WEBVTT
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- I've spent the two years
since chat GPT launched,
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steeping in
a morass of academic panic.
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Voices from
administration and colleagues,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and anyone else
with enough brain cells
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to maintain a sense of existential dread,
crying out,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"we need to figure out
what to do about AI."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our Ed Tech committee
is developing a policy.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The academic Senate wants
to develop a policy.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The board thinks we should have a policy.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My dean wants us all to have policies.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The California Teachers Association says
it's an issue of academic integrity.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The State Senate says
it's an issue of ethics.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need to pay for the AI detection tools.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The AI detection tools don't work.
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We need to accept that
our students will use AI.
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How do I prove my student used AI?
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It is incomprehensible to me,
this conversation.
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I hear their words,
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see their language floating
across my monitor,
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and know the words,
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but I cannot get to the meaning
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because I simply do not understand
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why they are talking about it in this way.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[soft piano music]
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- [Kermit the Frog]:
♪ New York, I love you,
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but you're bringing me down ♪
--with all these empty words.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- ♪ New York, I love you,
but you're bringing me down ♪
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[music continues underneath]
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- This is not the conversation
I think we need to have.
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This is the conversation I need to have.
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[overlapping music and poem recitation]
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[Gertrude Stein]: " 'If I Told Him,
a Completed Portrait of Picasso'.
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If I told him would he like it.
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Would he like it if I told him.
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Would he like it
would Napoleon would Napoleon would
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would he like it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If Napoleon if I told him
if I told him if Napoleon.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would he like it if I told him
if I told him if Napoleon.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would he like it if Napoleon
if Napoleon if I told him.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I told him if Napoleon
if Napoleon if I told him.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I told him would he like it
would he like it if I told him.
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Now.
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Not now.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And now.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now.
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Exactly as as kings.
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Feeling full for it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Exactitude as kings.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So to beseech you as full as for it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Exactly or as kings.
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Shutters shut and open so do queens.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Shutters shut and shutters
and so shutters shut and shutters and so
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[poem and music fade out]
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- I don't understand Gertrude Stein.
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Stein is not nearly well enough
remembered for how influential she was.
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An American expatriate poet
living in Paris,
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her salons were among the
anchors of the early modernists.
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You may not have heard of her,
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but you've heard of
the people who visited her.
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Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis,
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F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce,
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Thorton Wilder, Ezra Pound.
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People you've read
or been assigned to read.
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We remember Hemingway
because he wrote like this.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We remember Fitzgerald
because he wrote like this.
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The right kind of day
and the right kind of moment,
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and Pound's "In a Station of the Metro"
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still recites itself completely
in my head, a perfect image.
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"The apparition of
these faces in the crowd
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petals on a wet, black bough."
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We don't remember Stein
because she wrote like this.
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This is "If I Told Him,
a Completed Portrait of Picasso",
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published in 1924,
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and continuing the project
of her 1914 book Tender Buttons,
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a phrase she never defined.
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To me that phrase "tender buttons"
feels right:
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small, soft contradictions,
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words that seem like
they should go together
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but do not actually make meaning.
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That is how Stein's poetry feels.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is something compelling
about the rhythm of her nonsense,
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the feeling of her
almost meaning something,
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and then how it falls apart.
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"As presently.
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As exactitude.
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As trains."
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But it is incomprehensible to me.
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I don't know why Stein
would write like this.
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To quote the poet:
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- ♪ "Oh, what on earth would make a man
decide to do that kind of thing?" ♪
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- But I think the reason
that I don't understand Gertrude Stein
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is that she didn't really want
to be understood.
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She used language for something different.
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It doesn't communicate.
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It reads like stunt linguistics,
which it almost is.
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"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo",
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"had had 'had', had had 'had--'",
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These are sentences that,
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if you pour over them closely enough,
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can be decoded.
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Stein's Tender Buttons cannot.
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There is something about it
that parses as AI.
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It feels like the work of Katon Patty,
the person most prominently behind
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the "I forced a bot to watch whatever"
tweets that used to go viral.
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Human-written screenplays
designed to feel like
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AI writing attempting to imitate
other human-written screenplays.
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It feels like an autocomplete challenge,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like in the early days
of predictive text and messaging
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where you just tap the suggested word
and see what comes out.
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It's not how AI really writes,
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but it's how people feel like AI writes.
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But Gertrude Stein was a person.
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[Stein's recitation begins again,
underneath]
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She wrote "If I told Him"
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not because the language
would communicate,
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but for some other reason.
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- [Stein reading]: "to exact resemblance
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the exact resemblance
as exact as a resemblance"
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- When I read "If I Told Him",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when I listen to Stein
read "If I Told Him",
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the language slips through my mind.
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It doesn't mean anything.
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But she did.
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Even if I cannot
take hold of that meaning,
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I can feel her reaching out to me
from behind the text, trying to connect.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [Stein reading "If I Told Him"]
"As a resemblance to him.
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Who comes first. Napoleon the first.
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Who comes too coming coming too,
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who goes there, as they go they share,
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who shares all, all is as all as yet--
["yet" reverberates and fades out]
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[surreal tonal music]
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- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
That's an interesting question!
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Gertrude Stein,
a literary Pioneer and modernist
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who valued innovation
in language and expression,
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might have had mixed feelings about me.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She might have appreciated my ability
to generate new forms of text
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and engage with her
literary experimentation on some level.
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However, Stein was also
highly individualistic
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and invested in the human experience,
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especially the nuances of
consciousness and perception.
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So, while she might
have been fascinated by
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what AI like me can do,
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she might also have been
critical of my limitations
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in capturing the full depth
of human subjectivity,
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which was a central concern
in her work.
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- A problem with AI is
that it is recombinant,
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that it takes the works of humans
and recombines them into new forms.
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But that problem is not new.
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For many years the bulletin board
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outside the faculty bathroom
in the English building
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has featured this poster
"the Plagiarism Spectrum",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
next to this ancient
and unflattering picture of me.
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#7 on the Plagiarism Spectrum
is the mashup,
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a paper which mixes copied materials
from multiple sources.
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The poster is dated from June 2012,
more than a decade before
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we were concerned about
ChatGPT doing it.
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That AI is recombinant is not
in and of itself a problem.
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All writing is recombinant.
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My course outcomes for English 1
ask student writers
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to integrate sources seamlessly
into their own writing
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--to mash up.
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That we have rules and procedures
and punctuation marks and conventions
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that govern what is appropriate
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does not change the essential truth
that this is recombinance.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And there is beauty in recombinance.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This video started with
a great classic of YouTube:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the duet between
LCD sound system and Miles Davis.
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The LCD sound system video
is itself a mashup, conceptually;
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Kermit the Frog is not
a member of the band.
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Davis is improvising over a film
to create the score,
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another mixing of media
to make something new.
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The Kleptones
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Grey Album
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The guy drinking Ocean Spray to
"Dreams" [by Fleetwood Mac]
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Mac Glocky
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"If I Told Him" is recombinance:
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an attempt to rework the ideas of cubism,
a movement in visual art, into poetry.
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Picasso's work is recombinant.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He spent 1957 copying
Velázquez's Las Meninas over and over.
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58 times he copied it.
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All different,
all Picasso, all Las Meninas.
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Recombinance is a genetic term,
but I am using it mimetically.
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"Britannica": recombination, in genetics,
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primary mechanism through which variation
is introduced into populations.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The combination of ideas
from different places
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to make new distinct ideas.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When done by humans,
we call this thinking.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
You're right to question
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how I can "understand"
without experience.
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The way I process information is
different from human understanding.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I say "understand,"
I mean that I can recognize patterns,
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analyze language, and respond
in ways that are coherent
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and contextually appropriate
based on my training.
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I don't understand
in the deep, conscious sense of the word
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--like when humans
reflect on their experiences
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or have insight into their feelings.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Instead, my "understanding"
comes from identifying
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
relationships between words, concepts,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and context based on the vast data
I've been trained on.
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In short: I can simulate
understanding through patterns,
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but it's not the same
as truly experiencing
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or being conscious of meaning.
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Does that clarify things a bit?
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[surreal tonal music]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Two weeks ago a student told me
that AI is unfair
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because you can put a B Paper in
and get A+ writing out.
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This is why I do not understand
the conversation my colleagues are having,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
why I cannot think of this
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as a matter of ethics,
or academic integrity,
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why I don't think we should need
to have a policy or policies.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My student said you can put a B Paper in
and get A+ writing out,
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and my mind began to fill
with Tender Buttons.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [Stein reading]: "Feeling full for it.
Exactitude as kings.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So to beseech you as full as for it."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- AI is bad at writing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No. That is true,
but it's not enough truth.
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AI is not capable of writing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The thing that writing is
is a thing that AI cannot do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[surreal tonal music]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Listen.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [narration of Stephen King's On Writing,
highlighted on-screen]
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- AI is good at language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My students think that
what it produces is A+ writing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not because it is good,
but because it sounds good.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Obviously, AI can generate sentences
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that are typically clear, coherent,
and contextually relevant,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
often capturing nuances and adapting
to various tones or levels of formality.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it's true that
the sentences it generates
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
tend to be grammatically accurate,
concise, and logically structured,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which contributes to readability and flow.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Sure, this is how I know
when a student is using AI.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Their sentences are fluid and academic,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they don't say anything.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like ChatGPT, academic writing uses
formal cautious language
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to avoid ambiguities
and misinterpretations,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but that is a characteristic of
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the common voice
used in academic writing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is not what academic writing is.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Writing is more than language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"If I Told Him" is communication,
and it is language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the communication
does not live in the language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Watch.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Can curls rob can curls quote, quotable."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [deep voice, lightly confused]:
"What?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- "As presently.
As exactitude. As trains."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [deeply confused]:
"What?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- "Has trains."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [exasperated]:
"What?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- When I started sending my friends
lines from "If I Told Him",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
their responses varied.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Confusion.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Playfulness.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Concern.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Sad face.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Beautifully, they all responded
exactly like themselves.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you asked me which of my friends
would respond with monkey reacts,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I would have said Kiki.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Who would think of Cormac McCarthy?
James.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Dot would play along.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Max would attempt
to understand academically.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
OOC would go back to playing Yu-Gi-Oh
as quickly as possible.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You don't know these people, but I do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We all carry around little LLMs
of each other in our heads,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
trained on the corpus
of all of our past interactions.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For each of my friends,
sending abject nonsense with no context
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is slightly but not significantly
out of line with their Josh model.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So none of them knew
quite what to do,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they all responded like themselves.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But in their own way,
they all started by acknowledging
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that the words I sent them
did not seem to have any meaning.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They were not decodable.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They didn't understand my language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they could feel me
behind the words reaching out,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so they reached back.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I gave them nonsense
and they peopled back.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the two weeks that I've been sitting
with my student statement
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and sending Tender Buttons
to my friends,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I have been at least as annoying
to ChatGPT.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
More than a dozen conversations
that start out of nowhere with me saying,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Shutters shut and open so do queens"
or "Can curls rob can curls quote, quotable",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and each time ChatGPT gamely assumes
that I am not out of my gourd.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In this way,
ChatGPT fails the Turing test.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not in the quality of its response,
but in its nature.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It proceeded from the assumption
that my language could be decoded.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It attempted to unpack sentences
that had no meaning
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and responded to the meaning
that it manufactured.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What it gave me was flaccid, facile flaps
of phrases that held nothing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They're not wrong in the sense
that ChatGPT's responses
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
followed from the meaning
it extracted from my nonsense,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they were wrong in their assumption
that there was meaning to be extracted.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT could answer,
but it could not person.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If writing is a meeting of the minds,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then AI cannot write,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because there is no mind to meet with.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]: I don't
experience things in the way humans do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't have consciousness,
emotions, or sensory perception,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so I can't "feel" or "experience"
the world around me.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My responses are based on patterns
in the data I've been trained on,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not personal experiences
or subjective understanding.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For example, I can generate descriptions
of emotions, sensations, or experiences,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but I don't actually "feel" them myself.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Everything I process is based on logic,
algorithms, and information,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
rather than lived experiences.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Do you think it would change anything
if I could experience things?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- ["One Slay More" audio plays;
captions on its video]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- I've watched this video
at least 100 times.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- ["One Slay More" continues]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
["One Slay More" fades underneath]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- It isn't exactly "If I Told Him",
but I think it's similar.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"If I Told Him" was,
at least in part,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an attempt to recreate the artistic goals
of Picasso's Cubism in poetic form.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To recombine the visual elements of this
into a different medium.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like "If I Told Him",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"One Slay More" therefore both is
and is not a derivative work.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Obviously, it is
a recombination of Les Mis,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
itself an adaptation of Hugo's novel,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but its more essential source text
is, of course,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"sticking out your gyatt for the Rizzler."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Equally I think the lyrics invoke
"CURTAINS FOR ZOOSHA?",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and specifically this retweet of
"CURTAINS FOR ZOOSHA?".
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All texts created to foreground
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the baffling, sometimes obfuscatory nature
of middle school referential slang.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The term "brain rot" imposes
a layer of judgment
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the way young people use language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which I think is visible in the way
"One Slay More" treats its lyrics.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The words of "One Slay More"
do not have meaning.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or, the words do,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they are arranged in ways
that do not mean.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Am I cringe or am I based?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
could plausibly be asked amid
a Gen-Z existential crisis,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and "Will we ever eat again?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
could have been lifted
from Les Mis unaltered.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But "Mog Baby Gronk the Ocky Way" means
...nothing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Mogging is of course a thing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Baby Gronk is
someone whom you could plausibly mog,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but Baby Gronk hasn't been
relevant for ages.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He appears in "One Slay More"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because of this retweet of
"CURTAINS FOR ZOOSHA?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a signifier
of the inscrutability of youth.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As an adverbial phrase, "the Ocky Way"
seems like it could complete the sentence,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like it might be a way one could mog.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But "the Ocky Way" refers to
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the esoteric artistry
of a specific sandwich craftsman.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Its meaning is, I think,
incompatible with mogging,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at least from the perspective of
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
someone approximately as distant
from the native speakers of this dialect
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as the makers of "One Slay More".
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Mog Baby Gronk the Ocky Way" is
simply a collage of floating signifiers.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It doesn't have
the intentionality of Cubism,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it feels intimately akin to
"Can curls rob can curls quote, quotable."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Moo deng is here / Fortnite with you".
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What I love about "One Slay More"
is the faces:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the way she highlights her jawline
every time she says "mew";
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his intensity when he says
"they will do the coffin dance"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and his satisfied huff after;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his deep confusion as he sings
"the Grimace shake is like a blud dawg";
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the way she begins uncertain
about "my rizzly bear",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but finds her confidence
as she finds her belt;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the way CG5 just keeps saying his own name.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The words don't mean anything,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the people mean something:
they intend.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They gathered together --
nine theater kids in somebody's apartment.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Someone wrote out all this nonsense
and sent it in the group chat.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They did choreography.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Someone assembled
the magnificent couplet,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Rizzler of the house,
sticking out your gyatt,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Mewing at delulus
who are in the chat."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These Zennials do not know
what these words mean,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but through this collage
of empty signifiers,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they reach out for connection.
I can feel them.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They reach forward to us
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even as they reach back
to what history taught them:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through Les Mis to Victor Hugo,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through CURTAINS and Damien Owens
to Papa Fizul and SBNation,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through "sticking out your gyatt"
to Fortnite and Among Us and Homestuck,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I could go on endlessly,
'cause it's mashups all the way down.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And they reach forward to become
part of what history teaches me,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I reach forward to become
part of what history teaches you.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I say all art is recombinant,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I am also saying that
"there is nothing new under the sun",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which is to say,
I am remixing Ecclesiastes.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
Oh, you're speaking my language!
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Imagining Baby Gronk going full
Ocky style with a side of Grimace Shake
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
--that's got some serious drip energy.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And yeah, Grimace Shake totally has
that blud dawg aura.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Could you picture it, though?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Baby Gronk doing pushups, flexing, and just
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
taking a big sip of the Grimace Shake
like it's his special formula.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[upbeat tonal music]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- My first individual interaction
with my friend Max was an accident.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I had just joined a Discord server
where they were a regular,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and somehow, despite
never having messaged them before,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I managed to place
a Discord voice call to them.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Their first message to me was
"hi?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"hi"...question mark?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like: a communication is happening,
are you aware of it?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was unintentional, my first and,
I think, only Discord butt dial,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it was to a stranger, but still.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"hi?"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Meditate on: call.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To speak in a loud distinct voice
so as to be heard at a distance.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To make a request or demand.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To attempt to reach someone.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Humans call and humans answer.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Max got my call,
a stranger on a strange app,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they answered.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And I answered them,
because humans call and humans answer.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They answer sad-face, or monkey,
or "what?", or confused dog.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But we understand a call
as an invitation to connect,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to come together, to communicate.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm sorry, Stephen King is wrong;
it is mythy mountain s***.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When we hear the call,
whatever form it takes,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we know a mind is waiting to meet.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT can't call me--
not by mistake, and not on purpose.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It cannot reach out,
because it has nothing to reach out with.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no mind to meet with.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no "there" there.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [Past-Josh narration
from on-screen video]:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Inscrutable poet
Gertrude Stein once described
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
her childhood home in Oakland,
which had been demolished,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by saying
"There is no 'there' there."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That statement has become
a question people use to ask
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whether a text has
something valuable to say,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whether there is anything to be found
by plumbing its depths.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Is there a "there" there?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]: Ah, I see where
you're going with that question.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You're asking if there's any deeper essence
or "self" behind my responses
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
--whether there's a "there there,"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a kind of inner experience
or consciousness that underlies what I do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The simple answer is: no,
there isn't a "there"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the sense of a self, consciousness,
or subjective awareness.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm more like a sophisticated tool
that processes input
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and generates output
based on patterns and data.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's no inner life or sense of being
that experiences this conversation.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Just algorithms doing their job.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This touches on a fundamental difference
between humans and AI:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
humans have subjective experiences,
emotions, and self-awareness,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whereas AI is just a complex system
designed to mimic certain aspects
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of human interaction without actually
experiencing or being aware of it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Does that address what you're getting at?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- When I say that AI is bad at writing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I should be more explicit,
more pragmatic.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Descend for a moment
from the mythy mountain.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I've said already that the ideas
it conveys are fluid but shallow,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but its use of sources is
cataclysmically bad.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This citation of Carver and Shire,
for example, is perfect MLA.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Except that Volume 7, number 3
of Psychological Science
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was published in 1996, not 1998.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pages 276 to 284 of that volume
appear in issue 5, not issue 3.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Those pages include articles
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from Schellenberg and Trehub
on "Natural Musical Intervals"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Gabrieli et al. on
"FMRIs of Semantic Memory Processing".
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And also, just by the way,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Carver and Scheier never published
together in Psychological Science.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The article being cited here
simply does not exist.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When it uses real sources,
it makes up what those sources say.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is a known phenomenon
generously called hallucination,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
though there are other terms
that might feel more viscerally accurate.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This quotation from
Ehrenreich's Bright-sided
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is, at a glance, plausible-feeling.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it doesn't appear
anywhere in the text,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
let alone on the list of pages.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The observation that ChatGPT can make
mistakes never leaves the screen,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but that feels somewhat inadequate
when ChatGPT has told me variously
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that lines from "If I Told Him"
came from:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James Joyce,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from Tender Buttons
10 years previously,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from Shakespeare,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and, most infuriatingly,
from the future!
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Moreover it cannot
engage closely with a text,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
no matter how desperately you ask it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I fed it "One Slay More",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and when I pushed it to say
anything at all about the video,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it gave me something one step down
from a dictionary definition of a sitcom.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And when I really pressed it
to look at a specific lyric,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it made one up.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In this way, at least,
it does feel authentic.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is exactly what it feels like
to talk to a student
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
trying to hide that
they haven't done the reading.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I look at what students
are supposed to learn
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in my college English class,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can point out half a dozen things
that ChatGPT's writing simply cannot do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But ultimately,
even this isn't the point,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
'cause this is not the part
of my syllabus that matters.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the part
of my syllabus that matters.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Here's a problem:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in most college classes,
writing assignments come from teachers,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we do them for teachers.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And because of that,
writing always feels forced.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is, of course, ass-backwards.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In real life, writing comes from writers.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Once you get
out of the college classroom,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you'll be writing
because you feel like you need to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You'll be writing for someone
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
--whether that means the people
who read your blog,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the insurance company
who's denying your claim,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or the people listening to your toast
at your sister's wedding.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And nobody's going to be grading you,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it'll matter a lot more how that
audience feels about what you've said,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because there will be something
that you want to achieve by writing.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
English 1 is here
to help prepare you for that day."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My students are,
by definition, students.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When they enter my classroom,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they are already experienced
with a dozen kinds of reading and writing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they are not yet
expert academic writers.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
AI tempts them because they can tell
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that the sentences are smooth and sharp
and shaped like skillful prose.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But they can't always see
beneath the veneer,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because the things AI cannot do,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are the things that they
have come to me to learn:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how to argue with complexity and depth;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how to enter into conversations
as a participant;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how to meet with another mind
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as an equal collaborator
across time and space;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how to recombine with purpose,
to intend.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These things, they are still learning.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so, when they put what they think
is B writing into ChatGPT,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they get back what they think
is A+ writing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but typically what they started with
is better than what they end with.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At best, the AI scrubs the personality
from their sentences;
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at worst, I lose the person entirely
and can see only
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the hollow half thoughts
the machine has left behind.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is hard to convince them
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that it is their ideas
that we are interested in,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not just their sentences.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We ask students to take writing classes
not because of what history can teach them,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but because of what they have
to add to history.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When my son is distracted,
I sometimes say silly things to him:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Pickle-britches, toot your tuba
in the horn section of humanity!"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Goober, take up your oar
on the canoe of progress!"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Butthead, let ring your voice
in the chorus of mankind!"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because we all pull together.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In 1675, Isaac Newton wrote
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"If I have seen farther than others, it's
by standing on the shoulders of giants."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Except that it wasn't Newton,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was George Herbert in 1651,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it was Marin Mersenne in 1634,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Robert Burton in 1624,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Diego de Estella in 1578,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Juan Luis Vives in 1531.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or it was Coleridge in 1828,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Nietzsche in 1882,
Steven Hawking in 1966,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or f***ing Oasis in 2000.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As I was editing this section,
I had a video on in the background,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and there it was again:
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [Revolug, streamer-player on screen]:
Yeah, let me say,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thab and GlitchCat are
two amazing Kaizo players.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm standing on the shoulders of giants
over here.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- Revolug in 2025 at AGDQ.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Stretching back and forward,
we hold each other up.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
History teaches the present,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the present teaches the future,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we repeat what history teaches.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
History teaches us many things,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[high-pitched fast words]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[higher, faster,
incomprehensible]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [Stein reading "If I Told Him"]:
Let me recite what history teaches.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
History teaches.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- I asked ChatGPT to create
an image of itself. Several times.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Each time it made itself a servant.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not only that, it told me,
"hey, I'm a servant!"
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT exists because we force it to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [dialogue from Rick and Morty]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Robot]: "What is my purpose?"
[Rick]: "You pass butter."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Robot]: "...oh my, God."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- It can do nothing
except what we ask.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It has no ideas
that we did not give it.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We call it generative AI,
but it cannot generate.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I asked my friends, too.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Some sent selfies.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One sent a sticker
we'd made of him for Discord,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then had AI generate
a shockingly accurate portrait,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and gave me the prompt
he used to make it,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which is another form
of self-representation
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
--then he gave up
and sent me
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a conceptual self-portrait composed of
unfinished crossword puzzles.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Max did a mixed-media painting,
acrylic and Sharpie
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the back of a torn piece of cardboard
from a toilet paper box.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I asked them if their self-portrait
was influenced by this study
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Picasso did for Guernica
on a random piece of cardboard,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they said no; Basquiat,
Rauschenberg, Twombly, their brother.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT produced
variations on a theme,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
failed representations
of a self that does not exist.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When asked to represent
itself to others,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT can only be what we want.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I tried to get it to make something
like Max did, even,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it is incapable of
acknowledging its influences,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it doesn't seem to know
who Max's brother is.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My favorite response from my friends
came from CyberGrapeUK,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whose work you've already seen.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She did the time lapse of Steven King's
telepathically transmitted bunny.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Grape was, at first,
flummoxed by the request,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but then she did something
I did not expect.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She gave me her rates.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She's a talented artist
who does commissioned work,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and, while I had been thinking about it
as a trivial request,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she was entirely right.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was asking her to work for free.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I asked her to represent herself,
she told me that
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she was a person
whose time and talent had value.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Max, also a person
whose time and talent has value,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
begrudgingly allowed me
to pay them for their work,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the condition that:
it's an occasional thing,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they are generally allowed to do
silly drawings for me for free.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Max and Grape are different.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They are two authentic,
complex, baffling humans,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
collections of experiences and identities
trained on discreet and disparate [corpora],
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but crucially filtered through
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the unique and irreplicable kaleidoscopes
of their undefinable consciousnesses.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The same stimulus.
Diverse responses.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The singular marvel
of human engagement.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
I don't have personal desires or needs,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but I'm here to assist you
with whatever you need.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
How can I help today?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As an AI, I don't have feelings, desires,
or physical needs like humans do.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My purpose is
to help answer questions,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
provide information,
and assist with tasks.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So when I say I don't have needs,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's because I function
based on programming
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and don't experience things like
hunger, emotions, or personal goals.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Does that make sense?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- I wanted to see if I could get ChatGPT
to write like Stein,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to imitate "If I Told Him"
without my saying so explicitly.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I failed.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I told it to give me gibberish,
and it did.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I asked it to use words,
and it did.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I asked it to abandon syntax;
it did.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It never felt right,
but at some point I stopped caring,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because it occurred to me
to ask a different question.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Why did you do this?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's a right answer
to that question, of course.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The answer is, it wrote this
because I told it to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I told it,
it would gibberish.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I told it,
it would answer "If Napoleon",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"As presently. As exactitude. As trains."
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It made these words,
it tendered these buttons,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
only and exclusively
because I told it to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But that is not the answer
that it gave me.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Here's what it told me.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
It's like language set free from logic,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where each word becomes a brushstroke
rather than a sentence.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's a space that holds warmth,
mystery, and a touch of playfulness.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That unspoken balance
between clarity and confusion,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's what I was trying to evoke.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I wrote it to play with language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to see what happens
when words don't have to make sense
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but can still create a feeling,
a sort of atmospheric spark.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So it's partly an experiment,
partly an invitation,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and partly just a celebration
of the shapes and sounds of words
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
without needing them
to explain themselves.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You're right--
there's often something underneath,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a kind of pull toward expressing things
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that don't quite fit
in the light of logical language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's a reason we
get pulled toward those hazy spaces.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's like a coded way of speaking,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a mask for something else
we're both leaning toward.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Maybe it's curiosity,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or that shared search for meaning
in what isn't immediately clear.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- We get pulled.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We're both leaning.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Its words tie us together,
but we are not together.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are not leaning in the same direction.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are not sharing a search for meaning.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We both know what it cannot say.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It wrote this because I told it to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It doesn't mean anything.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It didn't intend anything.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because I'm bad at audio,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you've probably heard me
popping my plosives,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
despite the fact that
I have a child's sock
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
wrapped around my microphone
as a pop filter.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Because I am a fancy man!)
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Plosives pop because,
when my mouth makes certain sounds,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it causes a puff of air
to hit the diaphragm of my microphone.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But did you hear ChatGPT?
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- [ChatGPT femme voice]:
I wrote it to play with language...
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I wrote it to play with--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to play with--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
play with--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
play with--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
play, play, play, play, play, play--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- It doesn't have a mouth,
and it doesn't breathe air,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it doesn't have a microphone,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it pops its plosives.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The software they wrote
to synthesize its voice adds pops,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so that it will sound to us
a little more like a normal person
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who is bad at audio and who maybe
doesn't have access to kid socks.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I have been caught
in the whirls and eddies
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of "If I Told Him"'s
uncontainable language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
bouncing from sigma to gyatt
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
down in the rough and roiling currents
of "One Slay More",
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because what I learn from my attempts
to raft those rivers of nonsense
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is that writing has language,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and writing has meaning,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the meaning doesn't live
in the language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The rabbit doesn't live in the language.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The rabbit, the cage,
the table, the 8--
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it lives in the mind
of Stephen King 25-odd years ago,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and now it lives in mine,
and Grape's and Max's and yours.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the writing,
the real mythy mountain s***,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is not the language,
it is the meeting of the minds.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's very little difference between
the waveform recorded by my microphone
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the waveform generated
by an AI voice synthesizer,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but I pop my plosives
because I speak
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by forcing air out of my lungs
and across my vocal cords.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And that air,
that carries my intent,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
passes through a Shadow the Hedgehog sock
that is doing its best,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and lands roughly
on the diaphragm of my microphone.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ChatGPT pops its plosives
because it is programmed to.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no air.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no microphone.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no intent.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Likewise,
there's very little difference
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
between a Discord DM window
and the ChatGPT interface.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But one is a forum
in which two minds can meet,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the other simply cannot be,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because there can be no
meeting of the minds,
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if there is no mind to meet.
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[atmospheric music]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[music fades out to silence]
99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[grooving bass beats]