think mostly came from those outlet-type bookstores selling remaindered books.  I also bought a couple from used bookstores in Traverse City and Manistee when I went "up north" that year.  Still, the point is I legally acquired them, which is not really what the "AI" does.

Block goes on to say:

The process was more one of absorption and internalization than anything analytical or intellectual. All I know is it worked, and most writers I know went through some version of this process. Almost all of us were eager readers before we were writers, and our reading fed and nourished our writing.

Now I don’t recall ever deliberately setting out to write like anybody. But there’s no question in my mind that my exposure to the work of other writers formed me as a writer and enabled me in time to find my own voice. It helped me to read the work  of writers I respected and enjoyed, but it helped me as much—and possibly more—to read the work of inferior writers.

And there's really another difference.  A lot of prompts into chatbots are to ask it to make something like someone else.  I could ask ChatGPT to write me a thriller like Lawrence Block and it could in theory do that.

When I was writing Where You Belong I read all of John Irving's books because I wanted to do something similar.  But I never really wrote it in the same way that he did.  I mean, no one would ever confuse his writing and mine in a blind taste test--I'm pretty sure.  At least people who are familiar with Irving's writing wouldn't mistake his and mine.  But I wasn't trying to write it exactly like he would, which is unfortunately what a lot of people putting stuff into chatbots want to do.  I'm not sure how successful the chatbots are at this but I'm sure they're getting better and better all the time.

Which is unfortunate because the I is supposed to mean "Intelligence" and just copying human authors really only makes them parrots.  It does take a certain amount of intelligence to do that, but shouldn't the endgame of "AI" be to create something that is like an actual human and can make its own decisions and develop its own unique style?  That is, for good or ill, what us humans do.  Maybe our "style" isn't really stylish but it is what we do--for better or worse.

Unfortunately, a lot of the crap being churned out is because dopes want something to read without paying anything or think they can get money putting it on Amazon.  It really does all of us--including "AI" chatbots--a disservice.