Dan Decker's Blog, page 13
March 31, 2023
For Writers: Iterate. Reiterate. Repeat. | The AI resistance! | The death of lawyers?
I maintain I substack devoted to writing. You can find it here.
Here are some recent posts:
Iterate. Reiterate. Repeat.
I rarely get something complete on the first pass. It takes multiple times through. I add. I take away. I reconfigure. This is crucial to my creative process.
This helps me remember how vital it is:
Iterate. Reiterate. Repeat.
Or:
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
The death of lawyers?Hardly.
Photo by Possessed Photography on UnsplashOpenAI said the updated technology passed a simulated law school bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers; by contrast, the prior version, GPT-3.5, scored around the bottom 10%. GPT-4 can also read, analyze or generate up to 25,000 words of text, and write code in all major programming languages, according to the company.
Can it shake your hand? Can it be programmed for empathy, understanding, the ability to read the room?
And countless others?
The AI resistance!You are the key.
Photo by Andrea De Santis on UnsplashFrom The Washington Post:
Can anything stop the digital destruction? I think so. At bottom, ChatGPT is no more than a vast recycling machine. It can search our collective digital brain for pre-cooked ideas and pre-assembled facts and then churn them out as columns. It can imitate whatever style you tell it to imitate. But it can’t provide the human element — vivid observations or fresh ideas or leaps of imagination. The best way for columnists to survive in the world of artificial intelligence is to write more human columns. This general rule — avoid destruction by upping the human element in what you do — applies to most other knowledge-intensive jobs.
Here are some ideas for avoiding the coming column-aggedon:
Live an interesting life.
Generate new knowledge.
Avoid predictability.
One of the most powerful arguments in favor of automation is that it forces producers to be more productive by focusing on their comparative advantage. This will surely be the case with columnists. ChatGPT can do all the predictable things — producing anti- (or pro-) Trump rants or summarizing the causes of the war in Ukraine. But can it change your mind? Can it produce “color” that encapsulates an historical moment? Can it persuade a politician to spill the beans? Can it generate a new way of looking at the world? And can it make you laugh? Not yet — and, in some cases, not ever.
What can you do that ChatGPT cannot?
March 29, 2023
March 22, 2023
March 15, 2023
March 10, 2023
March 8, 2023
March 1, 2023
February 23, 2023
For Writers: Rising Tsunami of… What?
The rise of widely available, easy-to-use artificial intelligence tools is creating a new genre of robot-generated literature. Amazon already offers over 200 books (and climbing) with ChatGPT listed as an author or co-author.
The reasons for people to “write” these books varies. Some authors were previously discouraged by the time and effort to write a book, and are now turning to ChatGPT to generate short novels in hours. They are also combining text generated by ChatGPT with illustrations from platforms such as DALL-E, and bringing their creations to market instantly online.
I doubt many serious authors will consider using AI to write new words for their fiction. (But I may be wrong?!)
I personally have no problem putting words on a page. Using voice to text, its easy to put a lot of words down on paper very fast.
I spend MOST of my time editing.
A more interesting tool would be better AI editors, but that might be more difficult since it requires an ability to understand context.
I use Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and AutoCrit and find them all useful in their own ways, but they all have significant limitations as well.
Give me an AI editor that understands context, and we’ll have something to talk about.
February 22, 2023
February 21, 2023
For Writers: Life Finds a Way, Savvy Daughter, & Done vs. Perfect
Couldn’t help but think of this when I read this:
They detailed their findings on the preprint server bioRxiv. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Scientists used CRISPR to insert the alligator gene that codes for cathelicidin into catfish.
It found the survival rate of the genetically modified fish was resistant to a common infection.
The fish are also sterile and can’t reproduce unless they are injected with reproductive hormones, MIT Technology reported.
Are you implying that a group composed entirely of sterile animals will breed?
A thoughtful daughterStill wary of TikTokDone is better than perfect?
Social media took Lloyd Devereux Richards’ serial-killer novel, “Stone Maidens,” from bottom of the barrel to top of the charts.
The Vermont author’s book — a flop when it was first published in 2012 — is now No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list thanks to a video his daughter posted on TikTok that’s garnered more than 40.3 million views, 9.4 million likes and a lot of book buyers.
“It’s surreal,” the 74-year-old author told The Post of his sudden success, beating out the likes of Colleen Hoover and Prince Harry. “I am not a social media person. I post pictures to Facebook and that’s it.”
Lloyd’s daughter Marguerite Richards, 40, however, is a social media person. On February 8, the teacher posted the video tribute to her dad’s overlooked hard work after finding out that the “Stone Maidens” sequel, finished late last year, had limited prospects of finding a publisher.
From Entrepreneur:
“Done is better than perfect,” professional freelance writer, David Hochman, told me on my podcast Write About Now. Hochman has written thousands of stories for different publications, and his advice to aspiring writers is to stop worrying so much about your content.
“Don’t agonize over getting it perfectly,” he says. “It will not happen, especially if you’re the final judge. Sometimes the simple act of just finishing something is enough.
To hear my entire interview with David about writing hacks, check out the podcast below.
There is something to be said for done. There’s also something to be said for good. Awesome. Amazing.
How to know the difference? How to balance?
That’s the trick.
