On glory and humiliation – Matthew Bown in TLS:

‘Assailed by the intersectionality of our culture, and recently in receipt of a state pension, what should one do? To put it another way, sitting in a Tel Aviv café – espresso, croissant, “Come on Eileen” and the waitress, Tom, explaining that the best way to market my oeuvre on scatological art might be to turn the book itself into a coffee table – how should I usefully fill the empty hours ahead? I decide that I can spare a couple to compose a novel (my first) using ChatGPT (“the machine”).
I provide an outline. I, art dealer Matthew Bown, and writer Zinovy Zinik join forces to depose a dictator; romantic interest is the philosopher Nina Power. The text unfurls before me, a few words at a time. Is the machine really thinking through the – our – novel in real time or is this just theatre, factitious creative process? Isn’t the entire composition already complete in ChatGPT’s memory? The plot devised is, well, a plot of sorts: Nina, Zinovy and I stage an exhibition of the dictator’s art collection that reveals such (unspecified) depths of horror that his regime crumbles. I’m humbled by the decision to feature Nina – “tall, with striking red hair and piercing green eyes … dressed in black, with a leather jacket and boots” – as more than love interest: she devises a “manifesto for a post-dictatorship future”. But I’m disappointed that my requested novel is completed in three chapters and 1,278 words. Does ChatGPT know more than we do about declining attention spans?’

(…)

‘One of the glories of ChatGPT is that you can ask the same question again and get an entirely different answer. I do. This time a ten-part story is forthcoming. The shameless duo make it up with the café owner and the recipe is put to good use for the benefit of humankind. Now dubbed “Peaceful Frittatensuppe”, it is promulgated widely, notably in a new café named “Recipe for Peace”, where the great and the good assemble to discuss important issues.’

Read the article here.

The delight with which we notice that this poor ChatGPT is not the best novelist is slightly pathetic.

Café Recipe for Peace and the word ‘Peaceful Frittatensuppe’ are useful additions to human culture. I can imagine a successful punk band named ‘Peaceful Fritattensuppe’.

And I understand that humans are afraid that even their so-called creativity can be replaced, but fear is the mother of the grudge and nothing good will come out of that.

ChatGPT is just an ideal scapegoat.

Waiting for a pogrom against the machines.