Books

[Novagun]

 I am like a lot of you Americans . I like reading,no scholar am I but books are one of the great gifts that authors have bestowed on us  . Enough of the fantasticism . I got this book off Kindle by stumbling about 
It was written by Lieutenant Sean Parnell . A warrior and a gentleman.  In NZ parlance, a good bugger .
The book is called Outlaw Platoon  it is about his experiences during his tour of duty in Afganistan
Get the book off kindle because it is worth reading. This bloke is an exceptional character and an example of the best of the US Army 
No bunkum; all true stuff.

[anti-squirrel]

Sounds good, Hugh.  I tagged the book for reading.

I still read a lot, and now that Sonja has a Kindle, she's been reading voraciously, too.  Sure, we have our other passions and hobbies, but evenings are for winding down and reading and stuff adult couples do.

[avator]

AI may change the whole thing.
I saw a piece on the news where a random person fed 6 words into AI and told it to write a story. Within mere seconds the results were incredible. I mean a real story full of drama and suspense. It was like reading a true to life event.
My first thoughts were just how that would affect actual human authors. I'm sure there will be those who will let the computer write the book and claim it as their own.
If you don't think that will happen, ask your local drug dealer if he earns an honest living. 

[anti-squirrel]

Perhaps.


Without GOOD governance, AI is doomed to be as broken as Augmented Reality.  AI is just a large language learning model.  Developers pore over crud-shows like Twitter and Reddit scraping stories, posts, thread, etc and feed them into these complex algorithms.  The results are incredible.  Well, prolly won't see much anymore from Twitter; Musk has wrecked that pointless disaster into something even wworse.

Anyway, yes, AI will be incredible, as in incredibly trifling.  The last few months have been a riot; reading about AI applications citing journalism venues for specific stories that were NEVER created/posted by the indicated journalism venue.  Yes, the AI learned to lie right from the get-go.  Heck, a fake interview created by AI resulted in the firing of a senior editor for a German news outlet.   

Extrapolate to the nth degree.  Or...   Just read up on Timnit Gebru and the huge push she made, how it fell apart due to Google's greed, and what the repercussions were/are.  Ethics have always been problematic where they intersect capitalism; the intersection will be far more convoluted and fusterclucky thanks to AI.

[Bicycleman]

Bill, I saw that same story you wrote about.
I taught vocational business subjects [mostly]; but did have an English class for a couple of years.
I tell you this so that you will understand that I naturally spot errors in spelling, punctuation, and omitted or grammatically incorrect words in the books I read.
So I am wondering if Artificial Intelligence will be any better, the same, or worse than real authors.  It might be an interesting comparison.

[avator]

Bill, I saw that same story you wrote about.
I taught vocational business subjects [mostly]; but did have an English class for a couple of years.
I tell you this so that you will understand that I naturally spot errors in spelling, punctuation, and omitted or grammatically incorrect words in the books I read.
So I am wondering if Artificial Intelligence will be any better, the same, or worse than real authors.  It might be an interesting comparison.

I would think syntax, grammar, spelling and punctuation would be greatly improved depending on the programming.
I'm sure it's not going to be a one and done deal. Many will jump on the band wagon and release their own 'new and improved' versions.
The point I was trying to make is the potential for fake writers claiming that they conceived and wrote things that they did not and profiting from it.

[Bicycleman]

I have noticed some changes in the style with the books my favorite author has released lately.
However, it could simply be an evolution process.  I am not an author and don't know much about that kind of thing.  But I do know that things in my daily activities have changed during my life.
eg. I don't drive the same way I did when I was 18 years old and 'Bullet Proof'.  Hee hee

[avator]

I have noticed some changes in the style with the books my favorite author has released lately.
However, it could simply be an evolution process.  I am not an author and don't know much about that kind of thing.  But I do know that things in my daily activities have changed during my life.
eg. I don't drive the same way I did when I was 18 years old and 'Bullet Proof'.  Hee hee

Oh heck yeah... my whole life has been a process of adjustments.

[avator]

Admittedly I have not been a book reader... I have read a few books but I'm sure I'm far below the line of average.
Part of that is due to my attention span... I can read 3 or more pages before I realize that I have no idea what I just read because my mind was elsewhere. For this reason, I like short stories.
My favorite author is Patrick F. McManus. He's the guy that wrote the shorts stories about his life growing up in Sandpoint, Idaho in magazines that we all grew up with such as Outdoor Life and Field and Stream.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/patrick-f-mcmanus/

[anti-squirrel]

I'm a voracious reader, and can tell anybody reading this thread AI "chatbots" are every bit incapable of perfection in grammar and syntax as any human.  This is simply because these AI algorithms utilize human prose/poetry/posts for their large language modeling.  IE: they already utilize a flawed base for their programming.

A number of website blogs has already admitted to using AI-generated posts for content.  Some have been crucified for doing so resulting in loss of senior staff positions.  Others are getting thrown further under the bus they were already under.  The CEO of OpenAI (the leading power in AI right now) has already cited large language models are reaching the point of diminishing returns for AI.  Interestingly, he's a confirmed prepper. All this AI crud is just that: crud.  Artists, writers, photographers, and other professionals are exacerbating the flaws inherent in AI-sourced "art" since it borders on plagiarism at best and is outright pirating at worst.  No different than if FX, Hatsan, and AirArms all simply copied the Leshiy 2, slapped their own brand logo on it while maybe changing colors or stock materials and calling it a different airgun completely.

In simplest terms, AI is at some weird intersection of good and bad capabilities with no clear path forward because most of the idjits in charge canned all the ehtical AI researchers (like Timnit Gebru).   It has valuable uses, no doubt, but feeding it the garbage from Twitter and Reddit as part of the learning curve is basically the same as "garbage in = garbage out".

[avator]

I'm a voracious reader, and can tell anybody reading this thread AI "chatbots" are every bit incapable of perfection in grammar and syntax as any human.  This is simply because these AI algorithms utilize human prose/poetry/posts for their large language modeling.  IE: they already utilize a flawed base for their programming.

A number of website blogs has already admitted to using AI-generated posts for content.  Some have been crucified for doing so resulting in loss of senior staff positions.  Others are getting thrown further under the bus they were already under.  The CEO of OpenAI (the leading power in AI right now) has already cited large language models are reaching the point of diminishing returns for AI.  Interestingly, he's a confirmed prepper. All this AI crud is just that: crud.  Artists, writers, photographers, and other professionals are exacerbating the flaws inherent in AI-sourced "art" since it borders on plagiarism at best and is outright pirating at worst.  No different than if FX, Hatsan, and AirArms all simply copied the Leshiy 2, slapped their own brand logo on it while maybe changing colors or stock materials and calling it a different airgun completely.

In simplest terms, AI is at some weird intersection of good and bad capabilities with no clear path forward because most of the idjits in charge canned all the ehtical AI researchers (like Timnit Gebru).   It has valuable uses, no doubt, but feeding it the garbage from Twitter and Reddit as part of the learning curve is basically the same as "garbage in = garbage out".

All may be true however, the report that Mike and I referred to also pointed out that the AI bots (for lack of a better term) are teaching themselves now and correcting many of the human errors in their programming.
And frankly, that's much of the unnerving part.

[anti-squirrel]

The main thing to keep in mind is they are still fallible, limited by the LLM (large language model), and are very susceptible to swaying in a direction based on input provided.  The machine learning aspect is awesome and at the same time limited by input and the algorithms used.

I'd be willing to bet a ton of money is being thrown at AI for identifying financial fraud at the largest levels given the scope is so broad in financial modelling in general- and financial fraud yields the greatest returns on money invested. 

[Privateer]

I'd be willing to bet there's some twit wasting AI computing time to try and hit the Powerball numbers!
 

[avator]

I'd be willing to bet there's some twit wasting AI computing time to try and hit the Powerball numbers!
 

Multiple doors of opportunity are opening.