<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/28/silicon-valley-starts-hiring-poets-to-fix-shitty-writing-by-undercooked-ai/>
"When it comes to the early implementation of “AI,” it’s generally been the
human beings that are the real problem.
Case in point: the fail-upward incompetents that run the U.S. media and
journalism industries have rushed to use language learning models (LLMs) to cut
corners and attack labor. They’ve made it very clear they’re not at all
concerned about the fact that these new systems are mistake and plagiarism
prone, resulting in angry employees, a lower-quality product, and (further)
eroded consumer trust.
While AI certainly has many genuine uses for productivity, many VC hustlebros
see AI as a way to create an automated ad engagement machine that effectively
shits money and undermines already underpaid labor. The actual underlying
technology is often presented as akin to science fiction or magic; the
ballooning server costs, environmental impact, and $2 an hour developing world
labor powering it are obscured from public view whenever possible.
But however much AI hype-men would like to pretend AI makes human beings
irrelevant, they remain essential for the underlying illusion and reality to
function. As such, a growing number of Silicon Valley companies are
increasingly hiring poets, English PHDs, and other writers to write short
stories for LLMs to train on in a bid to improve the quality of their
electro-mimics:
“A string of job postings from high-profile training data companies, such as
Scale AI and Appen, are recruiting poets, novelists, playwrights, or writers
with a PhD or master’s degree. Dozens more seek general annotators with
humanities degrees, or years of work experience in literary fields. The
listings aren’t limited to English: Some are looking specifically for poets
and fiction writers in Hindi and Japanese, as well as writers in languages
less represented on the internet.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
