{"id":445672,"date":"2024-09-26T10:13:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/?p=445672"},"modified":"2024-09-26T10:13:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:13:41","slug":"hand-wringing-about-ai-part-iii-were-stuck-in-the-middle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2024\/09\/26\/hand-wringing-about-ai-part-iii-were-stuck-in-the-middle\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand-wringing about AI, Part III: “We’re Stuck in the Middle”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back for Part III? Curious if I can land this plane? (ME TOO.) If you missed the earlier pieces, here’s Part I<\/a>, and here’s Part II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To recap: we’ve seen how AI can thrust us into a world of infinite choice by theoretically translating (or eventually writing) any book out there, which is interesting from the point of view of connecting us with literature and cultures from around the world, but also exhausting, since we have more than enough to read\/watch\/listen to already; and then we saw how it can\u2014with some prompting\u2014help publishers market and explain their books. And in both instances, the material generated by AI (the Proust samples, the Attila<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>copy) is not dramatically better or worse than what the majority of humans can craft.<\/p>\n

That said, I stated at the top (some 8,000 words ago) that my goal with these posts was to affirm the human and our ability to sense the uncanny valley of AI creations\u2014and avoid them. Now, as we enter the final stretch, I’m going to try and convince you that not only can we sniff out AI, but that over the next five years, as a culture, we’re going to turn away from TikTok and short form narratives, reject the AI-pocalypse that is flooding our timelines, and instead seek out the full human experience, as presented by actual, living, breathing humans. Not sure I can convince myself of this hot take, but regardless, you’ll finally find out which Proust translation is which . . .<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

And we’re going to start with one of the best podcasts I’ve listened to all year: Shell Game<\/a>. A<\/em> six-part series created and produced by Evan Ratliff<\/a>, which is described as such:<\/p>\n

Shell Game <\/em>is a\u00a0podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. In Season One, that thing is Evan\u2019s voice. By creating a voice clone and hooking it up to an AI chatbot, Evan set out to discover what happens when you try to take control of the very technology that threatens to replace you. Shell Game<\/em> was named one of the the best podcasts of 2024 by New York Magazine<\/em> and called “awesome” by The Verge<\/em>. Over the course of six episodes, Evan\u2019s voice agents talk to spammers and scammers, to Evan\u2019s friends and family, to colleagues and sources, to other AIs, and even to a therapist\u2014all to better understand what AI voice is able to do, what it can’t yet do, and what to expect from a future in which more and more of the people we encounter in the world aren\u2019t real.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>I’m not going to get into the details of how he does this (you can listen to the first episode and find out), but as mentioned in that (AI-created?) copy, he created a “voice agent”\u2014an AI that uses recordings of your voice and backend scripts to do things for you such as call the doctor and set up an appointment, dispute a credit card charge, or, ideally, attend a Zoom meeting while you get wasted poolside.<\/p>\n

This is, to put it bluntly, horrifying shit. We’ve had robocalls for ever and ever, but this is truly next level. For instance, in one episode he has his voice agent call a bunch of his friends. Some of them cotton on immediately, but one . . . doesn’t. And he’s totally unnerved by it for months afterward. (“Am I really talking to real Evan?” “Of course this is the real Evan.” “That’s what your AI said as well.”) It’s eerie to hear the recordings of AI Evan talking to a therapist at BetterHelp who takes Evan’s voice agent completely at face value. (Can you spot the difference by someone with mental health issues and an AI?) He even goes so far as to have his voice agent provide all the promotional interviews about the podcast to the tech media.<\/p>\n

When I first discovered this podcast, I found it hilarious. Even though the concept is unnerving to say the least, the voice agent messes up a ton <\/em>and you feel secure in human superiority. But by the end of the series, I was reading this a performance piece, \u00e0 la Nathan Fielder. (Especially\u00a0The Rehearsal<\/a>.<\/em>) Real-life Evan’s affect is pretty flat, but his AI’s is . . . odd. The pitch is a bit off. It’s a bit too excitable. It’s 99% of the way there, but you can sense the robot in the background. But putting that oddness into real life situations\u2014the very situations that all big companies are striving for, where the only people on Zoom are AI voice agents who then summarize the content of the meeting for their real life counterparts\u2014is funny, sure, but also illuminating as it points to something about being human that’s hard to define, but easy to recognize.<\/p>\n

Like I said, most of his friends\u2014along with the tech reporter interviewing AI Evan and also the founder of the voice agent service who AI Evan talks with (“I just wanted to create a system so I could have an AI call my mom.”)\u2014recognize the ruse immediately. Then it’s up to them if they’re going to just go along with it or blow up AI Evan’s spot. And when they do, especially when they poke at AI Evan just a little bit, uncomfortably comedic things happen. Especially because the AI tends to lie and invent stuff. (See Part II<\/a>, but exaggerate those little lies.) And because it gets confused\u2014a lot. And repetitive. There’s so much, “Hey, it’s Evan. Great to hear from you. We should catch up soon” in this show.<\/p>\n

But the three main points from Shell Game <\/em>that relate to this winding series of posts are that 1) every technological advance removes something <\/em>from the current state of being human (such as eliminating the richness of phone calls for two-dimensional texts; or as the phone did previously by reducing the need for face-to-face contact), 2) these things are proliferating like mad and anyone can make one and train it up in next to no time, and 3) the technology is stuck in the middle, where it’s most useful in theory, incapable of running a meeting. (My god, I only wish. I would give anything to send Chad<\/em>GPT to all meetings ever.) And Evan’s fear is that we’ll remain stuck there, in the midddle, indefinitely. Anxious that AI will take over our lives and jobs, continually investing time and money into its “education,” but also encountering, over and again, these weird limitations that nevertheless mark it as inhuman. Like, for instance, the two AI translations of Proust that you most certainly<\/em> have identified by now! Or, um . . .<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

This taps into a fear I’ve held for years, what I call in my head the “Interminable Middle,” or in a more dramatic, catchier fashion, the “Heat Death of Culture”: the sheer proliferation of content\u2014be it books, short TikToks, images, music, tweets, AI voice agents that call me or talk to me in meetings\u2014is so overwhelming that we only choose to interact with culture that we’re already familiar with, and as a result of that familiarity, everything seems . . . pretty good. Not horrible, not genius. But satisfies that “certain itch.” An itch of looking for something new that’s just like what you already like. Which, from a business point of view, we’ve always been moving in that direction, since it would eliminate risk and increase the probability of knowing that a particular cultural artifact\u2014one that’s a close imitation of the trends and aesthetics behind a recent mega-success\u2014would be a hit.<\/p>\n

It’s expensive and financially risky to publish something that’s too\u00a0<\/em>unusual. Not books that are “weird,” but books that are sui generis, use a style, structure, language, or method that will leave most readers questioning whether this is genius, or overrated, or just gobbledygook. The whole of literary history rides this line. Books that, in the moment, seem like insane gambles given the state of reading and book buying and what’s successful; but which, from the vantage point of the present, are brilliant bets on smart innovation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From\u00a0Finnegans Wake<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0The Familiar<\/em><\/a>. From\u00a0Miss MacIntosh, My Darling<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0Ducks, Newburyport<\/a>. <\/em>There are dozens of these sorts of books out there that we could all name. What we can’t identify are the ones that fade away almost immediately. The counterexamples that, under different circumstances of time and brand and chance, could’ve been the truly “innovative” book that is talked about five years after publication.<\/p>\n

Here are two extreme business models to choose from: 1) use AI to produce 10,000 literary works a year (including a ton of translations), by which you essentially create your own trends simply by creating a massive volume of work, teaching your AI to analyze then follow these trends in order to capitalize on them, or, 2) pay someone to analyze whatever amount of words they’re literally capable of reading, digesting that knowledge, then picking a book that could\u00a0<\/em>become legendary, but is more likely to flop.<\/p>\n

If you want money, pick number 1; choose 2 if you want to have fun. And likely lose your livelihood.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Although the best presses have a great editorial vision\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>enough variations and sheer volume of titles to sustain them, the second option can strike a lot of people as a form of gatekeeping. We’ll come back to this, but for the moment, I just want to acknowledge that the more people who make decisions about what does and doesn’t get get published, about what’s presented as “excellent” or “innovative” or “unique,” the better.<\/p>\n

Regardless, from a reader’s point of view, this all sounds exhausting. <\/em>Is there a need\u00a0<\/em>for 10,000 new works of literature every year, just so a company can not just cover costs to stay afloat, but earn enough to produce 12,000<\/em> new books the next year? Not really. And if you want to know the state of our world, including all self-published works, ebook only publications, etc., it’s highly likely around 3 million new books are coming out every year\u2014a majority of which are fiction. By contrast, twelve thou seems manageable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you reach this level of production, two things seem to happen: 1) according to the power law<\/a> and Pareto principle<\/a>, very very few works are astronomically popular, and almost everything else attracts next to no attention, and 2) it’s more rewarding to consume what you know is pretty good<\/em>, than to spend the time looking for the uniquely genius.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As such, the power law gets reinforced, a fewer range of works reach an ever larger amount of consumers and, because we’re chasing the “infinite middle” of culture of mass appeal amid infinite choices, everything becomes a 3.5. On GoodReads, almost all books published today are a standard deviation away from a 3.5 rating. Everything is pretty good to most people.<\/p>\n

And if AI ran the business, churning product to be consumed by smaller and more specific audiences\u2014but with a handful of creations every year being loved by seemingly everyone\u2014most everything we encountered would probably be\u00a0pretty good.<\/em> Passable. Human, AI, who cares? If it’s in front of me, is good enough, feels comfortable, and meets enough of my priors . . . I’d read at least 20-30 pages. And I’ll forget 95% of what I read or watch within five years. Or will conflate it with other things. It’ll all seem vaguely the same to me. Whether this is due to the difficulty of finding the unique amid an overwhelming amount of “decent” art or the onset of dementia\u2014only time will tell!<\/p>\n

But maybe it’s just because I read too much . . .<\/a> Although if you don’t? . . . How will you ever know what’s good vs. satisfying, singular vs. competent? How do you make judgment when you can’t even experience a fraction of the possibilities?<\/p>\n

That’s the Heat Death of the Universe I hand-wring over.<\/p>\n

\u00a0*<\/p>\n

And, looking toward the future, this situation is only going to get worse. You think there’s a lot of information available to you\u00a0now<\/em>? Every technological innovation multiples the amount of available information. You have more pictures on your phone than were taken, globally, in, say, 1974. Information proliferates. Faster and faster all the time.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Let’s talk about Proust and his slow-lived, limited-information life. His going to bed habits as described to us across the years.<\/p>\n

Six different translations of the opening pages of Proust are presented in Part I<\/a> of this series. Four done by humans, two by AI. (Part II reveals that the 4th sample<\/a> was produced by Google Translate.)<\/p>\n

For a long time, I went to bed early. Sometimes, as soon as my candle had gone out, my eyes closed so quickly that I didn\u2019t have time to say to myself: \u201cI\u2019m falling asleep.\u201d And, half an hour later, the thought that it was time to go to sleep woke me up; I wanted to put down the volume that I believed I still had in my hands and blow out my light; I had not stopped thinking while sleeping about what I had just read, but these reflections had taken a somewhat particular turn; it seemed to me that I myself was what the work was talking about: a church, a quartet, the rivalry of Francis I and Charles V.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To me, this it too long, too clunky. Also, although this gives away the game\u2014note the use of “volume.” How often have you said, “I need to set down this volume<\/em>.” It’s a book. It’s always<\/em> a book you read in bed.<\/p>\n

Of the six samples, number 2 is the only other one that uses the word “volume”:<\/p>\n

For a long time, I went to bed early. Sometimes, barely had I blown out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I did not have time to say to myself, “I’m falling asleep.” And, half an hour later, the thought that it was time to seek sleep would awaken me; I wanted to put down the volume which I believed was still in my hands and blow out my light; I had not ceased to make reflections in my sleep on what I had just read, but these reflections had taken on a somewhat particular turn; it seemed to me that I myself was what the work spoke of: a church, a quartet, the rivalry of Fran\u00e7ois I and Charles V.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that, dear reader, was created by ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

What’s really remarkable about this experiment was that my class, almost unanimously, chose number 2 as the best of the samples. And, to be fair<\/a>, I can see why. It’s arguably the smoothest and, in some almost indefinable way, the least anxious<\/em>. (But definitely the most 3.5.)<\/p>\n

Your traction with the others may vary, but let’s look at James Grieve’s (sample 5):<\/p>\n

Time was when I always went to bed early. Sometimes, as soon as I snuffed my candle, my eyes would close before I even had time to think, “I’m falling asleep.” And half an hour later, wakened by the idea that it must be time to go to sleep, I would feel the desire to put away my book, which I thought I was still holding, and blow out the light. While I had been sleeping, my mind had gone on thinking over what I had just been reading, although these thoughts had taken an odd turn\u2014I had the impression that I myself had turned into the subject of the book, whether it was a church, a string quartet or the rivalry between Fran\u00e7ois I and Charles V.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>That opening line is so divisive! “Time was when I always went to bed early.” It barrels ahead, unlike the pause in “For a long time, I went to bed early.” Straight propulsion! And then “I snuffed my candle”??? That’s so bold! (See: “my candle scarcely out.” See: “when I had put out my candle.” “I snuffed.<\/strong>“) And I can bet, without knowing him at all, that there was significant thought put into this more than average deviation from the typical translation. And, he probably second-guessed himself at some point, uncertain if his choice works or if people will like it.<\/p>\n

This is a human translation<\/em>. Humans are messy. They fuck up and worry and doubt and fart and live. (And swear! That’s how you know I wrote this. Swearing is human.) It’s in the anxiety that we sense the human.<\/p>\n

You feel anxiety in old Marcel, that’s for sure. (I love you, Marcel! I just need some space. To better appreciate you.)<\/p>\n

Is\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>what we sense when we encounter AI? The smooth, over-confident, unquestioning nature of what it produces? But how many people stop to notice that?<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Just so you have the full list, the translators are: Lydia Davis (1), ChatGPT (2), Original Moncrieff (3), Google Translate (4), James Grieve (5), and the Moncrieff revised by Kilmartin (6).<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n
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Amid the surge of AI-generated content, it\u2019s easy to get swept away by the tide of convenience. AI can now mimic human creativity, translating our words, capturing our voices, and even handling mundane tasks. And, sure, that\u2019s impressive\u2014but in the process, we risk losing something fundamental: the messiness, the anxiety, the human<\/em> quality that gives our creations life.<\/p>\n

So, where does that leave me after this whole series? Honestly, I\u2019m not sure the human is definable. I wanted to show that we can sniff out AI and that we\u2019d all reject it in favor of the smelliness. Instead, I feel like I\u2019ve been arguing with a robot that\u2019s a little too good at its job. My grand take that we\u2019re about to turn away from AI in favor of authentic human creativity seems more like a warm and fuzzy pot high than any assertion of the human.<\/p>\n

The whole premise of this series was to assert that human creativity is unique, special, worth preserving. But then I presented six Proust translations, and a bunch of people chose one of the AI one as the “best one.” Big “fuck you” to the profession. The AI-generated copy wasn\u2019t just “good enough”\u2014it was pretty good<\/em>, even preferable. So how do I assert the human?<\/p>\n

This whole endeavor was doomed from the start. I set out with the goal that we should fight to keep the ineffably human, but instead I\u2019ve spent thousands of words acknowledging the unsettling competency of AI.<\/p>\n

I wanted to end on some inspiring note, a rallying of the “Burn The Ships!” variety, but now . . . we\u2019re just going to keep sliding into this weird, hybrid future where everything is \u201cpretty good.\u201d It’s the 3.5 heat death.<\/p>\n

Maybe we\u2019re too tired, too overwhelmed by the fact that \u201cpretty good\u201d is about all we can hope for. I wish I could say otherwise, but at the end of this series, I\u2019m not feeling optimistic. Maybe it\u2019s not about rejecting AI at all. Maybe it\u2019s about coming to terms with just how much of our humanity we\u2019ve already given up.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>As AI improves and becomes increasingly capable of mimicking human creativity\u2014 translating our words, capturing our voices, and even calling my ex-wife so that I don’t have to\u2014we risk losing the human touch that imbues our creations with authenticity.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s precisely why the human experience will always matter. In a world flooded with AI-generated content, it\u2019s the unique spark of the human that will stand out even more. Our imperfections, our quirks, our ability to perceive beauty in unexpected places\u2014these are the qualities that define us and make our creations resonate. AI can churn out endless content\u2014so much<\/em> endless content\u2014but it can’t replicate the singular.<\/p>\n

Being human means more than just processing information; it\u2019s about being messy. As we move forward, I believe we\u2019ll see a resurgence of interest in the messy, in the uniquely human aspects of art and culture. People will seek out those authentic voices, the ones that speak to our shared humanity in ways no algorithm can. The more automated and digitized the world becomes, the more we\u2019ll crave the real, the raw, the deeply personal.<\/p>\n

We have an incredible opportunity to use AI not just to replace us but to amplify what makes us special. It can help us reach new audiences, break down barriers, and explore creative possibilities we never imagined. But it will always be our<\/em> bullshit that breathes life into those possibilities.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s embrace this new era with optimism. Let\u2019s use these tools to tell our stories, to connect across cultures and languages, to share what it means to be alive in ways that only humans can. The future isn\u2019t about AI taking over; it\u2019s about making work-life shorter and our free-time longer\u2014so that we can play.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

If there\u2019s anything that\u2019s still undeniably, irreducibly human, maybe it\u2019s not our ability to write Proust or create podcasts, but our most basic, primal cravings\u2014the ones that AI can\u2019t touch. I\u2019m talking about the need to kiss, to touch, to feel another person\u2019s body pressed against yours. That rush when you lean in for a kiss, the catch of your breath, the way your lips are soft and electric, your body on edge with anticipation. That desire to be even closer, to feel skin on skin, to taste someone else\u2019s mouth, to pull tighter, to hold on; to never let go.<\/p>\n

AI can replicate our words, our voices, even our art. But it can\u2019t replicate the anticipation of a kiss. Those dizzying, desperate moments when all we want is to lose ourself in someone else\u2019s presence. AI can\u2019t feel the way a kiss deepens, goes from gentle to urgent, how your heart races as your hands wander, searching, discovering, pulling them closer, wanting more. That kind of need\u2014the need to connect the most physical, intimate way possible\u2014is something that can\u2019t be faked, can\u2019t be coded, can\u2019t be conjured by a machine\u2014they don’t kiss.<\/p>\n

We might be living in a world flooded with AI creations, where everything feels like it\u2019s blending into one bland, forgettable mass, but no algorithm can make you feel the warmth of someone\u2019s mouth on yours, the breathlessness, being undone. That\u2019s the last, true, human thing we have. The need to touch, to crave another body against ours, to feel that spark . . . That we\u2019re still here, still human, still longing for something real, something we can feel with our own lips, our own hands, our own skin.<\/p>\n

Because at the end of the day, no matter how good AI gets, it\u2019ll never know what it\u2019s like to fuck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back for Part III? Curious if I can land this plane? (ME TOO.) If you missed the earlier pieces, here’s Part I, and here’s Part II. To recap: we’ve seen how AI can thrust us into a world of infinite choice by theoretically translating (or eventually writing) any book out there, which is interesting from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":446372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[72772,72762,14226],"class_list":["post-445672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-ai","tag-decision-fatigue","tag-proust"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445672"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446422,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445672\/revisions\/446422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}