2025-23: On AI
LLMs and their use in the writing process became an even hotter topic of discussion this week when news broke that a certain writer infamous for inventing large parts of his best-selling memoir is now heavily using AI to compose his new work.
Of course the guy known for taking shortcuts is taking another one.
Arguing that leveraging ChatGPT and its ilk to put your ideas into words isn’t a shortcut would be disingenuous. Declaring that technology designed to literally hand you a completed creative work is no different than other tools we use for research or completing repetitive tasks is a false equivalency.
In my experience, authors can be split into two broad categories: those who love the work, and those who just want to be able to say they have a book. Although I’m the former, I haven’t historically had a problem with the latter. AI changes that calculus.
Now, I’ve got a problem.
I’m among the authors who’s work was stolen to train this bullshit. Put my name, or any other author’s name, in this form, and you can confirm it. None of us will ever be paid for this; none of us will ever find restitution for this. If we decide to mail boxes dog shit to the greedy assholes behind it all, somehow we’d be the ones in the wrong.
If your business can’t exist without theft, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Saying that AI would not be possible without pilfering copyrighted work to train it is like justifying car theft in the name of your chop shop. It’s inhuman capitalist horse shit.
There’s also now a question of scale. These tools make it easy to flood the market with half-assed cruft, lessening the visibility of other products and bilking consumers out of their hard-earned cash.
Do I think AI could overall be a boon to humanity? Sure! Science fiction writers have been envisioning that forever, after all. Do I think that’s what this iteration of it is designed for, or will be used for? Not at all. This is one of the most money-grubbing, parasitic implementations of new technology I’ve ever seen. It’s the perfect product for late-stage capitalism. That right there is the part those science fiction stories didn’t include, where the utopian dream of a world made better by advanced technology goes to die.
And using it to write books…man, what even is the point of that? Writing—hell, art in all its forms—is one of our most human endeavors. When someone’s good at it, when they really care, that comes across. When you remove the person, all you’re doing is making one of the world’s bright spots a little darker. Congrats on making your “content,” though.
This week’s movie!
I once again found myself crunched for time. Strategy: watch the first thing that looks easy to understand and has a short run time.
Enter Into the Deep, a thriller about a woman who’s father was killed by a shark when she was a girl. She, of course, needs to learn to face her fears to save herself and her boyfriend from dastardly pirates trying to use her to dive for the drugs left for pick up at the bottom of the ocean. SyFy channel grade melodrama and effects ensue. Richard Dreyfuss is here too, as a kindly grandpa rather than a neurotic Hooper analog.
The lead was easy to get behind and the villain was compelling. Still, my main takeaway from this week’s flick is that I need to do a better job making time for this movie thing so I can find and enjoy better films.
Updated Rankings: Jojo Rabbit; The Menu; Thunderbolts; Transformers One; Godzilla Minus One; Arrival; Ghost in the Shell; Lucy; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; Captain America: Brave New World; Sonic the Hedgehog 2; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; Uglies; The Marvels; Subservience; The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver; Ladyhawke; Damsel; Into the Deep; Rebel Moon Part One: Chum in the Water
Hot take!
I’ve decided to add a brand new section to this here newsletter: a place I can drop some fucking rants. I got a lotta issues with you people and your supposed “society,” and they’ll make for fun reading.
We’re gonna start with an old favorite: Major League Baseball games should be seven innings long.
They tried this a few years ago, coming out of the pandemic, for games that were part of a doubleheader. It was wonderful.
I love baseball. Grew up with it. Play too many video games about it. Obsess over fantasy teams. Treasure every trip to Fenway Park.
But nine innings is too much.
Recent pace of play initiatives like the pitch clock and limits on throws to first have definitely helped, but my ideal is still a game that ends in under two hours. I often find myself giving up when the endless parade of relievers starts up. And with so many pitchers getting hurt, reducing their workloads is a thing that needs to seriously be considered.
Play seven. Get to the tense finales quicker so we can get on with our lives. I beg you.
A couple more things
I’ve been booking reedsy clients at a steady rate these days, which makes me very happy. Keep it coming!
My beloved monstera got too big for its britches and was clearly suffering because of it, so it got the ol’ chop n prop treatment. Now I have six monsteras, which is fun, but I’m worried they’re going to band together and take over. Probably gonna see if I can trade a few for other plants.
Drinking Star Wars-themed cocktails in a Star Wars-themed bar while The Empire Strikes Back plays on the projector is an excellent time. Thanks, Backbar!
Til next week!