I am always astonished at your extraordinary fecundity across different vectors of creativity. Illness and its attendant stoppage must feel alien and unsettling - all the sympathies.
Flu in particular foists one into a Dante-inflected taste of what Hell feels like for bibliophiles and writers and thinkers. A week of lolling about with Christmas Princes on Netflix will turn any of us into Occam, praying as a wager against such a fate.
Periodically I decide that I'm not going to read any novels written after, let's say, 2022, because I worry that they may be AI generated. Then I calm myself down and realize that if I like the novel I should read it, and if I don't I shouldn't, and hopefully I have good taste enough to like the human created stuff.
The paranoia is even more real as a high school teacher, but there's an excellent case for getting students away from screens in general which also happens to support the creation of work that you can be satisfied is authentic.
Hope the flu works its way entirely out of your system - there's nothing like being sick for a long time to make you wonder if you're ever going to feel normal again.
I have allegedly been able to gain account-level disabling of Pangram scanning on my account using my US state privacy laws--Europeans have the strictest provisions and the easiest way out but some US states have strong privacy laws.
I'm absolutely with you about the use of generative AI--every use I see people citing for it in creative writing is a piece of the process that I consider to be crucial in my writing work. I don't use it and have no intention of using it.
John, as usual, you echo my sentiments exactly 💯, whether on dealing with 😷🤧🤢 flu, or dealing with AI. Wishing you better days ahead soon. 🤞🏽 Regarding your recommendation, I have read 3 of the books 📚 mentioned. Wedding People thanks to you 😍, Say Nothing thanks to another site where people were recommending non fiction, and In the Heart of the Sea, from IDK where, but I love them all. In the Heart of the Sea mad me a Nathaniel Philbrick fan, and became part of my Hall of Fame Seafaring Shelf, which includes, yes, Moby Dick, The Wager, and The Wide, Wide Sea, about the final voyage of Captain Cook. 💖🌊🐋
Best wishes for recovery! I spent the week waiting to get COVID after my husband brought it home from work. I haven't gotten it, and I think I'm out of the woods. But what a way to spend the week, ugh. (Not as bad as yours, of course.)
I recently had a somewhat business-oriented series of emails with someone. After a few exchanges, I really got the feeling that they were using AI to construct these emails. It was a bit disheartening, and I found myself internally repeating "please, show me that you are human, please!" I really wanted that human connection. Sigh. But the last thing I want to do is run a check of some sort. Please, display and share your humanity!!
I always enjoy reading your thoughts on AI in writing, because it's like someone has given a voice to my own. I've felt the same about Pangram. Seeing that toggle before I published my latest post on Substack, asking if I wanted to check it for AI flags...vehemently, no thanks! I know I wrote it with zero AI assistance, so what good would it do to: a) be told it had AI flags; b) change my writing to make sure it didn't; c) be told it had no AI flags? Whatever the result would've been didn't matter. So I didn't check, and I haven't yet checked anyone's posts. As you said--if I stop wanting to read something, I just stop reading it.
I don't mean to be picky here because (I think) I know how you meant it, but do you really think it's "arrogant" for you or Freddie Deboer or anyone else not to outsource your writing to AI?
Excellent, as always. Hope you feel back to 100% soon!
Hope you're feeling better soon!
Best wishes for a full recovery JW!
I am always astonished at your extraordinary fecundity across different vectors of creativity. Illness and its attendant stoppage must feel alien and unsettling - all the sympathies.
Flu in particular foists one into a Dante-inflected taste of what Hell feels like for bibliophiles and writers and thinkers. A week of lolling about with Christmas Princes on Netflix will turn any of us into Occam, praying as a wager against such a fate.
Periodically I decide that I'm not going to read any novels written after, let's say, 2022, because I worry that they may be AI generated. Then I calm myself down and realize that if I like the novel I should read it, and if I don't I shouldn't, and hopefully I have good taste enough to like the human created stuff.
The paranoia is even more real as a high school teacher, but there's an excellent case for getting students away from screens in general which also happens to support the creation of work that you can be satisfied is authentic.
Hope the flu works its way entirely out of your system - there's nothing like being sick for a long time to make you wonder if you're ever going to feel normal again.
Hope you're feeling better soon!
I have allegedly been able to gain account-level disabling of Pangram scanning on my account using my US state privacy laws--Europeans have the strictest provisions and the easiest way out but some US states have strong privacy laws.
I'm absolutely with you about the use of generative AI--every use I see people citing for it in creative writing is a piece of the process that I consider to be crucial in my writing work. I don't use it and have no intention of using it.
John, as usual, you echo my sentiments exactly 💯, whether on dealing with 😷🤧🤢 flu, or dealing with AI. Wishing you better days ahead soon. 🤞🏽 Regarding your recommendation, I have read 3 of the books 📚 mentioned. Wedding People thanks to you 😍, Say Nothing thanks to another site where people were recommending non fiction, and In the Heart of the Sea, from IDK where, but I love them all. In the Heart of the Sea mad me a Nathaniel Philbrick fan, and became part of my Hall of Fame Seafaring Shelf, which includes, yes, Moby Dick, The Wager, and The Wide, Wide Sea, about the final voyage of Captain Cook. 💖🌊🐋
Best wishes for recovery! I spent the week waiting to get COVID after my husband brought it home from work. I haven't gotten it, and I think I'm out of the woods. But what a way to spend the week, ugh. (Not as bad as yours, of course.)
I recently had a somewhat business-oriented series of emails with someone. After a few exchanges, I really got the feeling that they were using AI to construct these emails. It was a bit disheartening, and I found myself internally repeating "please, show me that you are human, please!" I really wanted that human connection. Sigh. But the last thing I want to do is run a check of some sort. Please, display and share your humanity!!
I always enjoy reading your thoughts on AI in writing, because it's like someone has given a voice to my own. I've felt the same about Pangram. Seeing that toggle before I published my latest post on Substack, asking if I wanted to check it for AI flags...vehemently, no thanks! I know I wrote it with zero AI assistance, so what good would it do to: a) be told it had AI flags; b) change my writing to make sure it didn't; c) be told it had no AI flags? Whatever the result would've been didn't matter. So I didn't check, and I haven't yet checked anyone's posts. As you said--if I stop wanting to read something, I just stop reading it.
I don't mean to be picky here because (I think) I know how you meant it, but do you really think it's "arrogant" for you or Freddie Deboer or anyone else not to outsource your writing to AI?