Quote of the day / I want to learn how to write
Further on the point I made in an earlier post this month - I do really want to learn how to write.
Especially when we're being told that - now - more than ever the skill writing will soon be dead. I love great writing and I've seen what the robot can do.
Long live non-fiction.
The Atlantic: George Saunders Has A New Mantra. By Adrienne LaFrance
LaFrance: I’ve been thinking so much about the power of language lately, with regard to artificial intelligence—just the degree to which it will change us, having machines that people assume can converse like humans, even though anybody can discern pretty quickly that these models are sycophantic fabulists. But what does it mean to have machines mimicking us in this way?
Saunders: It’s fun, on some level. It’s a fascinating thing. And I think it’s one of those moments where it’s actually as simple as it appears, at least in terms of writing: You should do it yourself. It’s honorable to do it yourself. And when you do it yourself, you put things in there that a machine doesn’t know about you or anything else, things that you learned, you know? So of course you can have a pretty good simulation, but why? What’s the value? I hear people say, Oh, but I really struggle with personal writing. And I’m like, then struggle.
When I pick up a book by anybody, I want that person’s life filtered through that particular art form to come and land on me with my particular experience of both life and the form. So I don’t see what all the fuss is. The only reason I’m afraid is—you know, if you put somebody in a world where they only heard Muzak, their aesthetics would change. Their discernment would change. And then if they listened to Mozart, it would just bother them; they wouldn’t get it. So I do worry about that. And anybody who’s been moved by a novel knows that that’s a big sacrifice. To give up your ability to be moved by a work of prose is a big loss for you.
LaFrance: The informational environment is a mess.
Saunders: It’s a big mess. I was thinking recently about the story about the poison well. How there’s a kingdom, and it has only one well, and if you drink from it, it makes you insane. And then the king, who has his own well, has a decision to make: Should he drink from the poison well and rule his people? Now here’s where the metaphor gets a little messy, because what I think we have to do is protect the clean well. Even if it’s just a little bit of flame in your hand, don’t let the flame go out. In the ’60s, they would talk about the silent majority. Now I think there is a silent majority—or maybe a silent semi-majority—of literary, literate people. So I take some encouragement in that.
