Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 03, 2024

…Don’t worry, it won’t be any more derivative than your usual work.

What’s actually on his mind right now is where he left his coffee cup.

That one has to hurt. That said, I wonder when AI will take over to create Wiley’s cartoons. Maybe it already has?

There’s another source of inspiration not far away. One winter the great science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein was stuck for a story idea. He’d just sit at his typewriter staring at a blank page, waiting for inspiration to strike. Annoyingly, his cat kept going to the door and meowing to go out, so he’d let it out, and shortly thereafter it was meowing to get back in. This went on for a few iterations before he finally got frustrated and wondered what the dang cat was up to. His wife Ginny responded “Oh, he’s just looking for the door into summer.” Heinlein sat bolt upright and exclaimed “Don’t say another word!” and immediately proceeded to hammer out the classic SF novel Door into Summer.

Which task takes longer — Cleaning out the garage or writing a novel?

Listen, woman, I said I would do it and I will! You don’t need to keep nagging me every six months.

I suspect every “chat” will end with A.I. suggesting you need to buy some product that will solve your problem.

I suppose an infinite number of monkeys is too old school…..

The trick to writing is finding inspiration.

The thing AI can’t do is enjoy the writing process. It can’t write just for the fun of it or because it feels like it has something to say.

2nd cat looks so warm that it is melting like a candle

What drives me crazy is that almost everything I’ve seen produced by AI is GARBAGE. But some people don’t care, just because it’s called “Artificial Intelligence” and it’s the New Thing.

AI is a good research assistant, but it needs adult supervision.

I coach people on using AI in their job search. It is very useful in researching the company, it can be used to “target” your resume to the job description and it can generate a list of questions that you can be expected to be asked about the job description at an interview and more.

AI is good at giving me ideas, but no matter how much I try to train it to my writing style, it still falls short.

I advise people to allow AI to assist with their resumes but to rewrite them to drop the fluff and add more specific information.

When A.I. became an antonym for Plagiarism.

When a 5th grader started her essay on Kamala’s presidential campaign with the sentence “It was cold day in April and the clock was striking thirteen”.

AI has no concept of emotion or intensity or intent. It cannot mimic the sense of touch. It cannot cry or laugh. I cannot show anger or relief. It is simply a better dictionary and a speller and a snoop.

Too bad for old Joe Biden ChatGPT didn’t exist when he was in law school, or running for President in 2008.

Gotta love Wiley’s Cats

AID vs. IAD?

artificial intelligence division vs. internal affairs division

The eternal problem for the woman-of-the-house above: To be accused of nagging or to just do “it” herself and then be accused of messing with and throwing out “his” stuff. If she didn’t have to do his work [or work around the chaos] as well as her own, maybe she could write a novel as well.

Read Nick Cave’s letter on ChatGPT to see what it really is to the human soul.

There was a cartoon not too long ago that pointed out that we are using AI backwards. We’re using AI to do all the interesting things like writing to give us more time to do mundane things.

Just this weekend, say a relevant quote from an artist (paraphrasing here):

I need AI to do my laundry and clean my house so I have time to make art and write, NOT AI to make art and write so I have time to do my laundry and clean my house.

AI can be a very handy tool. I was stuck for a line in a song the other day and ran it through Claude for suggestions. It gave me about two dozen different ideas ranging from pretty bad to pretty decent, and one in particular led me to the line I finally used.

AI should be able to develop an AI routine for robot motion and item value determination.

AI content can’t be copyrighted. Amazon is deleting AI novels as fast as they can so you won’t make any money. All AI content does is make it much harder for real novelists who don’t already have a following to be noticed by readers.

The cats are supposed to be the muses. Wilamena the Radio Cat would look at me like I was about to do something amazing. I felt obligated and it was the most creative time in my life. I drew cat cartoons, wrote and performed in cat radio plays and made Wilamena the Radio Cat locally famous in the process.

I got Colette, named after the famous French authoress, to be a Muse. However, she turned into a coach, instead. She supervises my twice daily exercise periods and keeps them from getting boring.

Predictive algorithms and programming do not creativity or intelligence make. Figure out the difference between machines and software folks, otherwise it’s all just buzz words.

hmm… not many ideas goin’ there…

Is she talking to George R. R. Martin?

Definitely wishful thinking; why not let AI write the WHOLE novel? Or, maybe it could clean out the garage …

The AI was supposed to clean the garage while we wrote the novels.

Doing a fairly boring task or physical exercise provides an opportunity to come up with good ideas. The writing/recording of the ideas is less fun and not so creative.