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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com">Both
Dave's and Steve's responses are useful. Thanks.
<br>
<br>
It hit me this morning reading the latest 404 media story:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.404media.co/elon-musk-was-a-prolific-money-launderer-for-hackers-and-drug-traffickers-it-was-secretly-the-fbi/">https://www.404media.co/elon-musk-was-a-prolific-money-launderer-for-hackers-and-drug-traffickers-it-was-secretly-the-fbi/</a><br>
<br>
Joseph has done a LOT of work. The text I read is just a lens onto
that work. The same is true of good writers. I think in both
[non]fiction, but especially fantasy. It's become (to me) fairly
obvious when the author has built an entire world and the story
I'm reading is merely one of many lenses onto that world. I never
feel like the author has wasted my time if it's obvious they put a
lot of work into their story ... even if they're a terrible
writer.
<br>
</blockquote>
Thanks for the article link... i don't know the author, barely the
404media publisher but I very much appreciate your references to
"world building"... which leads us to the point perhaps of the
effect of LLMs (in particular) on this phenomena. <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com">
<br>
This is also true of science articles. I have several colleagues
who seem to "phone it in". I guess it's akin to Brandolini's Law.
What the LLMs do in their chat mode just feels like phoning it in,
vapid gum flapping for no other sake.</blockquote>
<p>To the extent that LLMs have no agency or volition I think this
is accurate, on the other hand, I would say in trying to
find/follow a submanifold in the training set they can very
effectively adopt or project or amplify the "intentions" of one or
(more to the point) many world-builders (e.g. Q-nuts, MAGA hats,
maybe overly-woke folke). Under the term of art "intersubjective
reality", we have grown (at least as long as civilizations?) a
self-supporting set of stories with enough internal consistency to
be self-supporting/bouyant a bit like<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_(sphere)">
Fuller's Cloud9</a> concept. A thin skin of rhetoric managing
to contain a large volume of concepts which are mutually
self-supporting thermally to yield enough bouyancy to keep the
whole mass somewhat coherent and afloat in spite of whatever
infiltration/exfiltration the "skin" facilitates. <br>
</p>
<p>Kelley-Anne made "alternative facts" a household word and Nicolle
Wallace pegged it pretty well by appealing to the DC? Universe
concept of Earth1 and Earth2. <br>
</p>
<p>I suspect that for myself and other's who keep LLMs as their
"familiars" that I am at risk of being scattered (even more)
across too many submanifolds in the human experience, across too
many Earth#s in the Multiverse to the point of losing all
coherence. A few years ago, I read PK Dick's posthumous
collection of journal entries "<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exegesis_of_Philip_K._Dick">the
Exegeses</a>" and found them wonderfully disturbing for just
this courting of the edge between coherence and chaos. I believe
he was both drug and psychosis addled much of is writing career,
but it yielded some fascinating near-adjacent worlds (e.g. the
Adjustment Bureau).<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com"> It
doesn't even rise to the functions gossip implements. Of course,
some of us are less like idle gossipers and more Machiavellian,
planting seeds like your Allison Hargreeves
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://umbrellaacademy.fandom.com/wiki/Rumor"><https://umbrellaacademy.fandom.com/wiki/Rumor></a>. (Fun fact,
we used to live in walking distance from Dark Horse Comics.) When
you prompt an LLM, you *could* be like Allison or you could be
like her victims.
<br>
</blockquote>
Thanks for binding this properly for me. <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com">
<br>
I'd much rather play Allison's role than have the LLM play her
role. When you chat with actual humans (or dogs), you're both a
little bit Allison.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>Mary (even more than I) speaks to our dog Hank in exactly this
mode... everything is a world-building exercise to help him know
it is time to play, eat, potty, settle, sleep. Like Gary Larson's
universe where all he hears is "blah blah blah blah HANK blah
blah", he listens to the emotional content and follows her lead
very well. I do throw in my own encouraging phrase now when her
leading isn't enough. "Better go See!" is my most common one.
But my best experience with pets (and domesticates, and
semi-domesticates like birds at the feeder) is to watch/listen to
their world, to imagine their umwelt, their apprehension of the
physical world we share and the intersubjective reality they build
with one another (and I may or may not have a glimpse into?)<br>
</p>
<p>You and I have spoken of NLP offline before I think... and I find
Allison's "power" very compelling, not because I want to
manipulate others myself but because it is such a blatant thing to
watch when one or more folke get entrained in someone else's
nonsense, including myself... maybe most fascinating when *I*
catch myself drooling and repeating after some "dear leader" (if
only in my mind). The WormTongue trope/figure?<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com">I guess
what I need to build are facile heuristics for world-building.
That feels, to me, a lot like detecting the presence of
latent/occult structure ... evidence for intentional balance
between over- and under-sharing, and evidence that the occult
structure is stable and rich. Then pretty much anything that
person/machine generates may not be a waste of time.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I very much appreciate your reference here to "occult
structure"... it is what I think I learned to appreciate about
science and engineering as I got exposed to it growing up... the
math/formulae were like spells and as I learned to chant (or write
them) and fill in the variables and weave different ones together,
it was powerful stuff... even though I am now neo-luddite feeling
like most if not all is actually dark-magic (unintended
consequences) or at least practiced as such
(self-indulgent/gratifying greed-mongering). I'm still fascinated
by the myriad "hidden meanings" in the world-as-percieved as well
as the models-of-the-world-as-applied, just less excited about
exploiting them with too much fervor. My main interest in
manipulating the world with these "spells" is now to validate them
rather than to obtain specific leverage from them... <br>
</p>
<p>Over/under-sharing is fascinating to me too, we know where I am
biased on this. You have acknowledged being a fan of Roger
Zelazny's writing yourself... he used to hold free half-day
writing workshops in Taos and Los Alamos every year. I attended a
few. His best advice was "for every character, write a scene
describing a pivotal moment/scene in their life/formation which
you will never publish". This style of undersharing and
occult-gesturing was very compelling. Once I internalized that I
began to see it in his characters, realizing there were things he
(the author) knew about the character that I could only guess at,
and it enhanced the experience a great deal.<br>
</p>
<p>and if I'd had more time (discipline) I would have written a
shorter response here...</p>
<p>- Steve</p>
<p>PS.(responding to DaveWs assertion, "I write because it is a
compulsive addiction with reading having been the gateway")<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:6600b063-fbb1-43d2-841f-90b9a5fccb2c@gmail.com">On
4/7/25 07:57, Prof David West wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I read because it is a compulsive
addiction.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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