haunted by something I saw in Google’s A.I. demo. The video featured A.I. briefly summarizing emails someone hadn’t read. Then it demonstrated generating new emails to reply with.

Have you heard the word Rob Horning 12.21.2023

We’re approaching a splitting point, where AI’s impacts on how we speak and write move between the poles of standardization, like templating professional emails or formal presentations, and authentic expression in personal and emotional spaces. Between those poles, there are three core tensions at play. Early backlash signals, like academics... See more

But the technology’s capacity for imitation will likely continue to improve: New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka observed that ChatGPT was not very effective at mimicking his own writing voice, but the AI startup, Writer, created a bot trained on his own writing to produce text in his voice that, while not perfect, was still “unnervingly

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AI-powered document editors, then, among other tools, use all that training data to make it even easier to write outcome-oriented garbage that moves us further and further from the truth of ourselves and each other as beautiful, complex, experiencing beings.