Bob Nystrom’s blog on The Value of Things resonated a lot. Reminded me, among other things, of this popular quip:
Ioana Pioaru, an artist whose work I enjoy very much on Instagram, said of (the abusive use of) AI that “…the one thing that it will never steal from you (unless you allow it): your love for your own art and the process of art making.”
LLMs have sparked joy for me on one front: the making of interactive narratives (a la Nicky Case) --- something I always wanted to do and had ideas for, but found the technical side daunting/tedious (read: lazy me). Now it feels empowering to be able to try… from a certain PoV, one could argue that this is a utility creation thing… but for me it also has some degree of meaning because of my own long-time frustration at not being able to do this sort of thing, and now suddenly being somewhat able to!
PS. While I don’t particularly look forward to doing my laundry and dishes, there is something to be said of the mundane. I am not sure what it looks like when all of it goes away. Timothy Gowers asked on X:
A thought experiment. Suppose that society reorganized itself so that the AI profits were shared out, rather than making just a few people very rich, so that one could have a comfortable life without working. What would people do? What would give life its meaning?
A lot hanging on the “suppose”, nonetheless an interesting thought experiment!