5 ms·
Wow, I could not disagree with this more. What’s valuable about a novel is the social relationships it fosters, both in relation to the author, and also all the
by dml2135 2mo ago
Wow, I could not disagree with this more. What’s valuable about a novel is the social relationships it fosters, both in relation to the author, and also all the others that have read it. I read a book to better understand what other people are thinking, how they see the world — both directly from the author, and indirectly, in discovering what other readers may have found valuable.
I can maybe understand finding value in a machine-written novel if others also read it and enjoyed it, but having an LLM spit out a novel and reading it in isolation, that would be a complete waste of time to me.
- ericfr11 2mo agoWhat if the original idea/concept was from a human, who used an LLM to extend and write the book?
- beej71 2mo agoFor me in that case, I'd value the story but not the writing. I want to know that a human has had the experience of writing what I am having the experience reading. If I find out after the fact that an AI wrote it, the writing becomes bland, like a magic trick exposed.
- slibhb 2mo agoIt seems to me that you don't like reading (which is fine). Some people enjoy reading words strung together in a certain way. The value comes from the simple relationship between the text and the reader, not on some kind of social connection.
- dml2135 2mo agoI love reading, and I was explaining precisely why I love it.
- dwaltrip 2mo agoIronic, as you didn’t read their comment… > The value comes from the simple relationship between the text and the reader This is not some universal truth, yet you state it as such. People can get different things from a text.
- beej71 2mo agoIt seems to be that you don't appreciate the relationship between the author and the reader and the author and the text, which is fine, but is a bit tragic. Not that I doubt that one day people will simply gather around the AI infinite story creation bot. They just won't know what they're missing. :(
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- mapontosevenths 2mo agoI once read Ben Franklin's autobiography. I have yet to experience any great blossoming of our relationship. More seriously, the novel is a unidirectional medium of communication. Not a relationship. That said, it is meant to convey a perspective. I don't care if it's a human, a robot, or a little green man's perspective. It just has to be an interesting, useful, or enlightening perspective that I didn't already share. Right now LLM's don't really have unique perspectives, that may change. So I withhold judgement. As of today, I wouldn't read an LLM's novel. In 10 years, who knows?
- confidantlake 2mo agoAh I always felt like novels were a partnership in a way. He is putting down words and I am using that to create a world in my mind. 2 people reading the same novel are creating 2 different worlds.
- mapontosevenths 2mo agoI've always been fond of calling it telepathy. That's really what it is. Further, it can even let us see into the minds of the long dead. Humanities superpower is that it is the only race which can preserve knowledge beyond a single lifespan. With LLM's we can also now preserve actual thought patterns and skills beyond a single lifespan. I can't wait to see what the future brings.
- beej71 2mo ago> I once read Ben Franklin's autobiography. I have yet to experience any great blossoming of our relationship. I've also read it, and got to know the man that much better. It especially added a great deal of texture to the experience of visiting his home site, his church, and his grave. I'd argue that humans rarely have unique perspectives, being highly influenced by their environment and experience. And have we not seen AI coming up with novel math? I don't think unique perspectives are necessarily the compelling part. I think the words are just a medium for thoughts. AI only produces the former, not the latter. That's my relationship with Ben Franklin. It's not that I read what he wrote; it's that I know what he thought.
- jagenabler2 2mo agoReading is beautiful because of language's inability to fully capture emotion and reality. Every author tries to tell a story in the way they think captures their perspective best. Every author and book you read is a different perspective on the world that shapes your own. Reading writing from an LLM loses all that. It's just words, there is no expression. It's literally the most boring parts of reading.