TL;DR and Generative AI

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." - Robert Frost

My friends complain that they are not reading anymore because of social media.

I complain that I am not writing like a used to because Generative AI gives me a lazy way out.

As everyone starts to use Generative AI, then it will be pages and pages of content that gets ignored by humans but will be digested by LLMs that will create responses to responses. Then those responses will generate responses upon responses. Before long, we have a content infinity mirror:

Generative AI is on a fast track to mass produce mush. Creating content upon content that comes across soulless. For example, this is me prompting Generative AI about what type of content AI its good at creating:

Anything that you didn't already know that Generative AI spewed out? From an OCD perspective, one thing Generative AI is very good at is mass producing white space, bold face, and bullet points.

Could Generative AI actually make writing go extinct?

Will there ever come a time where nothing written can be trusted? Or words on a page are just that - words on a page?

Creatives need to figure out a way to create a new soul for the written form to stand out from AI. Then writers and creatives use Generative AI tools as augmentation of their ideas instead of being human versus robot content.

One of the biggest problems with Generative AI is not being able to repeat on the spot. If I prompt engineer a question, the responses differ every time whether its an image, a video, or written content. The consistency is not there to create rhythm.

The other issue with Generative AI is not only its hallucinations but AI not being able to distinguish it's déjà vu's. Generative AI cannot determine when its been here before and said the same things or regurgitated without new context.

When I worked alongside Fabian Langer and AI-Writer.com to create the first ever magazine half written by human and half written by robot for the April 2019 Esquire magazine Singapore edition, our focus was citing sources to create a point of view. We new back in 2018 that summarizing content takes the cream out of the milk. We wanted to feed in sources that would create perspective. Nothing prepared us for the "Letter from the Robot" article where Squire, the content bot, wrote about why AI was being marginalized in comparison to Santa Claus. See a quote from the article that was published in the robot section of the magazine:

For writing to go extinct, requires another form of communication to take its place that translates our emotions and experiences into something that can be empathized with. Social media feeds and reels give us 30-60 second bursts. But nothing beats meeting with a friend, grabbing a glass of wine and spending an hour or two 'catching up'.

And that's the key to good content: listening. Asking questions. Participating in life.

Generative AI needs to be active in our lives. Acting beside us. Becoming our assistant to be more helpful. Earning our trust. Being inquisitive. Also knowing when to be quiet and leave us alone. Then and only then will we be open to collaborating with AI to tell stories.

Remember the purpose of storytelling: to create an emotional connection.

Right now, I feel no emotion when I read Generative AI. Its simply words to fill a page.

When we will be able to truly co-write with AI?

I claim to not be an Apple fanboy. But with the release of Apple Intelligence, they are moving toward the path of having AI being involved in our day to day. Trusting our AI assistant one little step at a time until trust grows from the little things to doing the big things.

These small steps help Generative AI to become congenial, trusted, or dare I say, our friends?

Because right now, Generative AI currently is stalking us. Mimicking us. Copying all of our content. Repeating our same words. Taking all our conversations and making it summary that represents all humans. In doing that, it disparages the experiences of those who do not actively contribute to a digital society. [Insert your marginalized peoples here].

Until Generative AI stops being a stalker and starts being an active participant in all of our lives - that we can contribute emotional context to what it is learning from, AI content will continue to be: TD;LR [too long; didn't read].

For Generative AI to become a friend and not a stalker in the real world, it has to understand our intangibles and not just our facts. It has to see the things that give us meaning - and then and only then can it create content that has an emotional tether to us.

Or as one of my favorite standup jokes I used to say written by one of my favorite Hong Kong standup comics Chris Musni , "What's the difference between a stalker and a friend?"

Or the human answer: "A stalker knows your birthday."