2 responses to “Episode 639: An Introduction without an Interview, plus Fred Lambert’s Booze News Roundup!”

1. 

   D J Rout

   September 12, 2024 at 3:34 am

   Damn good episode! So much to talk about, but it would require a carefully reasoned, logically plotted essay in response, and I say carful reason and logical plots till November.

   The best summary of NaNoWriMo is ‘to get the words down’. Of course, AI can do that very quickly, and then people can hand themselves a meaningless medal to post on their website. NaNo started as a fun thing with a simple premise but, like the Society for Creative Anachronism, nerds got in and made the spirit of the rules into the letter of the rules and ruined it for people who wanted to play.

   AI can certianly assist the disabled: it helps people who can’t use a keyboard to write, it helps people with intellectual disabilities to produce something, it helps check your references if you’re doing something that, say, derives form the Epic of Gilgamesh. But how can you say <em>you’ve</em> written anything when the machine does it? Preventing the use of AI may be ableist – I don’t think class comes into it, except class comes into everything in American nowadays – but who are the NaNo entrants competing with, if anyone? Someone else may have used AI (or, rather, LLM’s) to get their 50k, but I and everyone I give a steaming BM about knows that <em>I</em> got my 50k down even if November 27-30 was a living hell (2013), superfluous (2017) or unwritable-in (2008-23 with four exceptions.

   I only take issue with the idea that the AI companies use the authors’ works without their consent. The author’s consent for someone to read and learn from their work is implicit in its publication. Should this only apply to natural intelligence, or can we take one step and sway it does apply to AI that is then used by a natural intelligence? Authors, you gave the ability and the right to learn from your material when you put it out there. (I can throw another ‘ist’ in there by poinint gout that $US20 a month for ChatGPT to read my own work and get some AI going on it is a bit pricey with a gutshot currency, and where does that leave writers in Nigeria, or Haiti?) Hell, authors, your complaint can be fixed by some changes to legislation, so whoever gets in next January (or May for us down here) can fix it with the stroke of a pen. (Then watch Google buy Penguin…)

   There was a lot more in this episode than my rant suggests. Good hints from Elmore Leonard (Touch by Elmore Leonard (1987-10-02) by Elmore Leonard | Goodreads I can recommend, despite Goodreads’ insane titling) and Mr Lambert has put a bit of work into a subject dear to my heart and liver.

   Book Fight Podcast, huh? I’ll have to look into it.

   Reply
   1. 

      thedrunkenodyssey

      September 12, 2024 at 8:33 am

      Always good to hear from you, DJ.

      Yes, the idea of “winning” at NaNoRiMo is semantically odd, as so much about this activity is.

      Here is a link to me discussing Book Fight! in more length, with some links to specific BF! episodes.

      Buzzed Books #38: Book Fight!

      Our podcasts teamed up to discuss AWP conferences at the AWP conference 6 years ago.

      Episode 304: Book Fight! vs. The Drunken Odyssey (AWP Edition)

      Selah,
      John

      Reply