16 Comments

A lot of people see ChatGPT as a tool to "look up information." That may be a valid use case, but I think that at least as important is using it as a tool for simulation. The examples given here, including George Washington talking with Terry Gross, are in the simulation mold.

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Small quibble: There are a few typos like "mightt" should be "might".

The interesting part would be to see when you mix languages. For example, there are heaps of "Spanglish" literature that is permeating the Hispano/Latino community around the southern border of the US. [Yes, I am deliberately avoiding the astroturf term Latinx].

Would GPT straddle across languages? Or is it going to stay monolingual?

I have not tried this experiment yet. But your post inspired me to think along those lines.

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"So now, in many ways, humanities majors can produce some of the most interesting “code.”" Music to my ears :) As a humanities person with nerd tendencies, the artificial lines people (politicians?) try to draw make me mad. We are all mutually enhancing.

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Some may think AI is made possible by the tech crowd but they forget that the foundation is built on all the great works by writers, philosophers, thinkers, artists, and creatives. Also, even the science behind AI owes a debt to humanities, without being taught how to write and speak their ideas and experiments they could not communicate it.

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I consider this an exceptional insight...but I might be biased as a tech-engaged humanities prof. :) Thank you for all of your work on this subject, which I'm following with great interest and enthusiasm.

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“Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;

But will they come, when you do call for them?”

Creativity in AI subsists in invoking emergent properties of complex systems and then searching for found art.

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Imagination -- if you can't imagine it, you can't do it!

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Great piece--very insightful (and encouraging ;-)

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The autonomous car in the circle of salt is an art piece. It's a very good one, and it shows what could be a problem in the future. However the car used in Autonomous Trap 001 isn't a self-driving car, and as far as I know no actual car has actually been confined in that manner

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Hi Ethan, I think there might be something spammy going on with your Substack. I follow you and got an email that you replied to my comment on this post with "Good Tidings! Let’s converse㈩********𝟓𝟔𝟗". When I click 'view comment' it takes me to an empty comment box. The one in which I'm now tying.

Just seems odd. I hope it's not your number with some international code, which is why I've starred out the numbers for you, but I guess not. Just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks for the great writing!

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Great article. As you say, prompting will be an art form - e.g. a Cologne ad agency looking for an "AI prompter" for the first time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/10o2ufp/german_ad_agency_looking_for_ai_prompter_here_we

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I don't have time to read this all now, which is too bad because it's got me hooked. Saved it for later. :)

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