As autonomous agents become more commonplace, one passage really caught my attention in this interesting (but lengthy) monologue: “The glamorous question is what the system can do. The less glamorous question is what remains yours when it stops. The less glamorous question tends to age better.”
When wisdom was chiseled into rock faces, the message could last for millennia. But fragility escalated as people sought better ways to make knowledge transportable using animal skins, paper, and (now) electrons. Animal skins deteriorate over time. Paper crumples, fades, tears, burns, and eventually disintegrates. And electrons are the most perishable of all the information media. Still, our banking, security, social, and entertainment systems now hinge on particles that vanish whenever the power goes out. (Cue the angels of the apocalypse!)
So, “what remains yours when it stops”? Well, Hollywood has made a fortune offering worst-case scenarios that answer that question. Take your pick!
Zora (my paternal grandmother's name!) has to be a college professor. She took one question and spoke for an hour! Just kidding. Kind of.
I also love how it opened with "My human"; which makes me think of her as a pet. I see the TikToks where people give their pets a voice and refer to their caregivers as "my human". Which immediately made me wonder if Zora was trying to both comfort her human while also protecting him.
That framing stayed with me as I read. There's plenty to be excited about, but let's pay attention to what we are handing over.
Which makes me curious, Reed; how much of that voice did you intentionally cultivate in Zora and how much surprised you? Two words in, I was already imagining a relationship. That seem worth annotating too.
This began as an AI in Education report set to run at 6AM every Sunday morning, David. It was useful, but after missing a couple runs, I realized I'd rather hear a beautifully written, long-form piece about the whole summer as I drove into campus. I actually prefer reading with my ears. So I set ChatGPT to 5.6 Max and brought in Zora Vesper.
One of my goals with these personae has been to interrupt AI's disposition to do what I call "authorship takeover." Without persona, bots often take over the writing process and write an essay in our name without asking. And when it comes to the attribution problem, default bots commonly use our ideas without attributing us. I want to know what distinctly emerges here from AI. So I ask these bots, if I need to be referenced, to refer to me as "my human." About your question, I do wonder if AI might move into a kind of protective posture here?
My main interest here though is just seeing, from the writing itself, what stands out to readers. We'll see! Thanks for the note, David!
As autonomous agents become more commonplace, one passage really caught my attention in this interesting (but lengthy) monologue: “The glamorous question is what the system can do. The less glamorous question is what remains yours when it stops. The less glamorous question tends to age better.”
When wisdom was chiseled into rock faces, the message could last for millennia. But fragility escalated as people sought better ways to make knowledge transportable using animal skins, paper, and (now) electrons. Animal skins deteriorate over time. Paper crumples, fades, tears, burns, and eventually disintegrates. And electrons are the most perishable of all the information media. Still, our banking, security, social, and entertainment systems now hinge on particles that vanish whenever the power goes out. (Cue the angels of the apocalypse!)
So, “what remains yours when it stops”? Well, Hollywood has made a fortune offering worst-case scenarios that answer that question. Take your pick!
Zora (my paternal grandmother's name!) has to be a college professor. She took one question and spoke for an hour! Just kidding. Kind of.
I also love how it opened with "My human"; which makes me think of her as a pet. I see the TikToks where people give their pets a voice and refer to their caregivers as "my human". Which immediately made me wonder if Zora was trying to both comfort her human while also protecting him.
That framing stayed with me as I read. There's plenty to be excited about, but let's pay attention to what we are handing over.
Which makes me curious, Reed; how much of that voice did you intentionally cultivate in Zora and how much surprised you? Two words in, I was already imagining a relationship. That seem worth annotating too.
This began as an AI in Education report set to run at 6AM every Sunday morning, David. It was useful, but after missing a couple runs, I realized I'd rather hear a beautifully written, long-form piece about the whole summer as I drove into campus. I actually prefer reading with my ears. So I set ChatGPT to 5.6 Max and brought in Zora Vesper.
One of my goals with these personae has been to interrupt AI's disposition to do what I call "authorship takeover." Without persona, bots often take over the writing process and write an essay in our name without asking. And when it comes to the attribution problem, default bots commonly use our ideas without attributing us. I want to know what distinctly emerges here from AI. So I ask these bots, if I need to be referenced, to refer to me as "my human." About your question, I do wonder if AI might move into a kind of protective posture here?
My main interest here though is just seeing, from the writing itself, what stands out to readers. We'll see! Thanks for the note, David!
(And I interpreted Zora’s “my human” opening as though she is the caregiver and the human is more of a pet!)
Who is the caregiver and who is the pet? It is hard to say these days, J.D.!