AI Creativity
What if you gathered every thought you had this week and could only recycle them?
Today’s newsletter includes:
AI Creativity
Review of “The Diving Series” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lahaina
What you can expect in my newsletters: musings on things I'm thinking about, an occasional short story, links to articles I enjoyed, updates on writing projects, books I recommend, freebies and deals I hear about, news, upcoming events where I'll be, and more.
Newsletters go out mostly monthly, usually on Saturday—I missed a couple of months this summer!
AI Creativity
What if you gathered every thought you had this week and could only recycle them?
What if, for a whole week, you used only the vocabulary that conveyed the thoughts of the previous week? Depending on how you spent that week, you might be anywhere from reasonably comfortable to incredibly restricted. But would anyone be satisfied if this limitation became a rigid boundary lasting for months or even years?
Would you be able to enjoy life if you were unable to engage in creative thinking or learning, without any new thoughts or ideas? It sounds crushing, doesn’t it?
Artificial Intelligence can be “taught” to reconfigure the information and conversation it has learned on a vast and impressive scale, but there is NO creativity in this process.
You could argue that looking for patterns in the data, finding relationships, exploring new ways to interpret the data is creative. And it may appear so. These skills represent critical thinking for humans.
But the best critical thinking in humans involves creativity and sparks of originality.
AI has none of the creative and original qualities that distinguish human higher-level thought. It is restricted to the data banks it has been assigned.
Are we?
I don’t believe we are. If you give the same training and information to an AI as a person who has spent time learning, developing their judgment, and expanding their intuitive understanding of a topic, the capacity of each to develop fresh ideas can’t be compared.
It’s not fair to the AI.
Well… not every human is functioning at optimum performance levels, and in those cases, the AI could give them a run for their money. Leave them in the dust, perhaps.
I’ve read a number of posts where people asked ChatGPT or other versions of AI for ideas about the future or for sci-fi novel plots or similar scenarios. One of the things that struck me was that the author of the post was usually impressed by the variety of ideas.
I wasn’t. Though I would have liked to be.
A post asking for descriptions of the world in the areas of business and science in ten years not only picked up and rephrased other people’s ideas, but it then reworded and presented the same ideas multiple times in various iterations. It used buzz-words like “think tank” a number of times. It reminded me of ad copy written for a variety of outlets where you keep rephrasing the same key points to make them seem both fresh and familiar.
The sci-fi story ideas were equally disappointing in their lack of originality. But then, if you are a good writer who wants to earn a living and needs help coming up with some premises to work with, you probably don’t mind that. Maybe it would be helpful.
The point is that AI can’t step beyond being a tool for people. It will never, at least in the current AI design, diminish the usefulness of people.
AI isn’t causing a decrease in human value.
We don’t need any help with that. People have made elevating some and devaluing others a part of our world for as long as history can tell.
Neither the blame nor the cure belong to artificial intelligence. The healing of the human race is up to us—which is why post-apocalyptic sci-fi is popular.
Let’s stir our imaginations and creative thought to come up with paths forward that are better than the rehashed classics or dire predictions for the future; (I am not discrediting these, just resisting apathy about them). We’ve let ourselves be stymied for too long, and our personal contributions to society (please don’t read that to mean ‘politics’) and interest in those around us—matter. We can make an impact on the world that AI never could.
We are alive. Creative. Insightful. Feeling creatures with the capacity for great compassion. Innovative. Strong.
AI is not the real threat to the world. People are.
Let’s be the stabilizing influence we have the capacity to be.
There is hope for our future.
“The Diving Series” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
In the distant future, derelict ships stranded in the ether of space become dangerous but exciting places to explore. Some of these hold ancient human tech that people have long forgotten—and now it is malfunctioning. Boss, the central character, is determined to find a ship that the empire hasn't discovered and solve the mystery for herself. She has no idea what she is getting into.
My first impression
I bought the first book, "Diving the Wreck”, because it was on sale and had a lot of high ratings. The author has won Hugo and Nebula awards, which is more than I can say for myself, and that has to count for something! It promised to be plausible in its science which appeals to me and the premise was intriguing.
In the beginning, I struggled to get into it. The first person, present tense point of view was pretty dry. The main character, Boss, shares her inner thoughts but keeps her emotions under wraps and it's hard to relate to her. I did appreciate the supporting characters, though, and how Boss’s mental observations clarify the undercurrents in conversation.
There are many positive reviews on Amazon, and a few negative ones which focused on that narrative style and Boss’s inner world; most of them admitted they didn’t finish the book. And I get it. But I'm glad I stuck with it and went on, because the series is worth it.
Why I liked it
“Diving the Wreck” is enjoyable. I like to read as I am falling asleep and this is ideal; it doesn’t rev you up so you have to read till dawn, but it is interesting, drawing you forward chapter by chapter. The world-building was solid—specifically, the concept of 'diving' for exploring old wrecks in space made so much sense and I appreciated how the author developed that. It made me wonder if she has explored ancient shipwrecks in the ocean. The storyline ended up being more complex than I expected and the final chapters became suddenly gripping and fast paced. The plot was well built and satisfying, though abrupt, at the end of the first book.
The series gets better as it progresses, more complex and interesting. I don’t want to give anything away so I won’t mention what I appreciate about it. I will leave it at this: it isn’t just about Boss and her concerns.
What I might change
There were times when I grew tired of the POV. It takes effort to experience scenes only through Boss's mind. She was came across as very controlled and a bit controlling of her people, though you do find out in the first book why that became a necessary part of her psyche.
If I were editing it, I would add a few hints of… color? Something to capture Boss’s emotions. Or maybe I wouldn’t. People who have survived trauma compartmentalize and don’t have any connections with those emotions. They manifest it through their behavior and in how they interpret situations.
Conclusion
The first book was good. I enjoyed it even though it spent so much time in the main character’s mind. And Rusch’s diving books get better. I took a break before buying the second one in the series and I'm glad I didn't forget to follow up because her style of telling the story in Boss's POV gets more fluid and effective. The weaving in of other people’s stories in third person gets better and the transitions work well. The series becomes more involved and interesting as it progresses—I'm reading the eighth in the series right now. Note-I found the first novella, “Becalmed”, a bit dull, so I skipped the next novella, jumping straight to “Boneyards”. Was that a bad idea? Not that I’m aware of.
The reader’s understanding of the tech involved is only allowed to progress as the main characters grasp it. This is why stealth tech in the first book leaves you disappointed. They don’t know what it is and you don’t either, until some real understanding develops in later books. I appreciate that.
Type of read
Distant future, hard sci-fi with plausible, speculative science focusing on ancient human tech that was lost as humanity spread throughout the galaxy. Mystery, intrigue, aspects of adventure and drama.
A great way to delve into another world and have a break from your own.
My heart aches for the beautiful town of Lahaina and the people of Maui who are in anguish.
Sci-fi often paints post-apocalyptic or dystopian scenarios for a multitude of reasons, but who can capture the reality of disasters and human suffering? We try not to paint tragedy too close to home so that the stories can provide both an escape and a way to ponder difficult things from a safe distance.
If we were living in the 24th century looking back on our current day, we might be thinking, “I would hate to have lived in that era, with all the wildfires and plastic in the oceans, economic imbalance and social injustice, and…” Fill in the blank. Or would we be looking back wistfully, trying to imagine what it was like to live in a world without robots and AI running everything, having the freedom to explore forests, have beach days, hot air ballon rides, and a world of variety in cuisine and travel?
When tragedy strikes somewhere far away, we often reach out, rallying around the stricken people in that place. But as time goes by, we lose interest, move on, focus on things that make our own lives happy. Or sometimes, we pull into our shells for survival because we can’t handle the problems of the world in addition to our own.
Human life survives and overcomes because of people banding together in a crisis—in any century. We can’t help everyone, but we can help someone. Even when we can’t handle hearing too much about the tragedies of the world, we can listen to some of it. And we should. As we find our place in the human scaffolding, our part to play however small, we grow stronger. We see a way forward.
We’re better equipped for the troubles that touch us on a personal level.
Lahaina will never be the same, but it will rebuild with the help of many, and we can contribute to that. Let’s not lose interest too quickly.
I’m not recommending a particular fundraiser, (though if you are looking for one, these seem good: Hawaii Community Foundation, GoFundMe links to multiple verified choices).
I’m calling for hearts to engage and care.
That is what gives meaning to life in every era.
Very good description of the novel, and an even better discussion of the limitations that AI has. Most so called AI today is pure propaganda, claiming that existing computer systems are AI. No. AI is much more, and a valuable tool, also perhaps a tool for faking business recommendations, resumes, college papers and other documents which must be real to be of value. The good uses will become a constant benefit, but we must be on the look out for the false information that it might make possible.