I just want to say one small thing today Antonia which is how much I love your citing your subscribers' book recommendations! Your response to the Artisan's Cafe reminded me of my response to Rosalind Brown's novel Practice: certainly the most exquisite inhabitation of a young female person's life of the mind and body that I've read in many years - a novel you might just love, in the winter when there are no strawberries to weed, haha.
Oh, woman -- how you lift me (us) up even as you acknowledge what is putting, keeping us down. I love editing -- and commas and dashes and the lack thereof.
That means so much to me, admiring your writing as I do! 🥹 It's so good I would hesitate to even try editing it before living with it for a few years. You're amazing.
Beautiful, Antonia. Though I only edit my own work, it is by far my favorite part of the process for exactly the reasons you highlight. If I'm ever going to spend hours outside time, I'm either walking in nature, working in my garden, or working with a text.
Good reminders here. Thank you. "I see no reason to give up writing or editing, even when so many believe the marketing hype that says LLMs can do those tasks just as well. I don’t, frankly, care whether they can or not. I care that people believing it’s true will probably eviscerate my ability to make a living doing something I love, but that won’t stop me from doing it. Storytelling, as I’ve written before, is for me paired with walking—a fundamental human experience, core to who we are as a species."
That story is CRAZY. I mean to respond to this sooner, and a bunch of other people have sent or shared it in the meantime. I have so many questions. Did the compiler of this list not feel at least tempted to check the spellings of these titles? Was he so uninterested in books that he couldn't think of any of his own. How much was he *paid*??? And when is Isabel Allende going to write Tidewater Dreams?
Two days ago, the Chicago Sun Times, one of the few remaining trustworthy and literary print newspapers, published a 'summer reading list', containing mostly fake AI-generated books. The few 'real' titles and authors had AI generated summaries that are inaccurate. The Chicago Sun Times claims to be looking into how this happened. This is a paper many people look to for book recommendations. Lincoln Michel reported the story today in his substack
It's just insane. I mean really. It's unconscionable (how much effort does it take to think of a few books for a summer reading list, really?) and absurd at the same time. I can't get my head around all the arguments about using AI for anything like this, much less arguments in favor of it. (Also I should really subscribe to Lincoln Michel, people send me so many of his essays, but I'm worried if I do I'll never read anything else! I really like his approach.)
"but far more interesting to me is that I’ve been working with over twenty writers copy editing and helping develop their essays about Montana. In over twenty years of copy editing, which I mostly do for K-12 textbook publishers, it’s one of the most satisfying and challenging projects I’ve ever worked on."
Well, it's been wonderful and challenging but unlike most of my editing projects not exactly renumerative. Still, it's such a worthwhile project and I'm so glad to have been part of it. Excited for when Kathleen puts out a formal announcement and I can share it (I ran this by her before posting, to make sure I wasn't jumping the shark).
Dumbfuck money dance for everyone. I still can't believe a sandhill crane flew practically over my head right as I was trying to enunciate that on the audio 😂
As an editor myself, loved this ode :) Been re-evaluating my tech use (yet again, yet again) recently and you and Ursula Franklin really sum it up here. Especially that last bit--"Who else’s choices and freedoms do we strip in the process without their consent?"
Thank you, Mia! Ursula Franklin really got to the heart of questions about technology in ways that amaze me -- and make me wish her insights had been heeded, or that we could heed them more loudly now.
Same to you, Jonathon! And your own pen and ink artwork, along with your true artistry in the world of mobility and access as well as writing, prompts me to think I should also have said "art more beautifully" as well as harder. 🧡
It's exhausting, and that's how they want it. To have us give up and forget how it used to be when there were different ways of doing things using our creativity, and pay to live by the subscription model until they can cannibalize our plasma and remains to feed the beast.
Tell me you didn't know that Kathleen's book "Blood Money" is about the plasma donation industry and America's economic precarity? Because ... yeah.
(Kathleen has a rare autoimmune disease that she has to have treated with all-day infusions, made with blood plasma, every few weeks, and she starts the book in China and plasma donation there -- she lived and worked as a journalist in China for 10 years. It all creates a unique, personal perspective.)
As an editor myself for more than two decades, I am so grateful for and so resonate with your description of the art of editing. Thank you for that.
And thank you for your continued commitment too exploring the type of lives we are setting up for ourselves as a human community and what could be possible if we made different choices.
And thank you thank you for those cranes. What a beautiful call!
You, too, have that commitment to pushing assumptions about what we should accept as human community and rhythms of life. Keeping that spirit alive. I'm so glad the sandhills came by to say hello!
Your audio version of this essay is a perfect argument of why using LLMs/"AI" is so limiting. The moments where you break and point the listener at background noises, or get distracted by birdsong and the words get tangled as they come out, THAT is the good stuff, the serendipity that can't be engineered. That's the human part that humans desperately need.
Whatever the information equivalent of scurvy is, that's what AI is going to unleash.
(Audible just announced they're teaming up with Amazon's software division to use AI narration, and the general response I've seen on social media has been...less than enthusiastic. What I'd like to know is: how many folk actually *want* an AI narrator? I bet it's basically none of 'em, except of course for the Sam Bankman-Frieds who think books should be tweets, and therefore Audible's about to lose a lot of money on lost sales.)
The "we spent all of science fiction telling you not to do this" reminds me of a viral social media post that was a fake press release, something like: "BREAKING! We are excited to announce that we have successfully built the Torment Nexus, as seen in the popular short story 'For God's Sake Nobody Build The Torment Nexus.'"
I love that you lay out how human editing is, how hand-crafted (brain-crafted?) in the same way hand-crafted wood furniture is different from machine-made fibreboard. Why wouldn't anyone want that for their work?
(Also: why would they want an LLM to give them advice on how good their writing is which is modelled on an average? You might as well say to a machine, "Please edit this so it's perfectly unremarkable and doesn't stand out in the least bit.")
And oh boy - "enormous social mortgage" is going to stay with me for a while.
AI Is Scurvy is my new mantra -- what is the equivalent of limes we're going to treat it with???
Oh, goodness, I just heard about the AI narration the other day, from a local friend who narrates audiobooks for a living. She's trained in acting and theater and still does a lot of it, so had an interesting take -- is thinking about "directing" AI after training it on her reading voice. That could be interesting. But aside from that, yes. I keep forgetting that Substack gives us that option, too, of having a pre-chosen voice do our voiceovers. Medium started offering that several years ago, too, though didn't give writers the option. Just did it.
Torment Nexus 😂 Everything is Murderbot. Gotta save the stupid humans from all the things you told them not to do ...
And yes to furniture! I thought about comparing it to clothing. People crochet, knit, weave, makes clothes, sometimes for financial reasons but very, very often for pleasure. Because it feels good to do, to make something.
I dunno, Mike, maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe we're meant to be aiming for unremarkable writing? Have we been doing it all wrong all these years? 😱😱😱
Crossing my fingers for a more formal announcement when Kathleen is able to submit the final manuscript to the publisher. Just about 4 essays needing to be finished up so hopefully it won't be long! I think you will truly enjoy it. There is so much heart in it.
The Sandhill Crane came through loud and clear - "fuck MEE" - as did the train's reply. I'm very glad to hear it's a project and not just turmoil that's been keeping you busy. I made a living for many years in the domain of digital technology as a trainer and software developer and for years held a utopian view of it. It is exactly in those areas of human creative endeavor that chose to embrace digital technology - writing, editing, visual arts, music - that livelihoods are now being threatened by AI. It's not coming so fast for areas that can't be digitized such as pottery, gardening, or cooking. In truth, it's not coming for anything that expresses the creator's emotions or for creative problem solving, although someone will claim it is, and pay humans less.
Ooh, that last line about compassion, too. It makes my heart happy to read that, to know there are others existing and creating within that ethos.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the sandhill crane interlude 😂 It really was very funny. I had a hard time stopping laughing, the contrast was so absurd. And the train, too, I almost stopped to comment on that but didn't.
"In truth, it's not coming for anything that expresses the creator's emotions or for creative problem solving, although someone will claim it is, and pay humans less." -- all true. It's so telling that it's coming very hard for the art, or the people profiting from it are coming hard for the art, while there is no sign on the horizon of something being built that can clean a bathroom sink for me, or sweep the stairs.
It might try to imitate what I feel when I hear a sandhill crane, but that won't stop me from feeling it anyway!
I just want to say one small thing today Antonia which is how much I love your citing your subscribers' book recommendations! Your response to the Artisan's Cafe reminded me of my response to Rosalind Brown's novel Practice: certainly the most exquisite inhabitation of a young female person's life of the mind and body that I've read in many years - a novel you might just love, in the winter when there are no strawberries to weed, haha.
Looking forward to the wealth /power essay!!
Oh, woman -- how you lift me (us) up even as you acknowledge what is putting, keeping us down. I love editing -- and commas and dashes and the lack thereof.
That means so much to me, admiring your writing as I do! 🥹 It's so good I would hesitate to even try editing it before living with it for a few years. You're amazing.
All the commas and all the dashes, yes please.
Beautiful, Antonia. Though I only edit my own work, it is by far my favorite part of the process for exactly the reasons you highlight. If I'm ever going to spend hours outside time, I'm either walking in nature, working in my garden, or working with a text.
What a beautiful way to put it, Susan, "spending hours outside time." Absolutely yes. That is when my time because long, deep, and flexible, too.
Good reminders here. Thank you. "I see no reason to give up writing or editing, even when so many believe the marketing hype that says LLMs can do those tasks just as well. I don’t, frankly, care whether they can or not. I care that people believing it’s true will probably eviscerate my ability to make a living doing something I love, but that won’t stop me from doing it. Storytelling, as I’ve written before, is for me paired with walking—a fundamental human experience, core to who we are as a species."
Thank you, Joshua! That means a lot, coming from an editor himself :)
https://wapo.st/3H1EPMd
That story is CRAZY. I mean to respond to this sooner, and a bunch of other people have sent or shared it in the meantime. I have so many questions. Did the compiler of this list not feel at least tempted to check the spellings of these titles? Was he so uninterested in books that he couldn't think of any of his own. How much was he *paid*??? And when is Isabel Allende going to write Tidewater Dreams?
Two days ago, the Chicago Sun Times, one of the few remaining trustworthy and literary print newspapers, published a 'summer reading list', containing mostly fake AI-generated books. The few 'real' titles and authors had AI generated summaries that are inaccurate. The Chicago Sun Times claims to be looking into how this happened. This is a paper many people look to for book recommendations. Lincoln Michel reported the story today in his substack
https://open.substack.com/pub/countercraft/p/newspapers-are-recommending-ai-hallucinated?r=pbti1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
It's just insane. I mean really. It's unconscionable (how much effort does it take to think of a few books for a summer reading list, really?) and absurd at the same time. I can't get my head around all the arguments about using AI for anything like this, much less arguments in favor of it. (Also I should really subscribe to Lincoln Michel, people send me so many of his essays, but I'm worried if I do I'll never read anything else! I really like his approach.)
"but far more interesting to me is that I’ve been working with over twenty writers copy editing and helping develop their essays about Montana. In over twenty years of copy editing, which I mostly do for K-12 textbook publishers, it’s one of the most satisfying and challenging projects I’ve ever worked on."
Man, I'd love to experience that!
Well, it's been wonderful and challenging but unlike most of my editing projects not exactly renumerative. Still, it's such a worthwhile project and I'm so glad to have been part of it. Excited for when Kathleen puts out a formal announcement and I can share it (I ran this by her before posting, to make sure I wasn't jumping the shark).
Yes yes yes!! Thank you for all of this. Am also now going to start regularly employing the term “dumbfuck money dance.”
You live this truth, Anna!
Dumbfuck money dance for everyone. I still can't believe a sandhill crane flew practically over my head right as I was trying to enunciate that on the audio 😂
As an editor myself, loved this ode :) Been re-evaluating my tech use (yet again, yet again) recently and you and Ursula Franklin really sum it up here. Especially that last bit--"Who else’s choices and freedoms do we strip in the process without their consent?"
Thanks for this one!
Thank you, Mia! Ursula Franklin really got to the heart of questions about technology in ways that amaze me -- and make me wish her insights had been heeded, or that we could heed them more loudly now.
Solidarity for editors!
LOVE - this article, who you are in the world, and of course art harder.
Same to you, Jonathon! And your own pen and ink artwork, along with your true artistry in the world of mobility and access as well as writing, prompts me to think I should also have said "art more beautifully" as well as harder. 🧡
It's exhausting, and that's how they want it. To have us give up and forget how it used to be when there were different ways of doing things using our creativity, and pay to live by the subscription model until they can cannibalize our plasma and remains to feed the beast.
Tell me you didn't know that Kathleen's book "Blood Money" is about the plasma donation industry and America's economic precarity? Because ... yeah.
(Kathleen has a rare autoimmune disease that she has to have treated with all-day infusions, made with blood plasma, every few weeks, and she starts the book in China and plasma donation there -- she lived and worked as a journalist in China for 10 years. It all creates a unique, personal perspective.)
As an editor myself for more than two decades, I am so grateful for and so resonate with your description of the art of editing. Thank you for that.
And thank you for your continued commitment too exploring the type of lives we are setting up for ourselves as a human community and what could be possible if we made different choices.
And thank you thank you for those cranes. What a beautiful call!
Solidarity for the editors! Thank you 🧡
You, too, have that commitment to pushing assumptions about what we should accept as human community and rhythms of life. Keeping that spirit alive. I'm so glad the sandhills came by to say hello!
Your audio version of this essay is a perfect argument of why using LLMs/"AI" is so limiting. The moments where you break and point the listener at background noises, or get distracted by birdsong and the words get tangled as they come out, THAT is the good stuff, the serendipity that can't be engineered. That's the human part that humans desperately need.
Whatever the information equivalent of scurvy is, that's what AI is going to unleash.
(Audible just announced they're teaming up with Amazon's software division to use AI narration, and the general response I've seen on social media has been...less than enthusiastic. What I'd like to know is: how many folk actually *want* an AI narrator? I bet it's basically none of 'em, except of course for the Sam Bankman-Frieds who think books should be tweets, and therefore Audible's about to lose a lot of money on lost sales.)
The "we spent all of science fiction telling you not to do this" reminds me of a viral social media post that was a fake press release, something like: "BREAKING! We are excited to announce that we have successfully built the Torment Nexus, as seen in the popular short story 'For God's Sake Nobody Build The Torment Nexus.'"
I love that you lay out how human editing is, how hand-crafted (brain-crafted?) in the same way hand-crafted wood furniture is different from machine-made fibreboard. Why wouldn't anyone want that for their work?
(Also: why would they want an LLM to give them advice on how good their writing is which is modelled on an average? You might as well say to a machine, "Please edit this so it's perfectly unremarkable and doesn't stand out in the least bit.")
And oh boy - "enormous social mortgage" is going to stay with me for a while.
AI Is Scurvy is my new mantra -- what is the equivalent of limes we're going to treat it with???
Oh, goodness, I just heard about the AI narration the other day, from a local friend who narrates audiobooks for a living. She's trained in acting and theater and still does a lot of it, so had an interesting take -- is thinking about "directing" AI after training it on her reading voice. That could be interesting. But aside from that, yes. I keep forgetting that Substack gives us that option, too, of having a pre-chosen voice do our voiceovers. Medium started offering that several years ago, too, though didn't give writers the option. Just did it.
Torment Nexus 😂 Everything is Murderbot. Gotta save the stupid humans from all the things you told them not to do ...
And yes to furniture! I thought about comparing it to clothing. People crochet, knit, weave, makes clothes, sometimes for financial reasons but very, very often for pleasure. Because it feels good to do, to make something.
I dunno, Mike, maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe we're meant to be aiming for unremarkable writing? Have we been doing it all wrong all these years? 😱😱😱
This essay resonates with me on myriad levels, Nia! Now I need to read the book, too ❤️
Crossing my fingers for a more formal announcement when Kathleen is able to submit the final manuscript to the publisher. Just about 4 essays needing to be finished up so hopefully it won't be long! I think you will truly enjoy it. There is so much heart in it.
Love your work.
Thank you!
Ah, loved this, Nia.
The Sandhill Crane came through loud and clear - "fuck MEE" - as did the train's reply. I'm very glad to hear it's a project and not just turmoil that's been keeping you busy. I made a living for many years in the domain of digital technology as a trainer and software developer and for years held a utopian view of it. It is exactly in those areas of human creative endeavor that chose to embrace digital technology - writing, editing, visual arts, music - that livelihoods are now being threatened by AI. It's not coming so fast for areas that can't be digitized such as pottery, gardening, or cooking. In truth, it's not coming for anything that expresses the creator's emotions or for creative problem solving, although someone will claim it is, and pay humans less.
Lorian wrote earlier this week "Use Your Muse" https://singersplaybook.substack.com/p/use-your-muse
Pairs perfectly with "Art harder."
Ooh, that last line about compassion, too. It makes my heart happy to read that, to know there are others existing and creating within that ethos.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the sandhill crane interlude 😂 It really was very funny. I had a hard time stopping laughing, the contrast was so absurd. And the train, too, I almost stopped to comment on that but didn't.
"In truth, it's not coming for anything that expresses the creator's emotions or for creative problem solving, although someone will claim it is, and pay humans less." -- all true. It's so telling that it's coming very hard for the art, or the people profiting from it are coming hard for the art, while there is no sign on the horizon of something being built that can clean a bathroom sink for me, or sweep the stairs.
It might try to imitate what I feel when I hear a sandhill crane, but that won't stop me from feeling it anyway!