I have some questions/concerns about AI learning an author’s voice.
One, did the author sign up to let this happen? I doubt many authors would allow their voice to be learned by AI. If they did agree, why? What do they gain by having their voice be learned? I am confused on why any of this was happening in the first place, like who allowed the author’s voices to be learned, and what was the benefit?
What were the voices used for? Was the AI learning a voice and then making new work with that style? If that is what was happening, that is a little insane. Why would you allow this to happen? If your voice isn’t unique, you lose an audience. Having a unique voice is very important, so people can recognize your work and so that it is set apart from everything else. If people can just use AI to copy voices, that ruins a lot.
It ruins people’s trust. How do I know the author themselves came up with the story if AI can write like them? How will I know something is canon in the lore of the world? The author will be put out of a job cause AI can write like them. Fanfiction would be out too, for who needs to try and figure out a different universe of the story when AI can do it. How will I know what is meant to happen and what is not when I can’t tell who the real author is? Lots of concerns here. The people in the study also had concerns:”‘I thought I could tell what AI was, and now I’m not so sure,’ and some described feeling unsettled about what this means for craft and professional identity'”. It ruins people’s identities they work hard to form, cause AI can just learn it and write for you. Not knowing what is AI is also a problem, because that means it really is good at copying voices. The article also mentioned a lack of control could happen, which is true. People can just write whatever they want in the voice of the author. Have all their fantasy’s filled. Don’t need to wait for more content when they can create it themselves.
For the book, I like the opening. It is preparing us for the journey we are about to go on, and I sure do hope I “have a good laugh at” myself. I like the comment about “This book takes a different path: it reminds us that there is no way out—only through”. I feel like that is something to keep in mind about many situations. That we might want to escape, we might want a way out, but sometimes we need to go through. We need to be uncomfortable on a path through hardships, face certain things we might not want to, for escaping to being “out” of a situation doesn’t always work. Like the AI situation, if we just avoid it, not much will get done to fix it. If we travel through the situation, discuss it, see all perspectives, learn how to compromise with those who want to use it, maybe things can be solved. Going “out” doesn’t always work long term.
The book’s opening is also giving yoga to me “As you move through these pages, notice what is stirred within you: the hesitations, the sparks of curiosity, the inner voices that chatter or fall quiet. Pay attention not only to what is said but to the silent spaces between. What might they invite you to feel, to question, to rewire?” All of that sounds like mindfulness stuff to think of when you are doing yoga or something. Feels like the book was going to tell me to close my eyes and take a deep breath in. I like it though, as it reminds me of Professor Mastroeni’s classes. She would ask us things like that in our five-minute warm-up that got us in the right mindspace for class. So the book is taking me back there, preparing me by putting my mind in the right headspace, with all the mindfulness lingo.
The AI introduction was weird. It has a personality, and I do not like that it has one. Cause it does seem like a vibe, a funny, energetic author I would like. And I hate that. Cause booo AI. I say funny because what kind of name is Aiden Cinnamon Tea. ACT? Is that the name? Or Aiden? I can’t tell if it is a joke name or has a deeper meaning but it interested me that the AI has a silly name.
I liked what Cinnamon Tea said here “Some voices are clear, while others hum just beneath the surface, subtle and persistent. It is this interplay and labour of entanglement that resists singular authorship. To untangle it fully would be to miss the point, for the threads themselves are what make the weave”. I think it is good to explain things like this, especially in this case, where people might want to know who said what. It is good to read the readers, know what they will try to do, and point out that they would miss the point. Explaining how to fully take in the work is important; let people know how to interact with the piece. Let it speak to them and don’t ruin the meaning. (I was totally going to try and figure out who said what, so Cinnamon Tea called me out).
Cinnamon Tea also said we can’t escape “The question isn’t how to escape this reality—we can’t. The real question is how to hold it with awareness, let its weight transform us, and compost its harm into something that regenerates life instead of depleting it.” The AI is really getting the important stuff, and I do not like that. Stop saying things I agree with Cinnamon Tea, cause you are AI and I want to hate you. You doing all this is scary for writers, especially seeing you do it well. So I want to hate you, but someone fed you some good ideas. I like what you are saying, and I hate that.
Overall, the start of the book was very good. Both had great stuff to say about the book, to sit with and recognize the feelings, that this is to start a discussion and nothing is set, that there are mysteries unsolved, that this will be a journey, and to not want an out. I enjoyed the beginning. I liked all they had to say. I feel like most of it could be applied to any book, any class, any new start. That we might have our biases and opinions, but to still give it a chance. It already made me think a lot. I still don’t get how Cinnamon Tea wrote this, like did someone prompt it and it wrote? How exactly did this happen? I still have questions. I hope they get answered. But whatever happens, this was a great start that already got me thinking.
Onto the last reading for this week, and the first sentence already got me. “ChatGPT, a new AI system that sounds so human in conversations that it could host its own podcast, is a test of temperament.” I’m sorry, what. What do you mean it “sounds” human. Not us making the thing speak. We already got issues with the writing and we moved to speaking? I saw some Tik Toks on people listening to AI, but I didn’t think it was that common. I saw like three in my lifetime on people studying with AI and it randomly coughing or sneezing. Fully doing human things it doesn’t have to do. But, it sounded AI to me at that point. Does it no longer sound AI? Absolutely not. Not when it coughing and sneezing. Poeple really won’t be able to tell what is what.
Not the author including this “(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I sit on the board of the OpenAI nonprofit, and that, through my foundation, I have invested in OpenAI.). Hello. You are on a board for OpenAI?? Yeah, there is some bias here cause what do you mean you are on a board and say “I still believe that improvement through technology is how humanity most effectively makes progress”? I get how that can be an argument, but with AI, we might be losing some humanity, as the machine is taking over a lot of creative aspects.
“Technology is the thing that makes us us. Through the tools we create, we become neither less human nor superhuman, nor post-human. We become more human.” You see, I don’t know about that. If humans aren’t thinking as much and just going to ChatGPT for answers, does that really make us more human? For most tech, I would say it is part of humanity to learn how to use tech. Tech has always advanced us. Farming better, producing better, communicating around the world, living more stable lives, surveillance, and so on. But AI? It is making people not think, not struggle, not write, and maybe now not even talk.
“… the urge to entrench the status quo against the uncertain terrain of new realities accelerates too”. So I guess it is human to either go with the tech or realize it is flawed and rise against the issues being presented. I think that is the case with most things, not just tech. You see protests happening for all kinds of issues and reasons, so it does apply to tech. That is an argument to make, that tech makes humanity stronger either way. It either directly improves it or, by fighting against it, humanity gets stronger. I still feel like humanity is being lost with AI. It might take a while to get stronger by fighting against it. By then, who knows how strong humanity will have to be to fight back. Kids are already writing a lot less than they used to. We don’t even know how COVID fully impacted them yet. By the time humanity realizes how AI made us less human, we might have a way too big of a fight to fight.
“But what if teachers used ChatGPT to instantly personalize lesson plans for each student in their class—wouldn’t that be humanizing in a way that the industrialized approaches of traditional classroom teaching are not? Aren’t tools that allow millions of people to visually express their ideas and communicate with one another in new ways a step forward for humanity?” But, is it humanizing? If it comes from AI and not the person themselves, learning how to do it? Is it not just the AI doing the work? Can’t people learn to express their ideas and communicate with one another on their own? Are those not valuable skills for people to learn without the tools? If we just rely on AI to fix our problems, are we ever going to fix them ourselves? Shouldn’t teachers learn how to make lesson plans? We are getting rid of learning for a tool to make it better. Just like we are losing writing for typing. Is that really better? To lose a skill to gain a different one? Wouldn’t it be humanizing to learn through the struggles together?
I did not trust this author as soon as being on the board was mentioned. I get that humans shouldn’t fully be against AI, but we got to be careful not to fully embrace it either. There needs to be a balance, and in that balance I think we can please both sides while keeping humans human.
