Patrice Lewis over at Rural Revolution wrote a rather thought provoking article last week entitled "The dying art of writing". In the article, she reflects on the fact that with the rise of AI, the human art of writing is at a series of interesting points.
The first point is simply that AI cannot always determine what is human generated and what is AI generated and thus may label human generated comment as AI. The second point is that - from an article entitled "The Rise Of AI Writing, and The Decline Of the Human Voice" - that language is becoming both increasingly the same in writing (as AI standardizes a voice) and at the same time, less impactful: "polished, formulaic speech", as the article states.
The final point is that as AI continues to be brought into the common societal stream, it simply will become more common, if for convenience and cost if nothing else. At the same time, Lewis laments the fact that as her (and my) generation passes, the coming generations will simply not have the ability to differentiate AI generated writing from human generated writing.
At the end of the article she notes "I don't know how long I will be able to cling to a career as a writer, but I will enjoy it while I can."
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It is a fair statement to say that writing is at a crossroads.
If you are someone that writes or keeps an online presence, likely you have noticed a decrease in the overall "real" traffic to the site - I say real because while I, for example, have tens of thousands of "views" a day (per Google), my individual posts are much, much less than that. It is not just my imagine: content creators of all varieties have noted that with a change in search engines (Google the primary one), traffic is simply much less because is both much more selective and uses AI to create summaries: no need to click through if the summary at the top tells you everything.
For folks that make a living from a site, that can be a hard thing: the rise of SubStack, for example, is one method for creating written content that will somehow fund itself. Even that is a bit of chancy business I suppose, dependent on the ability of the writer and the audience - although many content creators are directly marketing through social media rather than the traditional "Search Engine" route.
But there are tens of people including myself that keep a blog or site simply because we enjoy writing and indirectly enjoy interacting with people who read our writing. They are written in the old, painful sense, keystroke by keystroke (if not starting in pen and then transferring to the keyboard).
AI changes all that of course: within seconds or minutes it can generate text or a story which may or may not be good - but as Lewis notes above, people may not care about the quality of it as a work of communication or human lived experience. They care if it has the information or content or entertainment they want.
If blogs or sites create communities strung out like towns a day's travel apart in the Old West, the change in the InterWeb and AI are the equivalent of the railroad coming to town. Some are picked, by chance or choice, and continue on. Others are not chosen and, more often than not, may fade away.
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Where does this all lead?
Some weeks ago, I read an article (I cannot remember where it was) from a blog author who decided he was given up. He may have been one who wrote and made something of a living at it (as I recall), but now the effort was simply not worth it to him. He had considered a "pay as you go" experience like SubStack, but also decided that was not worth it. He was punching out.
Generally speaking, that likely reflects a strong current of what will eventually happen. It is hard to blame anyone really: for myself, a blog post can take anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes to write and edit. Over the course of a week, that can be up to seven hours (or more). To pump those out regularly only to see your numbers continue to drift downward can be depressing. Add to that I suspect the blog and website crowd is likely in the 40's or more, and the medium will likely decline more based on demographics as well.
On the one hand, that saddens me. As I noted above, blogs (and sites) can become their own sort of community and the loss of every one means one more voice gone.
On the other hand, it is likely not as bad as I might think.
Even within our own modern world, there is a segment of the population that prefers things that are handcrafted or handmade above the commercially generated. And in a sense, AI could eventually make itself irrelevant in the sense that if all AI sounds the same, it will become bland and boring.
That is where the artisanal blog comes in: It is different. It is personal. It is unique in that every writer has their own unique voice.
Will there be money to be made? Probably not, although a few hardy souls will figure out a way. But it will be genuine and honest and real in a way that AI could never be.
Besides, the phrase "This post was hand crafted by a human artisanal writer" has a certain ring to it.
Was a bit discombobulated yesterday, posted as Anon, let's do better today. You have my thanks for the time, thought and effort put into this blog every day TB. As for me......AI = Skynet, enuff said.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - I thought it might be you (but one is never sure).
DeleteIt is a pleasure still to write, so I am happy to do it. That said - and based on Lewis' article above - I need to use more different and exotic language, not less.
For me, blogging has always been a sort of therapy. Writing/typing things out in long form onto a screen and then publishing it as a post has a way of relieving my mind of the burden of mulling over the subject. It is essentially carved in stone or permanently entered the world of the internet where nothing really dies. So using Artificial Intelligence to create posts would do nothing for me.
ReplyDeleteLike you mentioned, there is a fringe benefit of reading posts from other like minded people that I do enjoy. I enjoy them because they are personal in nature, aren't written perfectly polished with the intention of making money, and because usually there is something in them that I can identify with or relate to my own life. I suppose A.I. could replicate some of that on occasion but I have yet to see it do it every time.
Ed - There s a therapy aspect for me as well, as well as a way to think through things or play with ideas as if I were in a conversation.
DeleteI have heard tell that on places such as Reddit, there are "Bots" which have taken to interacting with other "Bots"- e.g., programs interacting with programs. That is almost the opposite of the Social Internet is meant to be. I would much rather read real people's thought and struggles and connect with them on a personal level; perhaps that is trade-off for "writing for money".
Thank you so much for your continued effort. I may not comment on every blog post but I read every one. Your blog is an authentic, sane, somewhat quiet, humble voice in a world of anything but.
ReplyDeleteAnonJ - Genuinely, thank you so much! Writers write to be read.
DeleteYour characterization is what I hoping for (although, sadly, not always what I achieve in real life).
I've begun to liken most Artificial Input content to ground beef. Gather up so many disparate parts of Cow that could have been a proper cut - sirloin, flank, the dreaded eye of round, down to the offal that no-one really wants - and pulverize it all into a homogenized, unidentifiable mass. There are varying qualities of AI Chuck, but the point is that things that were once unique and may have required an experienced (though perhaps not veteran) touch to make into something delicious, now rendered into something generic the layman can recognize and use.
ReplyDeleteLike ground beef, most will encounter it in passing as a forgettable meal, only ever made noteworthy by impressive company or strange happenings in that moment. It can also be a component in a satisfying dish, but if - only if, and a BIG IF - the creator is willing to put in the time and effort to make it so.
Most will be satisfied with the entertainment equivalent of frozen White Castle sliders, but I assume that much like them, such content is only good when one is up to their eyeballs in some recreational narcotic. I'll pass, thank you - I was raised in an olden internet, on artisan shitposts. We still had to put effort in (he grumps agedly behind his barely-greyed beard)!
Ah, and there's the rub, isn't it? Effort. Pouring one's blood, sweat and tears into something for... what, then? A ripple in the ocean, more often than not. Some become waves, but most pass unheeded beneath cold keels. To make an impact, one has to bring a truckful of gravel or start tossing cannonballs into the deep.
Or get a rubber lizard suit. Godzilla is coming back into vogue, after all...
P_P - That is not a terrible analogy at all, brining everything into a grinder and then spitting out various sorts of things. It is like tsurimi, the Japanese all fish parts with can be made into almost sort of "seafood".
DeleteMost of our video trainings at work are now AI generated. They are completely forgettable and something to be suffered through, not engaged with. I think this is what you are getting at as well: it is a sort of tool which can be used if needed, but not sought out particularly. Even the AI videos I have seen on Social Media have somewhat cool graphics, but become the same over and over and over. There is a thing that marks them in a way I cannot fully describe as "made up".
Where does all of this writing end up? As Ed points out, at some level it exists as long as there is power and memory. But if impact is measured by what occurs when people read and interact and, if one believes that there is something beyond this life, the impact arguably could be eternal.
It feels like most AI content is the multimedia form of a radio station's aversion to Dead Air - there's often no effort, artistry, or even more than a passing check for function.
Delete"Who cares if there's an abundance of glaring verbal or visual spalling on our mass-produced Quality Content™? Most people won't notice, and no one will care!"
Well, not with that attitude, we won't.
Just noise for the sake of noise; a shotgun approach, in multiple senses of the term. That Nameless Thing Wrong (... creeping into the darkened recesses of the mind, churning and roiling like foul, liquid fat, putrefying all it touches! It goes by many titles: The Crawling Slop; The Eater of Dreams; The Six-Fingered Ajuborgln, Open All Ntigh; and others still from the darkest lands, to terrible for the human mind to hear. Ia! Ia! Open All Ntigh, it waits! Nestled in the Uncanny Valley, restless and ravenous, it waits for us all...) is probably pattern recognition kicking in. As I have heard from wiser men: "You might not have noticed, but your brain did".
P_P - It is a good reason to minimize the AI I watch/listen/to/read - after all, I would agree that the more I am accustomed to it, the less I will question.
DeletePlease do carry on, Human Artisanal Writer. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnon - Will do!
DeleteGood post, TB. While I am far from fully understanding AI, I have a growing hope that AI will become ingrown and that its voice will be so obvious that it eventually becomes irrelevant. That may be a high hope, but I do think it's possible. In that same vein, I also think its possible that humans will eventually tire of the unfufilling content that is AI produced, and maybe like archeologists, they'll start to discover these archaic blogs where people shared their lives and creativity, and musings. After one or two generations have had their minds numbed by AI slop, a later generation may discover a world that was forgotten for a time.
ReplyDeleteNone of that is why I blog. But I do feel like I'm creating a record of some sort.
Becki - I do hope you are right. On one hand, I can see how AI can continue to improve based on input; on the other hand, if it is pushing towards "standardization" at some point all AI will sound the same and, to your point, people may very well want and crave something different.
DeleteIn a way, perhaps, like industrialization of society: people moved from the farms to the cities both for work and "modernity", only to find that their lives were much different than what they expected. At some point, they feel the need to reconnect.
I have been trying to stage a bit of a comeback but old farmer blogs are a bit of a niche. Also old farmer blogs attract old farmers who tend to up and die on you, thus decreasing your readership. The bots would be fine if they would comment.
ReplyDeleteBud - I feel like almost everything is a niche for blogs anymore, given that social media is all the rage. That said, it may time for a sort of "new InterWeb" for exactly this sort of thing.
DeleteAdded to the blogroll, and thanks for already adding me!
When I first used software writing editors for my books, I noticed a difference between those that simply pointed out grammatical errors, and those that made phrasing suggestions. I realized that if I accepted every one of their recommendations, then the writing wouldn't sound like me. If everyone accepted every one of their recommendations, then we'd all sound the same. There would be no uniqueness to our work.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to be rushing to use AI simply because it's the newest, shiniest techno-gizmo. At best it's a shortcut for not having to do one's own research and word crafting. Or maybe that's at worst. Just like all the old traditional skills, unless people choose to learn and use the craft of original writing, there's a potential for it eventually being lost. Add that they no longer teach cursive in schools, and we have the potential for humans to lose powerful communication skills.
Leigh - I have the same experience at work with the AI suggestions for e-mail and responses: it wants the shortest response possible with the least amount of words. Communication in that world would truly become bland and the same.
DeleteAI is like other technologies in that it is the new shiny toy that everyone wants to use. But it has the potential risk of making us ever less intelligent and more dependent. If we lose the ability or will to "know" things because AI will always have the answer, we become nothing more than passive receptacles in the world that are "informed" of what we know instead of actively seeking things out.
In Ed's thoughtful article a couple of weeks ago on cursive, I had voiced the same concerns. When we lose the ability to write, we have lost 50% of our ability to communicate not just to ourselves but the ages (and I see a push at some point to element all writing/keyboard entry and go purely by voice).
"Research as a traditional skill." For once I may be ahead of a trend.
One of the reasons I wanted to retire was because of AI. Just did not want to go there. Call my glasses rose-colored, but I don't believe there will ever be a substitute for personal experience which AI will never adequately describe. I write on Blogger and Substack. Blogger is more relational, having started it 18 years ago and making some friends I enjoy staying in touch with. Substack is a continuation of a column I used to write in a local publication. I do neither for pay. That is not to say I would not accept compensation if it were offered, but I do not expect that to happen. I write for many of the reasons you do, and I don't worry about hits or traffic or, God forbid, algorithms! It's for sheer enjoyment which includes interacting with good people like you. (You are a real person, aren't you??????)
ReplyDeleteBob - I understand. AI is being heavily pushed at my place of employment as well. I use it as minimally as I can, but I can see where this is going.
DeleteHow do you find Substack? I have toyed with the idea, but do not know if I need a second "outlet". Maybe a more focused sort of thing.
"Sheer enjoyment of interacting with real people". Yes, ultimately I think that is that. And power of creating.
(Am I real? Am I Memorex? Can anyone tell?)