I just learned of a study that illustrated that stories created by “AI” are essentially similar structurally. I am completely unsurprised by this, as I see this type of chat bot to basically be a mean reversion machine. And once again, what is being promised is far from what exists. Once again, it seems far more useful to determine what “AI” tools do well, then focus on that use. Of course, that would almost certainly not warrant a trillion dollar valuation, and so it looks like the charlatans are here to stay……..until they’re not.
In any case, this episode with the stories is very eye-opening because it reinforces the point that LLM chat bots lack artistic capabilities because they simply lack the traits necessary to produce anything subjective. On one hand, this has always been obvious, but I, myself, have wondered, at times, if humans are essentially like computers, simply responding to stimuli and suggesting we are guided by a fiction we call freewill. I still think that LLMs are not the foundation for an advanced AI. Even in the movies (other than The Matrix), the robots have a sense of humor and various idiosyncrasies. Convincing me that intelligence is essentially next-token prediction based on training data is a tough sell.
I think what irritates me is that the big LLM providers sincerely market their products as an alternative to humans. To me, that is like a bad joke. I have never seen The Hunger Games, so I fully expect my commentary is off-base, but I feel like the big LLM vendors are envisioning a future where poverty is widespread and only the victors eat (ok I gotta go look at the Wikipedia page for that movie). I saw an interview where one of those bozos says something like, “I envision a world where people buy intelligence from us.” Dude. That is possibly the most dystopian thing I have ever heard.
But, that CEO-speak doesn’t even matter — “AI” chat bots write (“write”) flat crap that is novel for about as long as it takes to produce. To borrow a line from “Vanilla Sky,” the people will read again! And not a moment too soon.