Taking a look at the notes from the class discussion last week I see a theme was mainly the topic of Voice in writing. Voice in writing can be interpreted differently by each person. For me it mean to capture what my minds eye is trying to re create into words. The voice in my head is met by paper and pen (or keyboard) and I am able to express my thoughts and feelings more comfortably and effortlessly. It is great as a writer to always feel the need to create and how simple it is to just use my voice to express myself.
The experiment question that was asked in class stated “What is the difference between high school and college?” My answer would be a couple of things. First is academically the work because a bit more demanding in ways, but then in time can be quite effective because you have more time to complete assignments outside of your classes in college. I think responsibilities may change from high school to college. For instance in my high school experience I only focused on sports, cheerleading and volleyball, and school work. When I entered my junior year of college I started working full time and do school full time in college, so my time and responsibility at the time changed.
The ChatGPT offers a great resource to spark inspiration, but it can also take away from the human ability to be create and think of the impossible which makes great literature. I asked it the experience question and it gave the response pictured below:
It gave part of my answer and continued on the point out the classes and how they are more focused and intense with subject. I noticed I went more off of my personal opinion of how I interpreted high school and college differences. This is what I feel we may lose as we continue to grow the AI and Writing culture and learn how to mesh them. Let’s still be able to have our Voice heard, but always have somewhere to go to find out facts without opinion. This coming Thursday the class is going to see James McBride speak on campus. We read an article giving us some of his life facts in his chat he did on the radio. He is from Brooklyn New York and grew up where he was always responsible for him having a lot of siblings. His mother was white, but all of his brothers and sisters were black, which gave him a great outlook on life, and how people treat others. All of this helped him to shape his writing voice and he has some of his best material in works read by a wide audience. He uses his voice to give his opinion on the situations he has experienced, which makes it great for readers to better understand and relate to the author.
The Two Questions I may ask:
Do you believe politics, culture, or bias has a huge impact on the way you chose to write your material?
When did you first develop your true interest in writing?
I’m excited to be hearing him speak this week and can’t wait to hear what we learn.
While it seems that ChatGPT might help to pick up on the pragmatic points in writing on certain topics, there was still a lack of experience to what we compared in class– our own pieces and the list that the AI developed. There’s a major shift in tone, language use, and overall meaning. Sure, what ChatGPT developed has meaning that we can comprehend, but I’m talking about a different kind of meaning here: intention. I spent much of my last blog speaking on that word as well, so I won’t go too much into it specifically here.
Intention often stems from experience. Perhaps this is the word I’ll camp out on today. There was information, but there was no true experience in the writing of the AI, yet we found so many different perspectives on what makes either high school or college better than the other. Below is a screenshot of my own 7-minute comparison between high school and college:
And if I had the chance to go on, I would likely talk about how in high school, we shared a strange but slight bond over that experience of rolling our eyes at that one classic line our teachers would pull about what we should expect our college professors to be like. There isn’t much to bond everyone together like that in college. If you aren’t close to someone, you likely will never talk to them even once about a small thing like that unless you’re a complete extrovert that gets to know everyone on campus. There are two main issues with that though: 1) everyone gets socially exhausted at some point whether it’s recognized by the individual or not and 2) that’s hard to do in larger schools such as Kean which, in Fall 2021, had just an undergrad enrollment of about 10,500. (The second point really depends on the school though, as it was a bit easier to at least know of almost everyone on campus at my freshman year institution with a Fall 2021 enrollment under 3,000.)
AI doesn’t experience, but rather it calculates and stores data. While I’m sure a majority of us have heard the classic “your college professors won’t tolerate this” line from a high school teacher, regardless of where any of us went to high school, it’s not a piece of data that we would typically include in a formal, technical, and calculated comparative piece. It’s more of something we would write about as a subjective experience, even though many of us have heard it– I’m almost certain about that one. It’s similar to the bathroom situations that many of us encountered (though I admit, the experience with that at my high school was quite a bit different for a number of reasons). In high school, we probably all had to ask to use the bathroom or get a hall pass– in my case, we would do that and go figure out which one was unlocked for all the girls to use while the guys rarely had that issue of only one bathroom being unlocked, then likely get in trouble for taking so long.
So while this may be statistically significant data because it’s such a common high school experience, it’s not the kind of data that a school includes on its website, or that reports like GreatSchools.org or US News would typically mention. While ChatGPT utilizes the entirety of the internet as its brain, for comparative or analytical questions especially, it’s reasonable that it would mainly rely on these often-cited resources as its algorithm would then likely deem it as a reliable source on the topic.
And yes, one could argue that the internet is, to some extent, a summation of human experience and knowledge. But lets be real with that even: how much of the real human experience do we actually include on the internet? Even if we could tell ChatGPT to write something based on our own websites for these blog posts (which you can’t, I’ve tried), there is still only so much of our lives shown on here, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Snapchat, or even on BeReal despite the purpose of BeReal being an attempt at breaking that barrier.
And even if our entire experience was some data set that this algorithm could draw from for data, how often does life go in a direction that can be easily, rationally calculated? The number of times that God’s surprised me with money I didn’t know how I’d get to be able to pay for school or my car… the number of times I’ve been overcome with an inexplicable peace in the midst of some of the most chaotic or grievous times in my life… the number of times I’ve been able to speak before a crowd of people despite my mildly crippling social anxiety… you can calculate a prediction, but you cannot calculate an experience.
As for James McBride, while we were first talking about him in class I looked him up and was intrigued by the titles he’s published thus far. I read through the multiple synopses of his books, and the question popped into my head: how has faith– whether in God, people, or just in general– shaped McBride as an author and artist (considering he’s a musician as well)? Even just looking at the titles the question came up– Deacon King Kong… Miracle at St. Anna (and the cover art for this one)… The Good Lord Bird… even looking at the synopsis for The Color of Water I noticed some details involving Christian culture, though McBride was raised by a Jewish mother.
And I suppose that the other would be this: what would you say has been the most formative experience to you as a writer? I’m always one for a good testimony, which is why I think I’ll be checking out The Color of Water once I get the time to sit and read, probably sometime after I finish at least one more of the unread, brand new books I’ve had for about a year now.
Our previous Thursday class was very interesting as we dived into each others voice in writing in comparison to a computer system, Chat GPT. I find it to be very clear that while a computer system as such may be a cool demonstration of what a writing prompt can or should look like, (kind of one of those things where you see this is what you should or should not do) but at the end of the day, it is not authentic, not original, and not creative. It’s missing the most important part, the human, Without that human touch I feel as if though Chat GPT produced generic writing that maybe a more boring and traditional teacher would approve of. But with no personal touch or voice, if you use Chat GPT for one assignment or paper, you would have to keep using it because that would potentially be your “voice,” a computer.
Now diving into James McBride in preparation for his event on Thursday, I had a lot of interest when it came to reading and listening to the quarantine tapes. One thing that resonated most with me was when he said, “…I believe we have more in common than we are different.” In his book, Deacon King Kong McBride makes the cop in his story, the good man. As a Black author, I am sure he must have received some backlash from choosing to do so. I do agree with his statement, on why he chose to make the white cop a good man but it still does raise a question as to why the cop couldn’t be a bad guy to further tell the story that many Blacks do have to struggle and face. Because as we know, with a whole movement be centered towards the subject, seems like there is and never will be enough awareness for it. Because until the problem officially stops, we can’t stop making the conversation.
Questions for James McBride
Considering that you are a big advocate for for arts in school and without it robs children of their creativity, how do you feel about computer systems such as Chat GPT that write papers for students?
Why did you chose to make the white officer a good man instead of a bad man and create a positive outcome for the characters in the book?
After watching the documentary and reading the article assigned for this blog I can only help but ask myself “where is the fun!?” I guess working hard at things isn’t too much fun to people – not everyone likes to organize their record collection in protective plastic sleeves alphabetically and continuously take part in the maintenance that is required to “respectably” house a collection nearing 500, or however many I own. I think that this is all part of the joy and love that I have for record collecting, the tangibility of it all. Sure, convenience is nice and accessibility is great for many, some need it just to be able TO DO.
I’m fortunate enough to have working everything (I’m certain, if anything lacks let me know). So why not try to enhance the act of doing the thing rather than enhance the capabilities of ease in which that thing can be achieved?
I don’t think that machine and vinyl would go well together in the practice of an AI de-dusting, and whatnot, maybe – I doubt it. I wouldn’t trust my rare marble pressed copy of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’ with it. No way. But then there comes the element of physical storytelling. To me there is a human quality (to more reference the article, whereas I was more so referencing the documentary prior) that is unparalleled to what an AI can accomplish.
I care so much for Will Ospreay’s crushing defeat to Kenny Omega because the story told, while predetermined in outcome, the consequences of defeat is real to WILL OSPREAY. Everything he expresses in the post-match press conference happened to him. An AI cannot replicate that. I don’t care about whatever it endures according to its programming, it doesn’t either. Will Ospreay is such a fascinating character, person, and professional wrestler because HE does what HE does.
The first four minutes of this interview, featuring Ospreay, represent professional wrestling in as real of an emotive state as it gets. Blood, sweat, tears, sacrifice.
When the AI beat the humans 4-1 in that Go game, and all of the tech people were cheering it like a legitimate victory, I cringed. Why are we so obsessed with our tools? I don’t cherish that copy of ‘Hounds of Love’ because of it being a tool that plays music, I care because of the human art it contains. The 12″x12″ art print that houses the record, is a beautiful photograph compositionally and contextually in-relation to the art housed. Vinyl is a cool tool and all, but the experience is one that is tangible. Getting a computer to make music for you is not, at least in a romanticized sort of essence that I’m leaning towards.
Getting an AI to draw experiences from is questionable to me too, it is fun, and may enlighten research and whatnot, but where is the authenticity of influence being acquired there? When I sample ideas from film and music in my work – professional wrestling, whatever – I am sampling from the lexicon of my own perspective, and those around me.
Depeche Mode/New Order/Brand New/Converge/etc. all represent the record store clerks that I used to hang out with as a teen at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, or the teachers that would guide me through my high school journey. All of this represents a part of me. I might take from it, but it’s based off of the environment that has crafted my own life. An AI is not my life.
Some Quotes From the Documentary that Made Me Churn:
“A driverless truck would not have that limitation.”
“I wish i had drawn that graph.”
“Overcoming the limitations of our minds.”
An Interview With Minoru Suzuki that Makes My Soul Flutter:
“Interviewer — I see.
Suzuki: Do you, though? Look at what makes a great wrestler. Tall, muscular, can kick, can throw hands, can suplex people, can tap them out, can fly, is charismatic. Get all that together and you have a cleanup hitter. That’s the kind of guy that makes hacks like you, or the fans in the crowd give them the nod.
Interviewer –Right. The total package.
Suzuki: But make an all star team of guys like that, and they’re the most boring team in the league. These days, you can make your own characters in the videogames, right?
Interviewer –Yes, they have edit modes.
Suzuki: So some kid with their video game goes and makes their dream promotion, and it’s full of those aces right? But a baseball team that’s full of cleanup hitters won’t go anywhere. It’s the same for wrestling promotions.
Interviewer –So, even though he was successful in the major American leagues, Jon Moxley is by no means the total package as a wrestler, in your opinion.
Suzuki: It’s a bit of a paradox, but it’s because of that he got chances in WWE. There’s nobody else like him, right? Nobody in the majors in America is like him. So he stands out. Nobody gets that.
Look. An absolute all-round perfectionist, the perfect complete player, tens in every category? Not even Tanahashi is that. Naito isn’t that. They don’t exist.
Interviewer –Those slants, the weaknesses make strengths stand out, and made Moxley stand out.
Suzuki: Hehehe… Everyone in this business is a mark, you included. You fans have this idea of ratings, of skill points. You put all those points in a hexagon graph and calculate an average; ‘oh he’s a good wrestler, over 80 overall’. BS. Who the hell will pay money to buy a ticket, and see a guy who’s a perfect hexagon, 8 out of 10 or above in all areas? The guy with zero overall, the guy who can’t do anything at all, he’s a better draw.
Interviewer –Moxley is a unique breed? Organic, you mean? Real?
Suzuki: Why is Lance Archer popular? Why does Zack Sabre Junior have the support he does? Because there’s stuff they can’t do. Nobody in this goddamn business understands that. Wrestlers don’t understand that. Trainers, people teaching these kids don’t understand that for crying out loud!
Interviewer –The system wants to create all rounders.
Suzuki: So the kids go in, and they train, and their trainers find what the gaps are in their games, and they try to fill those gaps right up. So you have this perfectly smooth, grey lump of boring trash. Fill in those holes on a wrestler and there’s no way in hell he’s filling seats with asses. It’s up to us to make people talk, to make them disagree. Make them argue. So Moxley? It’s because he can’t do s**t that he’s a good wrestler.
Interviewer –So you actually rate him quite highly?
Alrighty, so for those of you who have been following this blog in the past, cool. For those of you new to me (I hope that there are a few) I’m Brandon. Most of my friends call me by whatever insulting name comes to mind – that’s our sense of humor. You can call me WHATEVER you want, I like personable, unique, nicknames.
I’m a huge film/music/professional wrestling nut (you’ll see constant references to each throughout this blog if you pay close attention), and really wear my interests on my sleeve. I really dig expression and boldness, and never understood why people reserve themselves. It’s weird. If someone is going to like you allow them the opportunity to like you for you, otherwise the relationship (in whatever form it takes) is probably going to crack much easier.
Besides all that I’m quite impulsive and hyper and whatnot, but I don’t necessarily view that as as negative as I did as a kid. I think over time you tend to work with those kinds of details and refine them to be positive factors of your ability/personality. Still, I find that I grate people sometimes. Like how run-on my writing can be and how scattered my ideas are expressed here, such is essentially a representation of how I speak in real time.
Oh, vulgarity! I can be pretty vulgar too. I’ve always been a big fan of shock-schlock. I love old exploitation films and really questionable corners of the music world. I’m still waiting for some super ironic GG Allin TikTok resurgence. Not because I’m a huge fan of Allin, or even his music, but because I think that Irony is A bit of Dead Scene, and like to laugh at how absurd it gets – even if those causing it are completely unaware/unironic.
As for this course I’m pretty excited for it. The students that I already know I think are an enlightened and engaging bunch, and my new peers seem like the kind to bring a different perspective to the table. The content itself seems to be pretty intriguing – especially the focus on artificiality in the sense that I want to look closer regarding how near or far such a thing really is to our own human core.
The very concept of Artificial Intelligence itself is an outworldly thing. Autonomous Vehicles, Nigh-sentient artificial personalities, everyday facial recognition, the reality of technology being used it everyday situations, all of this sounds like a millennial’s out-of-reach fantasy of the future. But it’s no longer a thing of our predictions of the far future, it’s a part of today’s reality. At least in the form of facial recognition and daily technology use.
Watching the PBS documentary has made me think about the usage of AI in the present day. I honestly cannot see how most mass systems will implement artificial intelligence in ways that will benefit society. Watching the beginning of the doc where everyone in China was using facial recognition and smartphones had me seeing just how much we all use technology in today’s age. But it also has me asking important questions.
How do people who struggle with using technological systems maneuver this kind of society? This doc makes it seem that China is so much more technologically advanced than majority of the world. But my questions applies to the rest of the world just as much as it does to China.
The idea of law enforcement using AI to enact survelliance is a genuine concern of people. The use of AI to publicly shame and even fine people for minor “offenses” such as jaywalking, accidentally dropping something on the ground, or any other minor offense is an inhumane one. This would never be done to catch police committing violence against a citizen. They would never do this to protect victims of violence and harassment, or to protect against discrimination, but they would definitely do this for something as miniscule as jaywalking.
On the flipside, there are genuine positives to AI. Having the algorithm automatically organize itself for someone’s personal feed frees them of the need to do it themself. Saving personal legal records so they don’t get lost is something that Ai can do. Saving pictures, memories, creative content, documents, and other information is a good thing AI can do. If digital technicians were to focus on these needs over automated vehicles and online surveillance then I would have more confidence in the future of Artificial Intelligence.
Honestly, I look at the 2016 Facebook election experiment, the genuine investment in autonomous driving vehicles, and the mass surveillance and information stealing from people online, and I have severe concerns about how artificial intelligence will be used in destructive ways. When Facebook enacted an experiment to encourage people to go out and vote they showed just how much influence they have on the public. But, since Facebook is a place where misinformation flourishes at a high frequency, this just paints a picture of just how voters were influenced to vote. I can easily guess who 99% of Facebook voters voted for, the policies they supported, and the ethics they cared about. None of them are good.
Real people cannot and should be replaced by artificial personalities. When I watched the section where the truck drivers were worried about not getting paid, it shows just how bad of an idea autonomous driving is. Why would an AI not become a certified killer?
Ok, after reading the article and watching the documentary, many things come to mind and I say, wow, the world is crazy, we fly away. I still remember when I was in the second semester, we were talking to some engineering colleagues about how technology facilitated everything to which they answered yes, that almost all jobs are going to be replaced by machines and we graduates said that education could not be replaced by machines, because it needs interaction between people capable of enabling a relationship between teaching and learning. Then I said literature and writing, or writer’s work can’t be replaced, but then I remembered a page that edited texts, another that made summaries and I said, yes, we’re all going to be replaced. Today I do not think that we are going to be replaced in the jobs (which is where there is a greater concern), but that technology will allow optimizing processes because there will already be 2 minds that think about how to do everything better. As for the writing and the article, I agree that AI helps the writer with writer’s blocking or facilitating writing, I do not consider that AIs should be judged or demonized, we must recognize that you must have control of them, and more control has it is easier to use them. The important thing is not what technology does or does with us, it is what we can do through it for the benefit of others.
On the other hand, every time I listen to AI, the image of the movie I, Robot comes to mind, and it scares me. I also think about algorithms, how they know everything about us (what we make known), and how easy it is to deliver our information without even recognizing the risks, here I wonder, are we living in freedom?
However, it’s not all bad, just while listening to the documentary I saw a post on Instagram from NATGEO where it showed that Japan introduced a variety of approaches and technologies to adapt again to the elderly population and make them feel useful and in the community.
Before the start of this semester I had seen a video or two on TikTok about AI and how college students were using it for writing. I wasn’t too sure what it was and didn’t do any further research but thought it was pretty cool. This weeks reading and documentary gave great insight on AI and gave a better understanding as to what it is and what it does.
I find this way of writing or this tool of writing I don’t disagree with AI or dislike it, I do feel and believe that AI can be a helpful tool when it comes to writing but not the only tool. I personally don’t want to see the human touch disappear from writing completely. It can be a great way to get things started if it is difficult.
as for the documentary I find that AI can be very beneficial in so many ways but again I say it would be greta as an extra tool and not so much as what completely takes over everything. Im very interested to learn more about it and how it can be beneficial in all aspects.
“I’ve only slept comfortably with the worst person in my arms”
That quote was started by a friend of mine, I added the rest. It was said as a snarky remark. To you, it might seem like I’m being an ass but he hollered with laughter, and my smirk quickly became a chuckle and a then full on laughter. Once the laughter subside, I quickly realized the potential of this quote ad franticly wrote it down, exclaiming “I’m absolutely using that in my next poem”.
unknowingly, we had collaborated, we connected, we (me) got inspired…organically. Gero mentions authors hitting writers blocks, and using AI to get the creativity flowing. Which (if I wasn’t such a hater of Ai) would sounds great, having someone(thing) to get you out of those ruts on your time. I cant remember all the times I’ve reached out to my writing peers and have been met with silence due to our conflicting schedules. However, I believe it could not replicate that beautiful quote that was created off a whim. You couldn’t write an algorithm that could replicate our banter. Sure there’s a pattern in my words, & phrases but can that encapsulate me. What I am, how I act, my idiosyncrasies. I found an article about Idiosyncratic Expression but the way it was cemented into my brain was through Good will hunting. When Robin Williams character Sean Maguire is talking about his dead wife farting herself awake. (minute 1:30 if you don’t want yo watch the whole scene).
I think about writing and AI a lot cause well that’s my interest, my creative outlet, and the storm clouds are forming over it. But in the Age of AI they spoke about self driving long haul trucks. Human drivers can legally only drive 11 hours without stopping, so having a self driving 18 wheeler sounds phenomenal. Imagine your amazon package never being late regardless if its coming from NYC or LA. my only response to this is…. have you seen the tesla self driving accidents? Here is one and hey look here another and some statistics (Don’t want to read the long winded government report? here’s a Forbes article). Now imagine a giant Truck on an interstate, malfunctioning. I work for DHL in the receiving department, a bulk of my work depends on these trucks arriving on time and let me tell you, a small flurry of snow sets them back hours.
An exaggerated image? yes. does my point still stand? I’d like to think so.
Can we trust them with our writing? Whenever I want feedback on my writing, I have to show it to someone who cares. Someone who will read and interpret it in their own way and tell me what worked for them or where it loses them. While I think AI hasn’t reached up to that point yet, its input seems to be a helpful tool…to an extent.
However, there’s no authentic connection on that other side and I think that’s too important to let go of. The articles mentions, “But when a computer ends up changing what the writer set out to achieve, writers may start to wonder whether their vision is getting muddied by an entity that lacks any experience with the real world.“
That experience and emotion is just as important in collaboration as it is in the writing process itself, in my opinion. It’s the best (and worst) part of being human. I want my work to connect with people who resonate with words I put out and, if some of those words are AI-generated, how do I know whether or not they give off the authenticity I strive for?
Towards the end, they discuss the eye of the beholder aka the reader. Again, going back to the importance of connection, the reader and the writer are truly the only entities who are able to detect what is derived from genuine emotion versus what is artificially produced. That line may be blurred as AI improves but, as long as the intention of the writer is still visible, that human connection remains irreplaceable.
The official class site for Dr. Mia Zamora's Spring 2023 "Networked Narratives" course.
