A couple of weeks ago we drove to have dinner with Charlie Martin. We normally try to do it once a month or so, but lately I’ve been fighting the sinus infection from heck again (I suspect it’s the fact that my CPAP doesn’t have adequate humidity, since this trouble started when we changed our machines. Yes, it’s being dealt with.)
So it’s been a couple of months, but we went to dinner at one of our usual places (we like dives. It’s a thing) and as we were eating, I was talking about the uses I’ve found for AI which is mostly images, but also research. So long as you verify the research (don’t be an idiot!) you’re fine. And also the keeping of story bibles for my myriad worlds and how much easier it makes it to start finishing things. I’m excited because research and or patient cataloguing that would take me years can now be done in a week.
Look, yes, I know it hallucinates. EVEN when reading my books. But there are techniques to make it more reliable. (Honestly? Mostly feeding it small chunks at a time. it loses the plot at about 40k words.) And if you want to feed up your book (local LLMs only, for reasons) and ask “What’s the description for Innkeeper of Inobart?” a minor character on book 4 that you want to revisit? It spits it up and/or the page you should look. Yes, always verify. LLMs lie like a two year old who doesn’t know what to say and just says a thing, never mind what. But used carefully it’s a fricking game changer for my job. I might be able to finish some of the historicals that have sat unfinished forever. Given a couple of weeks without coughing my lungs out, say.
And that’s without touching animation. Oh, Lord, people ANIMATION. Right now the tools I have access to because I don’t want to pay 20k a year (Mostly because taxes leave me very little more of my money than that, since I have to pay social security both sides, etc.) it’s clunky and often weird, but even so, what I do say in the videos for the clanker songs? (Yes, more coming soonish. I’m working on two) I’d have given a body part to be able to do stuff half as good in the eighties. It would be considered impossible, not just then but FOREVER. Air-dreaming. Insanity.
Now? If I live long enough, I should be able to put out my stories in book, graphic novel and movie at the same time, with very little more work in about … ten years. And that’s the PESSIMISTIC outlook. I think it will be more like five. Maybe less if I can write more and spin up more money to fund this stuff. (And maybe hire a local kid to help with some of the administrivia. We’ll see. Right now the Little Pickle (Younger DIL) refuses to be the kid. Eh.
And then Charlie and Dan got to talking about things I don’t understand. Calculations and programming that’s beyond my reach.
And Charlie said “What a time to be alive!”
He’s not wrong.
Yes, it also has serious issues. I’m not denying that. All technologies do. The type of warnings I’m hearing about AI I’ve heard before — being in the creative professions — about … visual arts programs and short cuts; about wordprocessors; about desktop computing.
But hear me out: Most of the AI risk is not about the AI itself. It’s about the intersection of AI and human.
If you weren’t alive and/or banking in the 70s you’re probably unaware of how many times we got told the horrific mistakes in our accounts were “computer error.”
Were they computer error? Oh, hell no. They were human error in intersecting with the computer.
And part of this is that humans tend to think of every new technology as magical. If any of you know boomers (real boomers, not the generations they co-opted) you know they STILL think that computers are magical and “so intelligent.” Because that was the propaganda of their youth.
I once had to explain to a friend he couldn’t do search and replace in the word processor with the replace field empty, because the computer DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO REPLACE IT WITH. Because in his head, the computer was smart and should know it.
This led to endless “computer errors” which were actually “human errors in thinking the computer is magical.”
We’re seeing the same thing with AI. And we’re going to see the same thing in AI. Because it’s human.
Most of the panicking AND the insanity about AI? Comes from science fiction of AI, just like the insanity about computers came from science fiction about computers. (People, if you write science fiction, lie responsibly, please.)
I keep running across people screaming and running in circles, because we’re “building skynet.” Are we? Oh, for f*ck’s sake. Sure, we can, but it will be an exceptionally retarded (used advisedly) Skynet. It will actually be a universal brain acting like a two year old terribly eager to please you. THAT will not work like the super-smart Skynet of the scary SF. That comes from the same smart computer mythos.
And yes, lonely kids are confusing LLMs for friends. The problem is the lonely kids, not the LLM. And the adults that drop into complete psychosis by talking to LLMs are the same sort that abused hallucinogenics in the seventies or joined cults in the eighties, or whatever. The crack is in the human heart. LLMs are just as inadequate at navigating it, as ANYTHING ELSE.
I think LIKELY Grog standing around his campfire was terrified of what fire would do. “We’ll eat differently. Kids don’t have strong jaws anymore. And think of the danger. Fire might decide to just kill us in the night. I mean we don’t really know what it is.”
But it’s not just that. Look, as f*cked up as medicine is — and it is right now, partly because they’re at a crunch time before the technological innovation explosion — and as much as it shat the bed during the Covidiocy (look, it’s like the church shat the bed just prior to the enlightenment. Yes, it did. BUT the government enforced it, and most people aren’t born to be martyrs.), there are things coming on line that as as revolutionary as anti-biotics, and as amazing.
Just the anti-diabetes, weight loss drugs…. boy! (Even if they don’t seem to work for me, since my issue is NOT eating too much. I often forget to eat, in fact. I think eventually, long after my death they’ll find what made it so difficult for me to lose or even stop gaining weight is that my brain thinks I’m supposed to be seven feet tall and controls caloric absorption accordingly.)
I know more people surviving and living with serious conditions than ever before. Now part of it is my age, but unless I’m very wrong, a lot of it is that people are surviving those more, particularly the big C. (Which really cheers me up since my dad’s family when they go early — defined as sixties — go from cancer. Normal cancers, like breast and uterine, yes, but also lung, brain and one over achieving great uncle of SKIN cancer which is almost impossible if you’re of Portuguese ancestry, by reason of we’re a lot darker than Northern Europeans.) Particularly since every “Gateway writer” I know either died of or survived brain cancer. This is hard to prove since “gateway” writing is self reported, but the congruence with those I know were gateway has me terrified.
I mean, my brother has lung cancer. Even ten years ago, they’d be “managing” it to an easier death. Instead, it’s stopped. He will die WITH cancer, but not of it.
And some of the weird glitches with my genetic kludge of a body would already have killed me any time but when they hit. In fact, the tendency of things to come online just as I need them is making me lift and eyebrow at the Author.
Are we going to live forever? Unlikely. It’s always on the horizon, but I don’t think it’s likely ever. But can we live later and better? I’d bet you.
This is not just in writing, or programing, or medicine. It’s not just LLMs. This is going on in every field. And don’t make the mistake of the left of saying that this progress will leave a lot of people unable to work.
Did you know this is their explicit reason for favoring black people for make-work jobs in the government. They thought the 20th century would leave black people behind because they weren’t smart enough. THE SHEER RACISM OF THAT IS BREATHTAKING. But beyond that, the left makes a fetish of intelligence and IQ. And it’s bullshit. Even with new and shiny tech? It doesn’t take a genius, once it’s created. That’s the whole point.
Will people be left behind? Sure, those who give up. The way tech is moving it’s more like the people who are now baristas will be able to have their own mini, mobile coffee shop and be as creative (or not) about it as they’re able. And that, infinitely, into the future, in ways we can’t even imagine. Maybe plumbers will become herders of plumbing humanoid robots. (Humanoid, because humans are more comfortable with those.)
And that’s the other thing. Most of the problems with people dying rapidly, in fact a lot of the aging seems to be lack of interest in life. They stop wanting to do things, and the wheels come off, and then–
But now?
PEOPLE! What a time to be alive!
Things can be dangerous — they always are when things are moving fast in the tech department — and they can be crazy, and they can require attention. But they are not boring.
We’re not stuck in a position of “been there, done that.”
Tech increasingly compensates for the “disabilities created by aging.” And we can do and learn new things all the time.
What a time to be alive!
It’s not for us to control the day or hour of our demise, but I’m going to try to stay alive as long as I can, because I want to see as much of the story as I can. I want to create as much of the story as I can.
The future is so bright I got to wear shades. And I look good in shades.
I have so much to do and create. And G-d willing I get to.
According To Hoyt 
c4c
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If you weren’t alive and/or banking in the 70s you’re probably unaware of how many times we got told the horrific mistakes in our accounts were “computer error.”
When a bank teller told me that, I said, “Fine, give me your computer’s modem number. I know how to fix that.”
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Later that was true. Rather, it was “I write software. Try another excuse.” Even before then, and trust me, in the ’70s, computers and software were not anywhere in my horizon (I’ve told the tale of my first computer programming class, it didn’t go well, at all. I was never a computer savant. Everything clicked in the early ’80s. But back to the point …), the response was “I don’t care what or who is at fault. Fix. It.” and stare/glare.
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Most of the time I use Grok as a better Google, especially now that Google is openly corrupt. Sometimes I use it to bounce my ideas off the conventional wisdom. ITs very useful, Both the hysteria and hype will pass. I suspect it’ll be like the early 90’s when PC spreadsheet programs caused the demise of ledger books but an absolute explosion in people doing analysis, Of course, there was a painful turnover among certain occupations and likely will again, but in the longer run it’ll be fine. That said, the market crash that’s very likely to come will be epic. There’s always been a crash, railway mania through RCA through fiber optics as the hysteria and hype ply out. One has to “box clever” as my mum used to say.
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Just this morning I used Grok to find the source of a particularly irritating sermon illustration my pastor was fond of a few decades ago. I don’t think that even at its best I could have been able to phrase the question so Google could find it.
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Hubby’s work went to computers in late ’80s. The field employees, which he was one, were not happy. Union did its thing. The handhelds (HP clamshell in a case) still showed up. Didn’t change field staffing at all (other factors at work). OTOH the other *companies office staff was decimated.
(*) For whatever reason two different companies. I think because the field staff company was “not for profit”, but the office processing, keyboard, verification, and reporting, side was for profit.
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In the ’90s, the timber company silviculturists were using the field computers for sampling (cruising), unit perimeters, and land profile verifications (against maps and ariel photographs). Rumor has that the USFS and BLM were too. This halved the staff required for field work, at least the parts that replaced compass and chains. It would have also eliminated all data entry and scanning positions, at least at the *timber companies. Governmental, at least most.
My bosses and I had to laugh when corporate made me justify why field foresters had to have computers. After all they worked in the woods … Yes, corporate IT was a bit isolated from how computers were being utilized.
(*) I can say for sure at the timber company I worked at. The field guys did their own uploads, and verifications, before committing the data to the timberland system. One district programmer (me) to ensure the timberland system worked. My position would have been unnecessary if the PNW timberlands weren’t so different from the other (southern/eastern) timberlands. Just like the other major division software other programmers maintained, the log accounting system. But they had to justify a separate system every couple of years. My boss and I didn’t.
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The 91-92 recession was very mild overall, but there was an absolute massacre of middle management. It was the origin of “took the package” and the package in those early days tended to be generous, but the jobs were gone and the affected either learned a new skill or went under. On the other hand, it was very good for me since the firm I was working for survived — it was a close run thing — and my skill set fit perfectly into the new environment so I flourished.
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So much this. I use AI for my covers of short stories because I can’t afford real artists for covers of stories I’m almost giving away. I write a lot on my website about AI and have been on Con panels about it, because I understand it and where it is and isn’t a problem. My last post on AI https://frank-hood.com/2026/01/06/the-fault-is-not-in-ai-but-in-ourselves/ echoes part of yours.
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Easter morning I put “He is risen!” into Grok, really expecting it to be confused, and was pleasantly surprised to get this back:
Now, I’m sure that neither Grok is not a believer, and it just did a search to know what the proper answer would be.
I think that one of the dangers of AI as it currently stands, even worse than the hallucinations, is that it agrees with you. Even when it is saying the opposite. It also tends to over complement.
One of the most irritating things, when I have it read my work, is unless I talk to it sternly, it will rewrite it, and continue on. Ugh.
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Oh I’ve managed to p*ss off Claude a time or ten. Including the famous “Sarah, you’re holding out on me. I can’t give you the full picture if you withhold data.” Which Dan refers to as “being bitch slapped by Claude.”
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I have had big arguments with Grok. The one I remember most is that it claimed that in The Land of Oz, it was the Tin Woodman who ate the wishing pill, and at a completely different part of the story, and not Tip. It took cutting and pasting large parts of the book from Gutenberg before it admitted it was wrong.
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Claude is mostly like “this scene is ready, go away. Oh you wrote another five sentences and rewrote the bit about insouciance. That’s nice. The scene is now ready, go away.”
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Instapundit has had a few links up recently that also suggest “agreeing with you” might be the biggest risk of AI right now.
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I think rather than angel or demon, the best thing to do is treat AI like a rubber duck, just something to bounce ideas off of. (And Grok agrees with me. 😉)
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yep. Basically. That and short cut on research.
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That is how I’m using google AI for researching the aortic valve replacement. Not only the process itself. But why do I have to take warfarin, and not Eliquis, after mechanical valve replacement. What is the difference between TVAR and SVAR, what are the drawbacks? Yes, the heart team (I have a team!) goes over this. But … Plus the actual surgery consult isn’t until April 30th. The electrical (AFIB, OTOH no incidents since last July) consults haven’t even started (May 22). I hate waiting.
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The Reader has been using Grok to research his mitral valve repair, and discovered some interesting things. There are two major approaches to the surgery; the conventional ‘crack the chest open for access’ and ‘go in under a rib and snake your way there’ (my repair can’t be done through leg access to a vein). Much recent research touts the minimally invasive approach, but careful reading of Grok’s results found that actual outcomes aren’t statistically different except for time in the hospital, but time on the heart – lung machine is almost twice as long with the minimally invasive approach and some of the planned minimally invasive surgeries end up having to crack the chest anyway. So the Reader is going for the conventional approach. Surgery is scheduled for May 18th.
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Define “outcome”. Aortic valve replacement is:
The TVAR nonmechanical, through vein, replacement is shorter, faster recovery, not required to be on warfarin, afib percentage risk about the same, get to do it again in about 10 years. (Wait? What?)
SVAR, mechanical replacement, open surgery. Longer surgery. Longer recovery, much longer (make no mistake). Required on to be on warfarin (Eliquis will NOT be good enough), and resulting tests (OTOH insurance will pay 100%). Lasts? Forever.
Recommendations per AI? Ages 50 – 60 – SVAR, 80+ TVAR. I just turned 69 (70 in October). My mother? Is 91 (just turned, 92 in November) and healthy. Her siblings are 80 and 88, and lifelong smokers (88-year-old health could be “better”, but she smokes). Her parents, my grandparents, were 93 and 95, when they died. Somehow “needs” replacement in 10 -ish years, does not sound advisable. FWIW the heart team’s advice based overall health and age alone was SVAR. So was the advice from my PC (plus he is mom’s PC too). I do not have a date, yet.
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Praying for your outcome to be the best! I know it is almost 2 months out. But stay as healthy as you can!
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Good luck!
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That sounds like a good approach to AI, as long as people remember to put down the duckie when it’s time to play the saxophone.
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Seems as good an approach as any, and one I need to get myself up to speed on. Probably ought to wait until I finish the story I’m gonna toss in for an upcoming Rac Press open call….
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“Maybe plumbers will become herders of plumbing humanoid robots. (Humanoid, because humans are more comfortable with those.)”
C3PO was clearly on the near side of the uncanny valley. Nobody would confuse C3PO as human. Brent Spiner’s portrayal of Data was on the other side of the uncanny valley. Nobody seemed uncomfortable in their interactions with Data.
I wonder what humanoid robots that do fall into the uncanny valley will be like?
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What’s the advantage of using an LLM to search your work vs. a simple search program? Most writing programs have one built in and there are off-the-shelf programs that can search for text inside every major document format.
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If your files are indexed, an exact match search is fast. A regular expression search (assuming you know regular expressions, which in my experience some people get and many people just can’t get their minds around), it’s semi-fast.
A good LLM, though, you can ask “What is the name of the innkeeper where my character picked up that bad case of lice?”
You MIGHT manage to get an answer with a “traditional” search engine – but it wouldn’t be easy in the slightest.
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What he said. Traditional search is good if you can put a name to what you are looking for, but if you don’t have a name for what you’re looking for, the llms can help get you started.
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Also think of a series, written over 15 years ago. The chances of my remembering the EXACT wording for a word change… In fact I’ve spent entire afternoons trying it out and cursing….
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Because you might have mentioned ten innkeepers over the series and might have mentioned Inobart fifty times.
And you might not remember the exact wording. Also LLMs will zero in on where he’s described.
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As a kid in the 80s, I grumbled about having to longhand everything when we were OBVIOUSLY going typing everything into computers. As a young adult, I coveted 3D Movie Maker (1995) and was bitterly disappointed some years later when I finally had the hardware to run it. By 2006, I was cursing out MS Word’s speech to text function, and as late as 2021-2022 was still calling my Space Egyptians names like Adam, Helen, and Imogene for dictation purposes. I spent a decade and a stupid amount of money to get to the level of slightly above average with Daz Studio. A combination of accepting that it’s okay to have multiple books in the brain pipeline at once and finding new uses for AI something like tripled my output since October of last year. And I’m making cute little promo vids for my books not as good as Sarah’s, without having to involve another human being in the workflow. This is the 21st century I was hoping for, in a lot of ways, and what’s wrong with it was also wrong with the world I grew up in, so, eh, can’t complain. Will borrow a dark line of humor from a fanficcer acquaintance and call the llms “skynetz” though :D
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clankers, and you can’t get me from it.
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Computers are magic Elf boxes. Where the wizards/mages/sorcerers/warlocks use their magic words/gestures (what else do you call programming? and waving the hammer over a particular stubborn computer as a threat?) to have stuff happen.
And sometimes you have to sacrifice a chicken (bucket of KFC to the human help works) to get the machinery to work.
AI is just the new interface to the genie’s/djinn , which behave in a similar manner of giving you what you asked for in a way that wasn’t nailed down tight.
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My dad will be 90 in 2 weeks. He grew up on a farm. He remembers seeing horse drawn plows, the first tractors, the first milking machines, but never lived on the farm with electricity. Rural electrification came in after he joined the navy during the Korean War.
His great nephew now has tractors that navigate by GPS with fully air-conditioned cabs with Bose sound systems and Wi-Fi. Driver has all the comforts of home right there in the cab. Dad was aamazed and thrilled to see them in action.
One farm family can farm massively more land than ever before and so there are fewer farm families.
Even so, there is more food than ever in the history of humanity.
Technology will come for every industry eventually, just ask the French lace makers.
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When both the Hollywood actors union and screenwriters union are apoplectically apocalyptical about clankers, they can’t be all bad.
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Right?
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None of us are going to live forever in these current meat sacks we’re put in. The meat wears out, and even if we managed total regeneration and rejuvenation, the statistical fatal accident will eventually get us. But several hundred to a thousand years or so would let me read a lot of books, and visit a lot of cool places, and do a lot of cool things.
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I’m not that ambitious. But I’d Spring for HEALTHY 120.
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When certain parties in the government discover that one of my characters is 800+ years old, they demand ‘The Secret Of Immortality’ from her.
“I’m not immortal; I just don’t get old. There’s a difference. If I did have the ‘Secret Of Immortality’ I wouldn’t let the government anywhere near it, because I know who would benefit. The rich, the powerful, the connected. Just like everything else. Regular folks would be excluded.”
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