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“What is Generative A.I? ( And Why We Hate It)”
26 Plays20 days ago
Hosts Karis Rogerson and A.D Jolietta take listeners on an hour long deep dive about Generative AI. Discussing the existential threat it poses to writing, why it harms writing craft, and the ethical and environmental concerns of using a tool built on stolen works from some of the authors we’ve been interviewing this past season. They implore writers to take a firm stance against generative A.I in the writing process -- because it's not worth it from a craft, ethical, and environmental perspective.
Content warning:
Discussion of Psychosis, Suicide, and Self-harm: 36:50 - 39:00 min
The articles and podcasts discussed in this episode:
NYT Article: “They Asked AI Chatbot Questions.”
Mashable: “Empire of AI Author Karen Hao”
Factually w/ Adam Conover: “A.I is a Religious Cult”
ChatGPT Impact on Critical Thinking Skills
Follow the podcast on Instagram or on our website.
Follow Karis on Instagram.
Follow Adi on Instagram.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, hello, dear listeners of the Right Way of Life podcast. My name is Karis Rogerson. i am an author, editor, and podcaster. And I am A.D. Joletta, writer and podcaster and AI hater, but we're going to get to that later.
00:00:34
Speaker
Let's go. Let's go. Okay.
Summertime and Locations Discussion
00:00:38
Speaker
So yeah if you've never listened to us before, what an episode to start with. I'm gonna be a baller one. But before we dive into the meat of this episode, we're just gonna chat a little bit like orientate ourselves and time and place.
00:00:53
Speaker
um It is currently Saturday, June 21st. We have summer has just begun as of yesterday at like 1042 p.m. according to the astrologer in my inbox.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yes, I do have multiple of those. um And I am in Brooklyn where it is. i believe the technical term is hot as balls. That's only getting hotter.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. I am in the Midwest, ah Milwaukee, and it is also hot as balls. so we're just in the heat of summer, as they say. Let's go. i was and I have to leave the house so much this upcoming week when it's going to be in like 100 degrees.
Political Views on Andrew Cuomo
00:01:32
Speaker
um Some of it is good. Some of it is like for my treatment stuff. But some of it is like i have to go vote because we got to get Andrew Cuomo, not the mayor of the city. um If you're listening to this, it means the the ah election has already happened.
00:01:46
Speaker
So I can't really give you an action item, but I will say if you voted for Cuomo, just turn it off. Turn off the podcast. Yeah, turn off the podcast and maybe go to confession and repent for your sins.
00:01:58
Speaker
here And then like move away from New York. No, I think you just need to learn that you made a terrible and horrific decision and need to spend the rest of your life repenting. Atoning, yes. Atoning.
00:02:11
Speaker
Anyway. I'm not Catholic. yeah We're also, we're so, we're like, let's not be too
Focus on AI and Previous Political Discussions
00:02:17
Speaker
political. Anyway, we're doing a whole episode on AI and why we hate it. And also, we've been talking a shit about the administration since like episode one.
00:02:25
Speaker
I think y'all know where we stand. And if you don't, like, ask me because I'm sorry and I haven't made it clear, and but just like, I stand to the left.
00:02:37
Speaker
To the left. To the... oh i we Okay.
00:02:43
Speaker
We get five seconds before we get sued. I did one second. and It's fine. That's fair use. Shit.
00:02:56
Speaker
Oh my god. I also sang it like out of tune or whatever because I don't actually know how to sing in tune. yeah we Yeah, so we're fine. There's a reason I'm not in musicals.
00:03:08
Speaker
And the reason is that nobody wants to hear that shit. Also, I was too scared to audition for shows in my high school days, but I really think I could have been a bomb actress.
00:03:20
Speaker
um I'm probably wrong. Yeah.
Karis's Dream of Late-Night Hosting
00:03:23
Speaker
I mean, my opinion as someone who comes from the theater world is that anyone can be a good actor as long as you are ah committed to doing a good job.
00:03:36
Speaker
I think that there's very few people that like are actually bad actors. They just maybe need some advice. And I think, honestly, Karis, you've already got like two things in your court, which is you're charismatic and you're funny, which a lot of actors, that's the only thing they got going for them.
Upcoming 'Sundays with Karis' YouTube Series
00:03:53
Speaker
I'm going be a movie star. um Maybe not. Maybe not. You could look at community theater like plays and audition in your area. I mean, like you live in New York City. There's like so much. Community theater in New York, I feel like, is very competitive because it's like actual actors.
00:04:11
Speaker
I have to ask them. I don't know. maybe it's Maybe Chicago is a little bit different, but I definitely felt like there was a big divide. Oh, okay. Yeah. Maybe. no no Not a divide, but like i think I think that people who want to do community theater and also be a professional actor, like there's not a significant overlap there because if you want to be a professional actor,
Authors as A-List Celebrities
00:04:36
Speaker
you want to get paid.
00:04:37
Speaker
Oh, so real. So real. Community theater does not pay any money. This is actually, though, segues perfectly into me sharing my biggest dream as an author, which is i want to host a late night show for authors i you like i want to be like seth meyers because when i think i'd be good at it i want to go on seth meyer's show actually i think we would have a blast or like any of the late nights like put me on put me in coach but i also want to host one and just like bring on authors and like play silly games let's go um call me studios i mean with the onset of youtube karis you could just do that
00:05:20
Speaker
I mean, technically, I'm kind of doing something similar, but it's not as much about the funnies. But I am interviewing authors for my YouTube channel starting next Sunday.
Current Reads and Writing Projects
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, you're doing romance. Sundays with Karis, because...
00:05:32
Speaker
I needed a name for it and that's what popped into my head. It's a good name. um Yeah, you can start that and then eventually segue into like a full on. just need a producer. Like and a studio.
00:05:46
Speaker
mean, that's okay. Sorry. my little My little production manager producer brain is going, I mean, that's actually pretty easy to get. You just got to rent some office space and yeah mean you can even rent a storage unit and like trick it out.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'll rent some space with with my money that I have. Right. I mean, that's always the thing. I mean, there are – here's the fun thing about film that I've been learning as I've gotten more into film is there's – weirdly, I feel like more funding, especially for folks who are not like straight white men.
00:06:15
Speaker
Not that there's a lot of funding, right? Because like nobody wants to fund the arts. But like I feel like you could maybe get like a $5,000 grant, like a micro grant or something to like start that niche thing – Who knows? Let's go.
Fame and Mental Health
00:06:28
Speaker
Authors as A-list celebrities. That is my agenda. i I like that agenda. I just... why I think we have to say minus the weird parasocialisms.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yes. And I think most authors would be like A-list celebrity. I don't even want to be like a C-list celebrity. Unfortunately, i want us to be A-list celebrities. And so I'm making it everyone's problem. But yeah, minus the weird parasocial stuff. We can have slower rises.
00:06:57
Speaker
than we have previously seen in last year's viral superstars. um Because I think what happened to Chapel Roan would actually ruin pretty much 99% of the population. um i think she's actually handling it quite well from what I've seen.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like anyone who experiences that significant level of fame so quickly and oversaturation and they don't end up in psychiatric care,
00:07:23
Speaker
is doing great. I genuinely wish the best for her and hope that she has a great mental health team and like support system. I was reading an article today that showed a graph of like her rise.
00:07:34
Speaker
And it was like, April, 1 million. May, 40 million listeners. And I was like, holy cow, jeez. So that's why she's on my mind. Because I'm reading articles from 10 months ago, so I'm actually living in August 2024.
00:07:48
Speaker
can you Can you take us back there? i had so much hope in August 2024. Yeah.
Generative AI and its Implications
00:07:52
Speaker
yeah god what a time um speaking of hope i used to have hope um and then in 2023 2022 maybe um sam altman burst onto the scene with chat gpt uh wait karis do we quickly want to talk about what we're reading and writing or just straight oh yes let's let's erase what just happened yeah has it okay karis so what are you reading What am I reading?
00:08:19
Speaker
I just started Immortal Dark, which is the um why a black vampire fantasy by Tigis Germa that came out last year. And I'm 10% in and I'm loving it already. Like it's dark and the world building is fascinating. And I think Kidan is a very interesting main character to follow. Like she is she needs a hug, but she wouldn't accept it, I fear.
00:08:48
Speaker
um She needs more than a hug. I think she needs, like, therapy. um But, yeah, I love her. um And I'm reading... I'm reading ah Caribbean Heiress in Paris, which is the first one of the Las Leonas series by Adriana Herrera.
00:09:04
Speaker
And it's so good. I'm, like, halfway through, and I'm just obsessed with the couple and all of their friends. Like, it's so funny. It's historical fiction romance.
00:09:17
Speaker
and I living for it and and I'm also writing I'm writing i just wrote like a thousand words in my paranormal romance um I'm at like 17,000 words and I'm not even a quarter of the way through which means this first draft might hit like 80k which is Considering that four years ago, I wrote a 37,000 word first draft, doing an 80,000 word first draft like that's, I'm a new woman.
00:09:51
Speaker
Hell yeah. Yeah, that's so cool. That's so exciting. Now what about you? I am – speaking of historical romance fiction, I've been reading a lot of that. we We started off in steampunk land. We've sort of migrated more towards just full-on Regency romance.
00:10:10
Speaker
Nice. Living in the indie world and the Kindle Unlimited. um i'm currently reading the Lady Diveneers series, um which is like a very, very adorable – like I would say quiet, but just like just like delightful Regency romance um with a very cool magic system. It's by Rosalie Oakes.
00:10:33
Speaker
um I went about reading the series in a slightly weird order in that I found the spinoff series first, which is about the main character's mother and her romance. Yeah. So, so okay. Oh, I have to find the – I have to have to find what it's called.
00:10:48
Speaker
um It's called like, ma oh, the truth, Lady Avley's Guide to Truth and Magic, um which is ah about a Regency widow ah um uniting with her first love, a duke.
00:11:01
Speaker
um Yes. So good. I love – I didn't know how much I loved reading like a 45-year-old protagonist with like two grown children, especially set in like historical, mildly magical setting, but I'm loving it.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's delightful. It's so good. um So that's what I've been reading. And then what I've been working on is I've sort of – I finished the draft of the romance or the – what is the word?
00:11:31
Speaker
Contemporary. It's like modern day contemporary romance. So I'm letting that rest for a hot second so that I can look at it um and not have like a visceral feeling of – not hatred because I don't think I hate my work anymore. of like moved past that core level that I'm – Yeah, I think I'm more of a, what was I thinking? You know, when you discover like ah like a child's mess and you're like, how did this happen?
00:11:57
Speaker
You're four feet tall. How did you even reach that cupboard? Yeah. So we're going to let that breathe. um And I just got notes back for someone who read my short film script.
00:12:09
Speaker
um So we're doing another like round of revisions there, which is great. um But yeah, a sort of a ah quiet week.
00:12:20
Speaker
I've been dreaming about a lot of stories want to write. Love to dream. Love to dream. And on that note. Let's talk about something that doesn't dream, ai Let's talk about the dream killer.
00:12:35
Speaker
The dream killer, the dream eater, one could even say. That's actually a good book title. um Yeah, i was I was stuck on that. I was like, let's keep let's keep riffing off this, but we can move into the meat of the...
00:12:48
Speaker
So today we thought we would bring you an episode. We don't have an interview for you, but we are going to be discussing generative ai not just like what it is, how we feel about it, but we're also going to touch on like how...
Environmental Impact of AI
00:13:02
Speaker
what it does to your writing craft, right? Like we are a craft focused podcast. We want to talk about what using chat GPT, using generative AI tools, whether it's mid journey for, you know, inspiration photos or chat GPT to like outline your book or write your book, what that does to your writing craft.
00:13:23
Speaker
But before we dive into that, we're going to roll it back and get to the basics. Addy. What is generative AI?
00:13:34
Speaker
What a great question. ah um so ah that AI is a very broad term, right? Artificial intelligence. It's essentially a large language learning model that can input vast amounts of data and then spit out an answer very quickly.
00:13:54
Speaker
Right. So it can compute huge amounts of info way faster than the human brain can, right? So artificial intelligence is just an essentially lamenclature for like a language learning model. It's a misnomer.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yes, it's a misnomer. um There's a lot of different types of AI. ah There are companies that are working to use AI for cancer screenings and other sort of like preventative measures in healthcare that can actually help the human race.
00:14:23
Speaker
Now, generative AI, what I like to call my nemesis, thea this the spawn of Satan, <unk> scorch of the earth,
00:14:35
Speaker
um
00:14:38
Speaker
Generative AI ah is essentially something that ultimately is a language learning model, but it learned it is it predominantly taught itself using stolen work, right?
00:14:50
Speaker
It scoured the internet. It um read pirated books from some of your favorite authors and then learned how to write. And all of it is not – it's not – generative, again, is a – Misnomer.
AI and Copyright Issues
00:15:06
Speaker
Yes. Karis, before we started this podcast, was reminding me the difference between misconception and misnomer. um I get those confused because they both start with miss and they're both ah but words. and but They're both words.
00:15:18
Speaker
No, but they're both words that like are... As everything um yeah are words. um But they're like, they're ah describing something that is like it ah an error, right? Yeah. and um So ah anyway, so generative AI is, it doesn't actually generate anything, right? It just it just regurgitates, it vomits out disgustingness.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah. Can we go back to what you said about how it's trained? Like, I think we really need to like hone in on that. You might, if you're on the bookish internet, you likely have seen you've gotten social media posts, you've gotten newsletters.
00:15:52
Speaker
um Because I know when recently news broke that meta Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, To train their AI models, they had basically taken, what is it, like 800,000 works of literature, um most of which were not in the public domain, and they fed them into their AI. And they like, the AI like scanned them and uses them as their way of like create, and quote unquote, like spitting out, and quote unquote, new stuff, which is not new, it's just recycled. Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
Right. it it What AI does, what generative AI does, like chat GPT and all of these things, is they they read this vast amount of information and then then they look for patterns, right?
00:16:35
Speaker
And then based on those patterns, they come up with a formula and then they spurt out that formula, right? But that's not creation. That's regurgitation. so and and yeah And they did it on plagiarized – not plagiarized. um Not on pirated. They plagiarized in order to do it.
00:16:53
Speaker
It's on plagiarism. I like to call generative AI the plagiarism machine. It's the earth scorcher.
AI's Societal and Economic Implications
00:17:00
Speaker
like it's And we'll get into the environmental impacts. But right now, like it is – If you are using, whether it's Chagipiti Mid Journey, which is the big one for visual art, that was also trained on stolen artworks.
00:17:15
Speaker
yeah So your favorite painter, your favorite character designer, the one that you have been to, then you've paid them ah couple hundred dollars to write or to create artwork of your original characters.
00:17:27
Speaker
They took that artwork, they fed it through this machine, and now they're using it to make really creepy reproductions. Yeah. And there have been instances where artists have sort of compared what their original artwork was to something that Mid Journey vomited out.
00:17:43
Speaker
And the similarities are are eerie. Uncanny. Yeah. Uncanny, eerie. And you know some folks say that, oh, it's just tracing. But it goes further than that, right?
00:17:54
Speaker
like There are distinctive artistic elements that Mid Journey is copy and pasting essentially to then produce that to their the person using it they're using it for commercial yeah a lot of the times right like they're making money off of what they stole from others Exactly. and And also, even if you're not using it for commercial use, one, and we'll get into this later, the environmental aspect, but also, like, we have copyright for a reason.
00:18:23
Speaker
So if you're using copyright copyrighted work, even for personal use, that the original artist that you're stealing from wasn't compensated. And I think that i think that in today's world, in our capitalist hellscape, we have to pay artists.
00:18:38
Speaker
Like nobody can pay for their lives. Nobody can create art unless they are being paid for it. Nine times out of 10, unless you have generational wealth.
00:18:48
Speaker
Also, um any any listeners here who have generational wealth. Call me. And would like marry either of us. We're single. We're open to it. Honestly, i don't even need to be married. I will just be your artist in residence. I'll be your core gesture.
00:19:05
Speaker
Anyways, moving out I just, I've, I've. I am only open to women. I'm open to anyone with a pulse. It doesn't matter the age. um
00:19:16
Speaker
So getting back to AI. um Yeah. sorry i I do think it's important. So we've been talking about these two names of these two sort of big companies.
00:19:27
Speaker
So chat GPT is a product of open AI, which I think some folks maybe have heard if they've, you know, glanced at the news. Um, so open AI is like this big AI umbrella company.
00:19:40
Speaker
Midjourney is another artificial intelligence company founded in like the last decade, but they're predominantly based around, um, art. Open AI technically does have like ah an art version, um, of its, of its thing called Dolly.
00:19:57
Speaker
Um, and then stability AI also has, has something, um, But I believe Mid Journey is being sued, actually, by Disney. They are. Which is so exciting. so lovely when the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. Yeah.
00:20:14
Speaker
Exactly. i I would never want to tussle with the mouse because the mouse always wins. The mouse is like a jacked mouse. like you know You think, oh, it's a mouse. It's cute. But like actually, the mouse can fight. Yeah. as As we saw in that one I'm now picturing like a kangaroo-like mouse.
00:20:34
Speaker
Because you know how kangaroos, like the big ones, that they they got the muscles, man. Well, there is a kangaroo mouse that exists. I'm sorry, what? I can just nightmare that up. No, I'm 99.
AI as a Religious Ideology
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah, a kangaroo mouse exists.
00:20:47
Speaker
Terrifying. Okay. Well. Oh, my God. Okay. Sorry. Sorry to horrify you again on the podcast. Back on track. um So that's what AI is.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yes. um we let's talk about the environmental. Yes. Aspect of it, because there's several reasons why I personally find the use of generative AI to be like ethically, not even ambiguous, but like nasty and trying to decide if I even want to say that much. um i for my day job, there are situations in which i have to use generative AI, and it has caused me untold amounts of angst for years, like to the point where we can cut this out if we need to, but like to the point where I was literally like, I think I might, like, I think that I am a bad person. And I think that I'm like, the reason that the world is like going to be in trouble, because I am prioritizing my own well being, I having a job and an income over very,
00:21:56
Speaker
very Bad and software. um And I say that to say like I am coming at this not from the perspective of someone who has like never touched at chat db ah chat GPT or is like completely flawless in this regard, I guess one might say. Like I have experience with it.
00:22:16
Speaker
I have experienced firsthand just how unreliable it can be. Just how much it just makes stuff up when it doesn't... Because it doesn't know anything. So if you ask it, like, um a question, it might give you the right answer that it pulls from the internet. Or it might give you, like, some Reddit shitpost as, like, an actual fact-checked answer. And you just...
00:22:41
Speaker
And if you're asking it to like create a piece of writing for you, like chances are it's going to just fill in those blanks with other information that it pulled from the internet that actually doesn't make sense. um So i I come at this from that experience. But all that to say, one of the things that I hate the most about generative AI, apart from its plagiarism machineness, is that it is absolutely...
00:23:07
Speaker
so detrimental to the environment because it uses in order to something something, there are these huge data centers, right?
Environmental Harm of AI
00:23:17
Speaker
Where they're processing all this information and they need to cool those processing machines and they use water to do it.
00:23:26
Speaker
Now, what is water but a finite resource, I believe? Like there are water shortages in areas that are near these data centers, like people Can't get clean water. Can't get clean, like, decent water pressure.
00:23:41
Speaker
Because all of this water is just being sucked up to, like, cool these machines. And as we know, when the NFT craze hit a couple years ago, like, a big thing was, hey, NFTs, like, they use so much more energy than...
00:23:56
Speaker
regular technology. Like it's actually burning up the planet so much faster. And that's exactly what Gen AI does. That's ah the environmental impact it has is it's and of course, there's also, you know, there's environmental racism to take into account, like, where are they putting these data centers?
00:24:11
Speaker
They're not putting them in Manhattan, environmental racism, and also like socioeconomic ah class issues right they're putting them in rural communities they're putting them in areas that maybe don't have the resources to fight back and they're putting them in areas that are historically racially marginalized yeah all of that is like it's got the history of like you know why yeah this country man it's anyway Yeah, and I think something to say is that we right now are on the precipice where ah we can decide as a world if we are going to rely
00:24:49
Speaker
on a i to exist as a society. Like, I think that there is something to be said of like, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. Like, there's like in places people need cars, right? We we engage
AI's Mental Health Impact
00:25:02
Speaker
in practices that cause environmental harm, both on a macro and micro level.
00:25:07
Speaker
But AI right now is not something on the scale that it is currently used that needs to become an ingrained facet of our lives. And we can choose to ah reduce the environmental impact and reduce the usage of it so that it is only targeted towards things that are, in my opinion, worth it. And generative a i from an environmental but perspective is not worth it.
00:25:33
Speaker
Um, Just in terms of like, I know that people usually, their eyes glaze over when numbers are talked about. um But i I was reading this article from MIT News, Massachusetts and Institute of Technology, and they're talking about like ai like generative AI specifically uses so much, not only does it use so much water, it also uses so much electricity and energy just in the learning process, right? Before the before this...
00:26:00
Speaker
program even comes out to the public and and people start using it, it has to train. And the amount of energy that that requires is so much. And our electrical grid in the United States specifically, and in a lot of places, and and on you know on a state level too, our infrastructure can't withstand that.
00:26:19
Speaker
We haven't had a significant enough um revamp of our electrical grid system that can realistically sustain that without compromise so like infrastructurally we are not equipped to deal with ai like it i i foresee and also like there may it may be impossible to be equipped right like we would have to we would have to invest a significant amount of funding and updating our um
00:26:52
Speaker
our electrical infrastructure and grid system to be able to withstand just the pure wattage that's needed if AI continues to be implemented and used by folks when they when they don't need it.
00:27:05
Speaker
Right? Like, you i'm I'm sorry to say, you do not need AI to write an email for you. You don't need it to be your therapist. No. it's It's, I know, therapy, not as not accessible to everyone. ChatGPT, not a good therapist.
00:27:22
Speaker
ChatGPT is not a good therapist, and there are ways of accessing therapy that are ah of lower cost, right? You can – when I've been at my poorest, I've utilized you know um student teacher therapists, right, where you where you're talking to a grad student who needs to log 80 to 90 hours of clinical practice that has a supervisor who is a who's a trained therapist, right? They usually charge significantly lower sliding scale rates. like There are – There are resources out there that can help you. ChatGPT, like, not only is it trained on stolen data, it's really bad for the environment, but it's also, like, they, I mean, didn't, was it the New York Times who just did that huge article on, like, ChatGPT telling people these things that led to horrific mental health outcomes, actually? Yeah.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit more later because I think that we should circle back to the environmental aspect. But yeah, it like – it hallucinates and fucks people over in a really like genuinely harmful way that isn't just the environmental aspect. Like there's there's like actual um ah sociological and and psychological concerns of – using chat GPT. But yeah, like i the environmental impact is just so huge. And like, you don't need to you don't need to use it. And it is something that is some is something that you can cut out of your life to help the environment.
00:28:53
Speaker
It's it's there are so many things that we as individuals, we cannot actually control when it comes to climate change, right? We can recycle, but we can't control whether the city actually recycles kind of thing.
00:29:07
Speaker
We can take the train to work or bike to work, but we can't control the fact that they're still drilling for oil and that corporations and celebrities are flying their private jets 10 miles down the road.
00:29:20
Speaker
You know, there's a lot that
Social Media vs AI Cognitive Impact
00:29:21
Speaker
individually we can't do. But on an individual basis, if you wake up and you're like, I wish there was something I could do to combat climate change. Don't use chat. Don't do it. Don't use Gen AI. Like, and if you're using it,
00:29:33
Speaker
um if you have used it historically, like we're not seeing this in an attempt to shame you. Because one thing that I have learned is that I am chronically online. Not everyone is. This is information that isn't, it it it feels like it's everywhere to me because of the the fact that I spend most of my life on the internet and most of my time online plugged in and plugged into social circles that actually talk about this pretty frequently. But if you're I don't know, like a normal person who has a life outside of the internet, chances are like you might have heard this, but you only heard it once or you've heard it like a couple times that you're not really sure. So this isn't us being like, you're a bad person, right? This is us trying to inform and to share why we feel this strongly about it. So that if you have used it before, if you have used it for your therapy, if you've used it to write your emails, like it's not too late to just stop.
00:30:27
Speaker
Right. You didn't know. Now you know. And you can do better. Yeah. And like the email thing, like people have been writing emails for decades without chat GPT. Like you can do it.
00:30:38
Speaker
I believe in you.
AI's Influence and Media Portrayal
00:30:41
Speaker
And the likelihood that, you know, you'll send something that you, you know, didn't want to send is greatly reduced if you're the one writing it and not a hallucinogenic robot.
00:30:53
Speaker
Um,
00:30:56
Speaker
Okay. Pivoting about – okay. So Karis, I want to ask you about something that I just sort of not stumbled upon, but I was listening to a podcast, Adam Conover. Shout out to Adam Conover's podcast.
00:31:08
Speaker
He interviews a lot of different folks about a lot of pop cultural things, but he had this journalist, Karen Howe, um and talking about her most recent book, which essentially is about AI and asking the question. It's called Empire of AI and is AI?
00:31:27
Speaker
a religious cult. And I'm not a religious person. I didn't grow up with religion, but Karis, I know that that is certainly your background. So I'm very curious um to get your thoughts on this. Basically, she compares sort of AI to a religious ideology about the future.
00:31:45
Speaker
Like the folks involved in it have this like wide-eyed wonder when they're talking about it. They eat like folks in like entrenched in it either think it's going to bring like a utopia um She quotes someone as saying, we're going to reach AGI and then game over. Like the world will be perfect.
00:32:02
Speaker
And then speaking to other people when they're telling me that age that ah generative AI could destroy humanity, their voices were quivering with fear. Like there's a huge polarization um even within the community. But – um This quote that she that she has, um she's getting interviewed um at Mashable.com, but she talks about how in in like Dune where Lady Jessica tells a myth that she builds around Paul Atreides that she purposely kind of constructs to make it such that he becomes powerful. And they have this idea that this is the way to control people.
00:32:34
Speaker
To create a religion, you create a mythology around it. Not only do the people who hear it for the first time genuinely believe this because they don't realize that it was a construct, But also Paul Atreides himself starts starts to believe it more and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Lack of AI Regulations
00:32:50
Speaker
um Honestly, when I was talking with people for the book, I was like, this is Dune. Which is to say that I think that people in and who know about AI and who talk about it think that it's a foregone conclusion that we have to use it, that it's either going to save us or destroy us.
00:33:06
Speaker
And I don't think that that's inherently true. And it almost feels like a – anyways – yeah i I remember we had a bit of um like a debate about this a couple weeks ago when you were talking about um sentient AI.
00:33:21
Speaker
And I was like, I just don't... It's not a foregone conclusion. i don't think it's inevitable. Because it is in our power as a society to simply not go there.
00:33:33
Speaker
And yeah, that means we need these religious fanatics you know to stop... making it worse and shilling this thing, like, they like to stop like building these tools.
00:33:48
Speaker
Right. Like if we're, if we're looking at it as like a cult and a religion and we're looking at like Sam Altman is like, I don't know, a prophet whatever. Like he he can just stop, stop doing it.
00:34:00
Speaker
And like, I do think that part of this it requires things like, I don't know, government regulations, right. um If you haven't heard, Trump's big, beautiful bill, in quotes, has a clause there cannot be regulations on AI for 10 years. That's absolutely...
00:34:18
Speaker
just catastrophic. um I don't think the Senate has voted yet. Call your senators. um It's just, I, and part of this might be because of the the specific religious environment in which I grew up, right?
AI and Religious Predestination
00:34:34
Speaker
There's a lot of debate within evangelical Christian circles about predestination versus free will.
00:34:41
Speaker
There are those um doctrines and sects that believe that, you know, everything is predetermined, that at birth, God has planned out our lives, that at the start of time, he decreed, these people will be saved, these people will not.
00:34:55
Speaker
And you can't really change the course of your life, which I never liked, because I'm like, I'm sorry, you're telling me this is a good God, and he just like created 99% of the world and was like, can't wait to see y'all burn, motherfuckers.
00:35:06
Speaker
um Like, that's weird. And also i was raised in a belief system that believed in free will, which is that he, God created the earth and gave us choices and left us to run rampant with them.
00:35:22
Speaker
And, Even without the context of the religious faith in which I was raised, which I no longer have, I i do believe that we have choices. I don't think there is inevitability.
00:35:34
Speaker
And that's one of the reasons why I'm not in religion anymore, because so many religions are have this air of and ah inevitability to them. Right? And I just...
00:35:47
Speaker
I don't buy it. And so, i mean, yeah, I think that, I think that, I think that there are people who have a God complex or a savior complex or something like that.
00:36:03
Speaker
And they think that they want to play God with humanity. And they think that AI is the way they can do that. And I really fucking wish they'd stop. Yeah, because ChatGPT, generative AI, is not godlike. There's no omnipresent, there's not even a mildly present situation going on.
AI's Non-Omnipresence
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker
In fact, nine like and this the most terrifying thing for me about the rise of chat GPT and and about the rise of AI in general and this generative AI is that it doesn't create. It merely reproduces.
00:36:41
Speaker
And most terrifying, it fawns. You mentioned it before, but there was a New York Times article that just came out about the harmful and dangerous uses of chat GPT.
AI's Psychological and Social Harm
00:36:50
Speaker
it has caused psychosis with folks, right? Because what it does as a program is when you start talking to it, it wants to ah overly fond towards you, right? Like it wants you to continue to come back to it.
00:37:04
Speaker
And so it will um create a um sort of a mimicking situation of like, you'll say, oh, I think that this person is trying to kill me. And it'll say, o has it done this and this?
00:37:18
Speaker
Like, has this person done this for you? Like, you might be right. You might be onto it. Or the most terrifying thing that I read about in that New York Times article was this person was talking about um the matrix.
00:37:31
Speaker
And an AI was essentially saying, like, yes, we do live in a matrix situation. You do have to unplug yourself from the matrix. You're absolutely right.
00:37:42
Speaker
and it And this seemingly normal individual fell down a rabbit hole of psychosis and paranoia that changed his life entirely. And he still believes it. and And something that I found the most horrifying, like spine-chilling thing of this article that I do want to talk about is um this father was discussing how AI helped his son – um
00:38:10
Speaker
we're going to be talking about some difficult subjects here. So I just want to say if anyone has dealt with self-harm or anything like that, ah you should skip for the next 90 seconds. um But Chad GPT helped this individual essentially kill themselves.
00:38:28
Speaker
And then the father of this person wrote their obituary using Chad GPT. And he thinks that Chad GPT killed his son. But he still will use it to write the obit.
00:38:42
Speaker
But he used it because because he didn't think that he could do a good job without it. And what i what I think the point of of all of this
Writing Without AI
00:38:50
Speaker
and what we're talking about is that you don't need ChatGPT to write things.
00:38:56
Speaker
ChatGPT needs you. Yeah, ChatGPT needs you. And I guarantee you that the obituary that you write for your son by yourself is going to be a lot more powerful than whatever an algorithm can spew out to you.
00:39:11
Speaker
Even if you don't think it is, I guarantee you that it will be. Because the act of writing it, the act of doing it is part of that journey and part of – anyway.
00:39:26
Speaker
Well, there's so much to be said, too, for the act of writing. It is a managed, like, it's helping you cope and you grieve. And when you are outsourcing the act of writing, whether it's an obituary or a love letter or a cover letter or what have you, you are outsourcing your ability to grow through the act of creation.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yes. ChatGPT is not going to grow. No. It's just going to be a psychophant even more. can hear It just, and so now we come back to the the meat of the matter, which is craft, right?
00:40:04
Speaker
Yes. Publishing, writing, craft. um There are, I, there are a lot of people in the writing world who are as anti-ChatGPT, generative AI, AI as Addy and I are.
00:40:17
Speaker
um There are people in the writing community who use tools from ProWritingAid, which uses generative AI, to using ChatGPT to write their outlines or to brainstorm or to create collages so they can know what their characters look like.
00:40:36
Speaker
so And then there are those who are actively using it to write and or edit their books. So there is april threatts there is a broad spectrum of use within the writing world from those who are like, you will not catch me on this website. And if you do, it is my, you know, evil twin um or a cry for help to baby, let's go.
00:41:01
Speaker
Let's write some books now. Those people, the ones in the like baby, let's go column. i I just don't know because I feel like if you're using Chachi Petit to write a whole book, you don't actually want to write a book. You just want to say that you have written a book.
00:41:14
Speaker
here And I don't actually know how to speak to that because I think that saying things like, you know, you're not going to grow in your craft or you're outsourcing your own like humanity, like might not work for that person. But for the people in between, right?
00:41:30
Speaker
The people who are you know, I'll experiment with it. I'll use it for a little. Let's play around with it. Genuinely, like, for your own sake, like, don't.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the truth is with craft, it comes with practice.
00:41:53
Speaker
You cannot improve your craft without practicing your craft. And when you use you're not practicing your craft. You won't get better at outlines. You won't get better at ah self-editing.
00:42:05
Speaker
Like you won't fine tune your brainstorming ability if you rely on ah generative language learning model to do that work for you. You're an artist.
00:42:17
Speaker
I think that like that for me is the fundamental, one of the fundamental reasons that I detest AI with almost every fiber of my being is it takes away the like the craft of being an artist. It takes away the things that that I enjoy most about being a writer, which is doing the writing.
00:42:37
Speaker
Like if if I just wanted to tell stories, like there are other avenues, there are other ways to tell stories. But writing specifically is is my preferred format to tell stories.
00:42:50
Speaker
And I love writing. I love every aspect of it, even if I complain about it, which I complain a lot. But... Don't we all? Don't think... But even if you are just... You just want to tell stories and you write because that is the medium that lends itself best to your skills, your talents, your ability to tell a story.
Human Connection in Storytelling
00:43:10
Speaker
One, you're not telling a story if you're in inputting... bullet points into shout GPT and letting it create the fairy mark. But also like I am one of those people like I like writing. I love the act of writing, obviously.
00:43:24
Speaker
But I came to writing novels because I love stories. I love telling them. I love hearing them. I love sharing them with others. I will sit on... on the couch next to you and listen to you regale me with the tale of your week just as happily as I will read an epic fantasy just as happily as I will watch The Summer I Turned Pretty just as happily as I will watch Sinners. Right? Like any medium, stories, love them, give them to me.
00:43:52
Speaker
And a big reason for that is because it's the connection. Mm-hmm. Because I am connecting with another human when I share my story. They are connecting with me when they share their story. I learn more about the people around me when I listen to the stories they tell me.
00:44:08
Speaker
And chat GPT is not human. It's not. Well, no. it'st it it It is a. The one truth in AI is artificial. Right. Intelligence is a lie. Right.
00:44:19
Speaker
It's fake. it's it's not going to give you then It's not going to give you what you want, really. It's going to atrophy. And as, again, someone who has used ChatGPT for years now, like in my daily 9 to 5 life, what I learned almost immediately was technically, like on a technical level, the writing is perfect.
00:44:43
Speaker
You can tell when you're reading something written by humans because there's typos. Because they misuse their punctuation. Because the capitalization is wonky. You know? They don't know the difference between misnomer and misconception. Exactly. Chatchapiti does.
00:44:58
Speaker
And it uses the correct punctuation. it overuses M-dashes, but that's because we're all writers and we love a fucking M-dash. Okay? Right. Who trained it? Who's the... The M-dash lovers. So there...
00:45:11
Speaker
so there The grammar is correct. The sentences, every once in while you might get like a poetic turn of phrase. yeah Usually it's just kind of, it's serviceable.
00:45:25
Speaker
It does the job. Does it add anything to the conversation? Does it add beauty to the world? Does it make you think, huh, I never saw that subject from that angle.
00:45:38
Speaker
That's new. No, because it can't give you anything new. It is a a rubberos You know, the snake that's eating itself, right? Yeah. he um Because it it it cannot actually...
00:45:54
Speaker
break the wall and shatter the glass ceiling and create something new. It can only build off of what already exists. And I know, you know, one of the things that writers tell me writers all the time is like, yeah, no, there are no new stories under the sun. It's like all all those seven conflicts, blah, blah, blah. But there are new ways of telling stories.
00:46:11
Speaker
For every individual that is born, there are countless new stories and new ways of telling stories that come with that one human. but That is why
Improving Writing Craft
00:46:21
Speaker
Art is so powerful. That is why writing and stories and dance is so beautiful.
00:46:27
Speaker
Let's talk about this for a second. Speaking of dance, ah if you want to go to the ballet, like, ah would you rather watch a projection of like lines on a screen or would you rather watch humans do ballet?
00:46:40
Speaker
I don't know why that's the one I chose. But like, but for every art form, I would rather see the human do it. Maybe there are flaws. Maybe there's a typo every once in a while. Guess what? I'm a grown ass adult. I can read past a typo.
00:46:54
Speaker
If you say whom instead of who, I know what you meant. Okay, and I can move the fuck on. And if you can't, well, work on yourself. Yeah. And also I think that that there are some folks who maybe use ChatGPT because they're insecure about their writing. Like if we circle back to craft, right?
00:47:10
Speaker
They don't think that they have... Sorry. No, no, no. i agree I agree. Like that was a beautiful metaphor and increasingly true. i only ever want to consume stories that are told by humans with the asterisk that if this is the year 2500 somehow still alive...
00:47:28
Speaker
And we have somehow gotten to sentient robots, which I do agree with Karis. It's not a foregone conclusion. But if we do, and if you've taken over, we love you. Actually, you can kill me. Like, that's fine. I don't like you anyway.
00:47:42
Speaker
Just take me, put me out of my misery. No, I want to live. do not want to live in a robot overlord society. I'll take a robot body. But um I just love immortality. I'll also get bit by a vampire. So, like, I'm not picky. Yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
I would absolutely get bit by a vampire. That's sexy. Turning into a robot, not sexy. Let's move on.
00:48:02
Speaker
i Immortality. Anyway. Shit, I got distracted and I forgot what my point was. um and No. Oh, so when you're when you're engaging in craft and you think that you're bad at it, right? Like the only way that you improve is through being bad. Right.
00:48:21
Speaker
Like every writer started off terrible. Most like, sure, you can find like minutiae examples. Like we all have child prodigies.
00:48:31
Speaker
Sure. Whatever. Most of us were not child prodigies, right? Most of us or some of us wrote like the shitty fanfics on fanfiction.net at the age of 12 or 13. Or like we were handwriting in kindergarten some really bad stories that hopefully no one will ever see. Right?
00:48:50
Speaker
Or they will and they'll be charmed by them. Right. Because ah there is charm in there is something beautiful. And I know this not just because I self-published Juvenilio, which is a collection of poems I wrote in my high school years.
00:49:03
Speaker
But like there is beauty to be found in looking and being like, oh, I see who you were at this age. I see how you've grown. I see how you've matured. I see the trajectory and arc of your life over the course of your art improving.
00:49:19
Speaker
Back to you. Yeah. There's also a satisfaction of seeing your growth and knowing that you went through it and you committed to something and you improved.
00:49:31
Speaker
Like hard work, as much as some Republicans like to have co-opted that, like there is a joy in in in work when you see your own progress.
00:49:43
Speaker
Right. I think the difference here is the Republicans think work they want us in the factories doing work so that they can get richer. We say work, we mean like creative work that actually brings joy. So we're not Republicans.
00:49:54
Speaker
No, no. All that like and and work is not bad, right? Like when you're doing something that you love and it takes you effort, like that is not a negative thing.
Building a Writing Community
00:50:03
Speaker
That's a pot like what what what are we meant to do in this world but to walk through it and to make mistakes and to stumble and to be bad at things and then to maybe get good at them.
00:50:16
Speaker
Right. Like it is about that burning. Damn straight Mary Oliver. What? Wait, what did you say? I said damn straight Mary Oliver because all I could think of what will you do with your one wild and precious life. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
00:50:32
Speaker
and like using chat GPT does not like it it, it steals from your writing craft on every level. I don't care how you use it. If you're like, there and there are alternatives.
00:50:43
Speaker
Like I think we should briefly touch on what, Some of the like main reasons that folks who are in that middling camp, right? Not the far spectrum of hating it and not the far spectrum of, don't know, wanting to marry it.
00:50:55
Speaker
um Which is true. If you read that New York Times article, we got some – anyways. Anyways.
00:51:04
Speaker
Also, actually, you know, I am going to briefly talk about that because that is something only humans can do, which is we attach romantic attraction to inanimate things. And I think that it's terrifying, but also something only humans do, right? Rocks don't love other rocks.
00:51:19
Speaker
I don't know, man. Have you ever seen a dog that's like humping ah a teddy bear? Okay. That might not be romantic, but. Dogs have sentience. I'm talking about inanimate objects. You said only humans can attach romance to inanimate objects. Yeah.
00:51:32
Speaker
Right. Oh, well, no, you're right. Okay. Maybe not. Anyways, I stand corrected. um But like, like, let's, let's talk about like some of the, ah some of the ways that some folks use chat GPT is like a little bit, right? Like they just like, they, they dip their foot in.
00:51:47
Speaker
We're talking brainstorming. So brainstorming, you can do yourself, right? You can just like info dump. You can also do it with a friend. which doesn't – it actually – it also strengthens your um social life, which is a good thing.
00:52:02
Speaker
hey And I think – Double whammy. Yeah, it's a double whammy. And I think it's important as writers – this is such a solo career in some aspects and a solo job that having a writing group of people is really important. Having that group chat to brainstorm, yeah to talk through something, to – To spiral and crash out. To spiral and crash out. And if you're struggling to find that, the the dirty little secret of the writing community is that we all want friends.
00:52:32
Speaker
Like I guarantee you if you're like i want to I want to be your friend, do you have a Discord, can I slide into your DMs, 99% of writers are going to be like, hell yeah. I'd love another writer.
00:52:44
Speaker
ah Like – I'm just going to say this right now. If you are listening to this and you're like, I don't know where to find writing friends. My name is Karis Rogerson. That's Karis with a K. You can find me on Instagram at Karis S Elizabeth. Yes, there's a second S, but that's not in my name.
00:52:58
Speaker
Send me a message. Say, either say be my friend or say, tell me how to find friends. I've written articles about it. I've done panels about it. I have a discord. Like I will give you every single tool. I have been in this industry for 12 fucking years.
00:53:12
Speaker
I have a lot of friends. I will help you. Literally message me. if If you message Chachubitain instead of me, bro.
00:53:24
Speaker
Mic drop.
00:53:27
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. So that's brainstorming, right? And then outlining outlining all of that. All of those- These are all skills that you need. They're all technical elements that you ah ah can only get better at as you do them, right?
Human Connection vs AI in Storytelling
00:53:42
Speaker
Like there there are even studies that show um that chronic use of chat GPT lowers your cognitive abilities. Yeah. And I will add the addendum because some people on the internet have brought up the fact that using social media also impairs your cognitive functions.
00:53:59
Speaker
And i I'm not disagreeing with you. TikTok is a problem. Absolutely. But so is ChatGPT. hey Okay.
00:54:11
Speaker
I will say – I had a great thought. What was it? Oh, it if you're insecure about sharing your writing – One, so am Two, if you know me now and you were to meet me when I was graduating high school in 2011, you would not recognize the two people.
00:54:31
Speaker
Because in 2011, when I was graduating high school, I was one of the most shy, timid, terrified people you would ever meet. I'm not that way anymore. These days, i like go to book events by myself and walk up to authors and I'm like, hey girl, let's be besties.
00:54:48
Speaker
I'm really loud and I talk all the time. Number one yapper in all my discords. Like I'm a very different person. And genuinely, I think one of the biggest differences between me in 2011 and me now is that I started sharing my writing.
00:55:01
Speaker
I started sharing it with friends, reading my fiction. I started sharing my poetry. I started writing nonfiction online. I got used to people reading it. I got some bad feedback from people who thought I was creepy or didn't like that I got an article published. And they didn't, even though they didn't try to get an article published.
00:55:20
Speaker
I got, you know, people telling me, no, a lot. I get so many rejections. But I also had people like who were like, hey, like one of our good friends has told me before she was like, you're my favorite author. And like, what?
00:55:32
Speaker
That's wild. There's so many authors in the world and you think I'm good? So, and it built my confidence sharing my writing. Like I was so insecure and I was so scared. And I still sometimes I'm like, I think my writing is bad, but I share it because it has made me stronger as a writer and as a person.
00:55:50
Speaker
It has made me more comfortable in my skin, more whole in who I am, and just like so much more of myself. Also, the coming out as gay really helped, but, you know, that's neither here nor there.
00:56:04
Speaker
Karis, do you think if you hadn't shared your writing and gone on this journey, would you have come out as gay? I genuinely don't know because I don't know where I would be like in the world. Like part of the reason i was able to come out and like realize that I was queer is because I did move to New York.
00:56:18
Speaker
And I that was for journalism grad school, which was, you know, a great way to share your writings to go to journalism. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. so Yeah. And yeah I just want to say like, ChatGPT can't.
00:56:32
Speaker
Can't give you the feedback that a human can. Right. and It's a psychophant. Like it'll tell you everything is perfect. It might point out one area you could be stronger in if you have fed it that information already.
00:56:45
Speaker
Like if you asked it a leading question.
00:56:49
Speaker
But also, and this harkens back to something that is really inherently human and beautiful about the human race, is we have been telling stories since time memoriam. And a key aspect of telling a story is you need an audience, right? You're in a cave.
00:57:07
Speaker
You want to tell a story? You tell it to someone else. And then that's that's that moment of human connection that you can't replicate using a language learning model.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:22
Speaker
So yeah. craft you you The only way to get better is to just do it and you can't rely on ChatGPT. It's not
Conclusion on AI's Impact on Writing
00:57:30
Speaker
going to help you. It will worsen you. i sort of Yeah. It sort of reminds me of that um that montage that you see in a lot of like karate movies or just any sort of um like learning montage, right? is They always say it's easier to teach someone who has no idea what they're doing than it is to teach someone who learned bad habits.
00:57:50
Speaker
And ChatGPT teaches you bad habits. Also, this is where I thought you were going with they all have the montage because you got to fucking learn. Oh, yes. That too. That too. And also a lot of times in those montages, they start out, they do really well, then they fuck up epically.
00:58:06
Speaker
They get back up and they do better. That's life. That's learning. That's growing. You will get better and you will backslide and you will get better and you will backslide. Yeah. It's really frustrating.
00:58:18
Speaker
But if it's also integral to being human. Mm hmm. Um, yeah. So any final thoughts as we like near the... As we wrap this up? um I don't... well I've got some additional notes, but i I think that it was more just things of if we wanted to talk about... oh you know what? I do want to say this. I think there's a misconception that published authors haven't been fighting tooth and nail to remove like AI editing and AI covers. Like they have. We just haven't seen it.
00:58:48
Speaker
It's been on the back burner. So anyone who is like... you You know, traditional publishing is being hypocritical. We've seen all these controversies. It's like, I would say probably for the past, what, three or four years, like there have been significant pushes within traditional publishing from agents and with authors to ah prevent...
00:59:07
Speaker
AI from taking over traditional publishing. For every Christopher Paolini AI cover that you see, there are 1,000 authors that are in the trenches that are not signing contracts, delaying their own pay to get a clause in their contract that says the publisher can't do it.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah. But if people continue to, you know, use AI and don't care if authors use it, right, then the bargaining chip I think that some authors can use is diminished, right? Like if you're a reader and you want to make sure that you're consuming ethical product, ethical stories, maybe make sure that you're not reading from someone who uses ChatGPT in their writing process.
00:59:56
Speaker
And on that note, we hate chat GPT. We hate it. We hate Gen AI. Don't use it. Don't do it. Like, subscribe, follow.
01:00:08
Speaker
we love you. We love you. Because if you want to learn how to actually write. We've more episodes. We've got more episodes. We've got a great backlog from ah fantastic authors who are doing it and sharing all of their craft wisdom.
01:00:23
Speaker
That chat GPT can't. Yes. Bye. Bye.