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The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
Marketers, influencers, and growth hackers will set up
OpenAI → Zapierpipelines that auto-publish a relentless and impossibly banal stream of LinkedIn #MotivationMonday posts, “engaging” tweet🧵threads, Facebook outrage monologues, and corporate blog posts.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
This leaves us with some low-hanging fruit for humanness. We can tell richly detailed stories grounded in our specific contexts and cultures: place names, sensual descriptions, local knowledge, and, well the je ne sais quoi of being alive. Language models can decently mimic this style of writing but most don't without extensive prompt e
... See moreMaggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
There's a swirl of optimism around how these models will save us from a suite of boring busywork: writing formal emails, internal memos, technical documentation, marketing copy, product announcement, advertisements, cover letters, and even negotiating with medical
insurance companies.But we'll also need to reckon with the trade-offs of making
... See moreMaggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
After the forest expands, we will become deeply sceptical of one another’s realness . Every time you find a new favourite blog or Twitter account or Tiktok personality online, you’ll have to ask: Is this really a whole human with a rich and complex life like mine? Is there a being on the other end of this web interface I can form a relationship wit... See more
maggieappleton.com • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
As the forest grows darker, noisier, and less human, I expect to invest more time in in-person relationships and communities. And while I love meatspace, this still feels like a loss.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
Humans who want to engage in informal, unoptimised, personal interactions have to hide in closed spaces like invite-only Slack channels, Discord groups, email newsletters, small-scale blogs, and
digital gardens. Or make themselvesillegibleand algorithmically incoherent in public venues.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
This leaves us with some low-hanging fruit for humanness. We can tell richly detailed stories grounded in our specific contexts and cultures: place names, sensual descriptions, local knowledge, and, well the je ne sais quoi of being alive.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
In a world of automated intelligence, our goalposts for intelligence will shift. We'll raise our quality bar for what we expect from humans. When a machine can pump out a great literature review or summary of existing work, there's no value in a person doing it.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
The final edge we have over language models is that we can prove we're real humans by showing up IRL with our real human bodies. We can arrange to meet Twitter mutuals offline over coffee. We can organise meetups and events and conferences and unconferences and hangouts and pub nights.
In
Markets for Lemons and the Great Logging Off, Lars Douce
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