A key reality that I feel would really help many on Substack adapt to the emerging AI era is to understand that our opinions on the future of AI don't really matter.
AI is just the latest chapter of an automation revolution that's been underway for a couple of centuries. Automation came to the farms, then the factories, and now the white collar world. This is an organic global process of human history that is not under the control of any person, company, government or, um, Substack blogger.
Everyone is of course entitled to have and express their opinions on this historic process, but their opinions will be better informed if they offer them with the knowledge that nobody's opinions either for or against this transition will meaningfully change the outcome. As has been true on the farms and in the factories, the most efficient means of production will prevail in the end.
For those who are writing for fun, none of the above matters. AI won't interfere with that fun. Go for it! Those who are writing for a career would be wise to wise up, and face the fact that nature has one simple ruthless rule it applies fairly to all creatures on the planet.
Adapt to changing conditions, or die.
This week I've been impressed with an experiment being conducted by Dave Friedman, who is using OpenAI's new $200/mo model to write science fiction.
Any objective observer whose mind is not polluted by the memorized dire dogmas of so much of Substack culture, will see in Dave's experiment that we are rapidly entering an era when the vast majority of web readers will not be able to tell the difference between AI generated text and human written text. And let us recall, they already don't care about the difference.
Maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe this development will lead to the end of modern civilization and the collapse of the galaxy. Even if true, it's going to happen anyway. Those who wish to continue to create for a living either get on board the train of history, or get left behind standing on the train platform as it vanishes in to the past.
AI is not the end of creativity, just as computers didn't end creative writing when they replaced carving words on to a stone tablet. The printing press was revolutionary in it's time, but it didn't end creative writing, it just changed the game. The same is true of the Internet. And now AI.
Thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts!
PS. it looks like my piece cuts off mid-sentence… Can you fix that?
Hi Jurgen, thank you for participating! P.S. Corrected!😉
Such a great group of incredibly sharp people giving their nuanced perspective on every facet of society.
Great job pulling this together!
Thank you a lot Matthew, looking forward to working on other pieces with great people like you!
A key reality that I feel would really help many on Substack adapt to the emerging AI era is to understand that our opinions on the future of AI don't really matter.
AI is just the latest chapter of an automation revolution that's been underway for a couple of centuries. Automation came to the farms, then the factories, and now the white collar world. This is an organic global process of human history that is not under the control of any person, company, government or, um, Substack blogger.
Everyone is of course entitled to have and express their opinions on this historic process, but their opinions will be better informed if they offer them with the knowledge that nobody's opinions either for or against this transition will meaningfully change the outcome. As has been true on the farms and in the factories, the most efficient means of production will prevail in the end.
For those who are writing for fun, none of the above matters. AI won't interfere with that fun. Go for it! Those who are writing for a career would be wise to wise up, and face the fact that nature has one simple ruthless rule it applies fairly to all creatures on the planet.
Adapt to changing conditions, or die.
This week I've been impressed with an experiment being conducted by Dave Friedman, who is using OpenAI's new $200/mo model to write science fiction.
https://aiscifi.substack.com/p/about-ai-sci-fi
Any objective observer whose mind is not polluted by the memorized dire dogmas of so much of Substack culture, will see in Dave's experiment that we are rapidly entering an era when the vast majority of web readers will not be able to tell the difference between AI generated text and human written text. And let us recall, they already don't care about the difference.
Maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe this development will lead to the end of modern civilization and the collapse of the galaxy. Even if true, it's going to happen anyway. Those who wish to continue to create for a living either get on board the train of history, or get left behind standing on the train platform as it vanishes in to the past.
AI is not the end of creativity, just as computers didn't end creative writing when they replaced carving words on to a stone tablet. The printing press was revolutionary in it's time, but it didn't end creative writing, it just changed the game. The same is true of the Internet. And now AI.