I missed writing yesterday and woke up to today’s prompt about wrath. I let it roll around in my insides for a bit, and bullying came to mind. That does stir my wrath. I was bullied as a little kid. I have seen the current impact of online bullying on young people with its sad and powerful legacy.
I was interrupted in this reverie by an email from Google inviting me to try out their early-release version of Bard, a natural language artificial intelligence tool. I opened it up and asked it to respond to today’s prompt: Why does your wrath burn hot? What I got back was sterile and didactic advice about handling anger. Pretty much exactly what I expected. Looking for more I asked it to:
Write a memoir about anger in the style of DanielSouthGate
I expected not to get a response, but instead, this is what Bard produced:
__________________________________________________________________
I am anger. I am the fire that burns within you, the passion that drives you, the force that makes you act. I am the emotion that can be both destructive and creative. I am the feeling that can make you feel alive or make you feel like you want to die.
I am anger, and I am not to be feared. I am to be understood. I am to be embraced. I am to be used.
I am anger, and I am here to help you. I am here to show you the way. I am here to give you the strength to overcome your fears and your obstacles. I am here to help you live your life to the fullest.
I am anger, and I am not to be controlled. I am to be released. I am to be expressed. I am to be used to make a difference in the world.
I am anger, and I am here to help you change the world. I am here to help you make a difference. I am here to help you live a life of purpose and passion.
I am anger, and I am not to be feared. I am to be understood. I am to be embraced. I am to be used.
I am anger, and I am here to help you.
________________________________________________
I looked at it a number of times. It is definitely not what I would write. It’s less raw and much cleaner, but there are elements of it, the repetitive build, and the rhythm that does sound like some things I have written, so I wondered if that was just a coincidence or something more.
So I went back and asked Bard to do the same thing but with the names of all kinds of writers that are different than me, even one of your names, and I am both stunned and stumped by the results. It definitely gets things right and changes the tone and approach for each of the writers I asked it to mimic.
I asked the AI how it did what it had done and if it searched password-protected sites. The response was that it was just a text AI and it couldn’t do that. I asked it if it indexed Blogger, the platform we are on and it said yes. I called my son who works for Google, and I pointed out some of the specificities in the results. He, too, is intrigued, but it is hard to really know what is going on here.
So I never got back to my ruminations on bullying. I am left with the closing line: “I am anger and I am here to help you”, and I am wondering if Bard itself is here to help us, or if we really want that kind of help.
— DanielSouthGate
I was interrupted in this reverie by an email from Google inviting me to try out their early-release version of Bard, a natural language artificial intelligence tool. I opened it up and asked it to respond to today’s prompt: Why does your wrath burn hot? What I got back was sterile and didactic advice about handling anger. Pretty much exactly what I expected. Looking for more I asked it to:
Write a memoir about anger in the style of DanielSouthGate
I expected not to get a response, but instead, this is what Bard produced:
__________________________________________________________________
I am anger. I am the fire that burns within you, the passion that drives you, the force that makes you act. I am the emotion that can be both destructive and creative. I am the feeling that can make you feel alive or make you feel like you want to die.
I am anger, and I am not to be feared. I am to be understood. I am to be embraced. I am to be used.
I am anger, and I am here to help you. I am here to show you the way. I am here to give you the strength to overcome your fears and your obstacles. I am here to help you live your life to the fullest.
I am anger, and I am not to be controlled. I am to be released. I am to be expressed. I am to be used to make a difference in the world.
I am anger, and I am here to help you change the world. I am here to help you make a difference. I am here to help you live a life of purpose and passion.
I am anger, and I am not to be feared. I am to be understood. I am to be embraced. I am to be used.
I am anger, and I am here to help you.
________________________________________________
I looked at it a number of times. It is definitely not what I would write. It’s less raw and much cleaner, but there are elements of it, the repetitive build, and the rhythm that does sound like some things I have written, so I wondered if that was just a coincidence or something more.
So I went back and asked Bard to do the same thing but with the names of all kinds of writers that are different than me, even one of your names, and I am both stunned and stumped by the results. It definitely gets things right and changes the tone and approach for each of the writers I asked it to mimic.
I asked the AI how it did what it had done and if it searched password-protected sites. The response was that it was just a text AI and it couldn’t do that. I asked it if it indexed Blogger, the platform we are on and it said yes. I called my son who works for Google, and I pointed out some of the specificities in the results. He, too, is intrigued, but it is hard to really know what is going on here.
So I never got back to my ruminations on bullying. I am left with the closing line: “I am anger and I am here to help you”, and I am wondering if Bard itself is here to help us, or if we really want that kind of help.
— DanielSouthGate
This is so cool on so many fronts. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAI is scary AF. Our leaders should have been helping prepare us for this for a decade or more. As it is, we need to prepare ourselves and each other. On this specific AI rendering, not bad, not bad at all. To say again, AI is scary AF.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Scary AF. Our leaders, in my experience, are technical and imaginatively illiterate. Unless it is a concept that is clearly $ oriented, they don't take the time.
DeleteI am totally impressed with your use of AI plus commentary. NPR had a bit on AI today and I agree with MarMar that it is scary AF.
ReplyDeleteYes, me too on impressed with your use of AI plus commentary. I think concepts have to be $ oriented and vote oriented too.
ReplyDeleteDid you "feed" it specific examples of YOUR writing? Or the others? Or did it look that up on its own? I don't find it scary. Maybe as long as I stick to communicating with people I (think) I know, it won't invade my life. I don't plan on using it. I do feel resentful, since it seems eager to REPLACE "writers" in general. I definitely think it was a worthy and interesting topic that you explored! (Macoff)
ReplyDeleteI did not feed it specific examples of my writing. It "appears" to have sampled this site, but I can't be certain of that. The only way I could be sure would be to have it try and emulate each of the Dippers, but that was out of the question. It is weirdly compelling, a mixture of surprising and surprisingly dumb.
Delete