As a writer in 2024, you do have to wonder what the future holds. I just read a book about AI called Co-Intelligence. The author said that once he had fully appreciated just how massively AI would change everything, he lost three nights of sleep.
One of the things AI will do, the author suggests, is level the playing field between creatives and, for want of a better expression, non-creatives. Rather than three nights, I’ve lost roughly three seconds over this, but the capabilities of AI as a rival blogger do border on the spooky. And it will only get spookier as the technology races further ahead (whereas my brain, dare I say, is likely to lose some of its verve with time).
AI for beginners. An absolute must-read
Here is something I typed into ChatGPT (the current AI market-leader) this morning:
‘Write a funny and light-hearted 250 words about the life of Horatio Nelson’
Within seven or eight seconds, it had written this from scratch:
“Horatio Nelson, the one-eyed, one-armed, and entirely unstoppable British naval hero, was a man who never let minor inconveniences—like losing limbs—get in the way of his career. Born in 1758, Nelson quickly showed a knack for the dramatic, joining the Royal Navy at the tender age of 12. (Yes, 12! Today, that’s the age most kids are just learning to clean their rooms, but Nelson was already preparing to clean up the seas.)
Nelson’s life reads like an action movie script. He fought in more battles than a cannonball can count, including the famous Battle of Trafalgar, where he famously signaled, “England expects that every man will do his duty.” Nelson, of course, did his duty spectacularly, even if it often resulted in significant personal damage—like losing an arm in a previous battle and an eye in another. But who needs depth perception or two hands when you have sheer determination and a love of adventure?
Despite his missing body parts, Nelson was the kind of guy who’d probably shrug off a cannonball hit with a casual, “Tis but a scratch!” He also had a flair for the dramatic end, dying in the very battle that would secure his legendary status. His last words? “Kiss me, Hardy,” to his dear friend. Today, he’s remembered as a national hero, with his statue perched high in Trafalgar Square, possibly keeping an eye out for any remaining French fleets.”
Granted, it is slightly janky in places, but I have read far worse biographies (Paul Morley’s Age of Bowie springs to mind). ChatGPT isn’t copying and pasting, by the way. It is reading hundreds of documents and synthesising, using its own intelligence to create humour and stick to the salient facts. If I asked it to do the same task tomorrow, the response would be different.
Eerier still are the images AI can create. Using a readily-available free app, I asked for a picture of Nelson as a boy climbing out of his dorm window (an incident discussed here). It took two seconds for the app to create a range of images. Here are two of them. The second is startling.
To prove that these are wholly original compositions, and not just pre-existing images found on Google, I then asked the app to make a picture of the following random event:
‘Horatio Nelson eating a Mr Whippy whilst riding a unicycle in Hong Kong’
A second or so later, this is what it had created:
Even if we ignore its inability to distinguish between a unicycle and a bicycle (we all make mistakes), you can better appreciate why the author of Co-Intelligence lost three nights of sleep. He knows that AI is going to get smarter and more powerful, until its hand is guiding all facets of our professional and personal lives.
Just promise me one thing. When artificial intelligence takes over, you will still subscribe to my blog, won’t you?
Nelson The Sailor 