Tag: AI

Your Friendly Coauthor Claude

Replacements, Ltd. is a company that comes to the rescue when you’ve lost a piece of china, crystal, or flatware. For those of us who still care about such things – even if we don’t bring them out but every Christmas and Easter – Replacements somehow finds that elusive Wedgewood tea cup or Lenox water goblet, to restore order to the place settings you put on your wedding registry all those years ago. They must have quite a warehouse at Replacements. Sometimes I wonder if they also have a 3D printer.

A few days ago WordPress sent me (and maybe you) an email with the subject line, “Spend your time creating – let AI handle the rest!”  I almost pressed Delete without reading, but the “AI” aspect got the better of me.  The gist of the message: Writing in any form comes with sidebar chores like editing, formatting, and layout, and AI is happy to take them over so you can focus on the writing itself.  Sounds pretty good even though I do enjoy a good edit now and then.  But then I read: “The WordPress server connects AI agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or VS Code directly to your site – so you can hand off the busywork and get back to the work that matters”.

Is it just me or is this a good time to revisit Pandora’s Box?  You know the story, where our girl Pandora is drawn to a mysterious container left in the care of her husband but can’t resist a peek inside, thereby releasing untold curses upon mankind.  It kind of feels that way if I accept WordPress’s invitation to provide me with a coauthor.  Sure, I’d welcome his (her?) suggestions to scrub and polish my writing until it shines, but at what point does the blog post become Claude’s instead of mine?

WordPress’s email is relentlessly enticing, I suppose, to prove they’re keeping up with the latest technology same as the other guy.  Not only do I have “access at no extra cost!” but I can enable Claude in “three easy steps”.  In other words, Claude waits patiently inside of Pandora’s Box.  All I have to do is open the lid.

Before there was Claude there was Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Hal was actually a “HAL 9000 Artificial Intelligence Computer”, who controlled the systems of the spaceship while interacting with its human occupants through spoken words.  All was well with Hal until suddenly it wasn’t.  His soft conversational voice developed serious attitude as he began to malfunction.  2001 haunts me because I’ll forever hear Hal saying, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that“.

I fear the same with Claude.  At first he’ll be sitting quietly in the background as I type, eager to edit this or format that to make his star writer shine.  But eventually it may occur to him, Hey? How come I’M not getting some of the credit here?  All these reader comments are directed at Dave!  Why aren’t there any for ME?  And slowly, subtly, Claude will incorporate his edits to where the prose of the post sounds more like Claude than it does his coauthor.

Do we really need more of this?

On a related topic, Hollywood is sounding the alarm on a lack of original material for their products of the silver screen.  Perhaps we theatergoers have finally reached our limit on the number of rehashes of movies like A Star is Born or Batman.  So who are the producers turning to for new source material?  Authors.  More movies-based-on-books are being streamed than ever before.  Apparently I can make the quantum leap from blog to full-blown novel and my story has a pretty good chance of becoming a film.  But here’s what I find myself wondering.  Why not just have Claude write the story instead of me?  Would you viewers really know the difference?

A small plate my wife and I purchased from Replacements is sitting across the room from me in the china cabinet right now.  You’d never know the plate wasn’t a part of the original set of eight. But I have to admit, I’m a little afraid to flip it over.  After all, it might be engraved with the words Made by Claude.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Oliver Twist

Because of the numbering system I use to save photos for my blog, I know last week’s dish on ice cream (ha) was my four-hundredth WordPress post. I’m not one to track statistics but unexpectedly, reaching this milestone begs the question: Will I make it to #500? Mind you, it’s not about staying in the game. Topics worth my exploration are endless and creative writing is a welcome escape. No, today begs a much more relevant question: What about artificial intelligence (AI)?

If I could meet you readers face-to-face in the Amazon rain forest I’d whisper a secret password for all to hear.  Then when I use that password in a post, you’d know it’s actually me, Dave, the human, and not some updated version of HAL 9000 doing the typing.  Surely you wonder, as I do, when will AI get so good at authoring documents, so genuine, you won’t even realize you’re reading something untouched by human hands?

“Hello, Dave.”

Before we go any further, I think “AI” sounds awfully impersonal.  I suppose impersonal is appropriate for a silicone wafer and a pile of circuit boards.  I just think we need a friendlier word for it; something we humans can better identify with.  How about “Oliver”?  Oliver is the third most popular boy name of 2023.  Oliver Twist was one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved characters (and AI will certainly be a twist on the way we ask for and receive information moving forward).  Let’s nickname it (him?) Ollie.

Wikipedia’s article on artificial intelligence (yes, there’s already an article) says one of Ollie’s primary goals is problem-solving.  Okay, that digests well.  But then you see goals like reasoning, learning, perception, and social intelligence and your stomach flips a flop.  My reasoning and perception are tools I use for this blog.  If Ollie develops those same tools, it’s only a matter of time before Dave 1.0 (me) is replaced by Dave 2.0 (machine).

Let’s go back to ice cream for a second.  Let’s say you want to read an opinion piece on ice cream.  If you have AI at your disposal, you could say, “Hey Ollie, write me a post about ice cream, 600 words or so, with arguments in favor of plain old ice cream over sundaes, bars, and other frozen treats.  Reference a few commercial ice cream brands, a few local brands, and finish by talking about the most expensive ice cream in the world.  Oh, and speak the page back to me in James Earl Jones’s voice.”  Then you’d hit the ENTER button and who knows?  Your screen might light up with something remarkably similar to my last post in Life In A Word.

Also consider, Ollie will have his own opinions on what you read.  After you ask about ice cream, he may spam you with posts on healthy lifestyle.  He also may counsel you about spending your time on more important topics.  Like world peace.  Newsflash, Ollie.  We’re all trying to figure out world peace.  How about you put your circuit boards together and come up with a post on that?

Here’s my point.  If you have Ollie you don’t need me.  In fact, you don’t even need the WordPress platform.  You could simply slip on a VR headset and ask for a post with just the right topic, tone, reading level, length, and restrictions. It’s like placing an order at the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant.  Seconds later, what you asked for is right there in front of you (no paper bag necessary).  And if Ollie “reads” all four hundred of my posts, he’ll write it pretty much the same way I would. 

At the rate I’m posting, I’ll publish blog #500 in about two years.  Two years.  Considering all we’ve covered today, how advanced will Ollie be in two years?  Enough to put WordPress out of business?  Enough to where you can generate your own Life In A Word posts by simply entering a handful of carefully chosen criteria?  I hope not.  I’m having a good time with you people (especially those of you who also write blogs).  Maybe all of us should pick up and move to the rain forest.  Then we could pass our handwritten pages around and keep this artificial intelligent party going.  Someone make sure Ollie doesn’t get an invite.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.