Are you a writer? An editor? A small press publisher?
I wrote an article for the widely-read Substack site Lit Mag News about the ongoing AI craze, in which I tried to give some background to the technology and cover all aspects of how it will impact those in the literary community.
Is it worth reading? YES!
(Plus there are about 58 supportive and contentious comments at the end of it.)
Take a look:
RECENTLY I did an interview with Wred Fright for Patrick King and the Mugwump Corporation. Much scattered thoughts about some crazy times, a slice of literary history.
With gigantic monopolistic corporations more powerful than ever-- dominating the culture-- alternative voices and ideas are more important than they've ever been. Needed: credible indie scenes, of the kind the Underground Literary Alliance once so capably represented. Culture belongs to everybody!
Sign the Petition NOW to take action against chatbots producing A.I. books and content and thereby replacing human writers. At minimum, all literary products should be labelled if created by bots.
This is an issue which should unite all writers high and low, be they on the left or the right.
The Petition.
Thanks!
No, it's not the violent hitting. Fans could better watch boxing, MMA-- or hockey-- for that.
The National Football League is the Number One watched sport in America by far for two main reasons.
1.) SPEED AND ACCURACY.
The sport is start and stop but once it starts it becomes amazing bursts of speed and energy, either backs carrying the ball running at unreal speed across the field dodging tacklers while so doing, or the football rocketed from the hand of the quarterback like a laser-guided missile. The United States is a nation-- an economy-- built on precision and efficiency. No sport reflects this better than American-style football. (A metaphor also for the precision of the modern battlefield? Probably.)
2.) STIMULATING THE ANALYTICAL MIND
Because of the complexities of its schemes and strategies, American-style football appeals to the analytical mind. The left side, if you will, of right-brain left-brain dichotomy. Nerdy (for athletes) TV analysts-- usually middling former players such as Dan Orlovsky and Emmanuel Acho who got by due to their understanding of the game-- spend countless hours breaking down every fine detail of why this team was successful and that one was not. Intellectuals assessing a made-up game, but no less intellectual for all that, with appeal to the intellect of fans every bit as much as the game's sensory aspects of speed, color, and movement appeal to them.
Are there lessons here for those involved in the literary game?
Is Elon Musk himself the chief ingredient in Tesla Motors' trillion-dollar market valuation?
It's true he's been the face of the auto company almost from the beginning. Visionary, but also hypemaster.
HOW MUCH of the current stock price is pure hype?
If the hype is 10%, the stock is overpriced by 10%. If 25%, a 25% overvaluation. And so on.
Tesla fans need to get out of their heads the idea that Tesla is fifteen or twenty times better-- or has a twenty times better future-- than General Motors or Ford. This unrealistic view is based on the most important phrase uttered about Tesla-- whether coined by Musk or one of his team, or one of their fans: "Tesla is more than an auto company."
Is it really?
Maybe at the outset, but legacy manufacturers-- Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, Toyota-- are scrambling to catch up in tech features, and most importantly, in battery technology.
The Tesla stock price has two props. Two premises. Assumptions which have become assertions.
1.) Tesla will continue to lead in battery efficiency and distance. (Which is, really, the ballgame.)
2.) Tesla will be first to develop Full Self Driving. True autonomous vehicles.
Do these two pillars rest on quicksand?
Re #1. Tesla may have already lost its ten-year lead. Hyundai's Kona Electric has achieved 637 miles per charge. Nio's ET7, 621. The new Lucid Air is getting more than 500. GM's soon-to-appear Ultium battery is said to be state of the art, as is BYD's Blade battery, which will also be used by Toyota.
Re #2. The assumption that Tesla leads in Full Self Driving rests on the assumptions a.) autonomous driving is soon perfectible by anybody; b.) it will be approved for widespread use; c.) consumers in large numbers will buy it. Beyond that is the assumption Tesla, by not using Lidar (a laser imaging device) has chosen the quickest and safest route to the goal. Maybe. But maybe not.
THERE IS also a third pillar sustaining Tesla's stock price, and that's the stock market bubble itself. Once central banks begin seriously raising interest rates in order to quash inflation, what will result? We'll find out.
The key question is: Will Elon Musk's luck run out?
To date he's tangled with co-founders, critics, banks, regulators, competitors, media, and always comes out on top. Which doesn't mean this will continue. The one person in fact who can least afford a public setback is Musk, for this would puncture the bubble of perception about his unstoppable genius.
In this regard, the historical example most analogous to his situation is that of Napoleon. You know: the French conqueror who at the height of his success crowned himself emperor. A giant setback was sure to follow-- and did, when Bonaparte invaded Russia, then quickly enough had to leave, his much-lauded army vanished in ice and snow.
There's a kind of immutable law in the universe which decrees if you get too high, too hubristic, you're due for a devastating crash.
Anyway, I wouldn't bet against it.
From the beginning Tesla has been a historic gamble. Elon Musk and his partners spotted an opening in the universe and decided to jump through it: be the first to build an exciting, marketable, competitive electric car. The gamble has paid off tremendously-- Tesla Motors sitting at a trillion-dollar valuation. But it still is, as it's always been, a race against time.
The Gamble: Create and dominate the Electric Vehicle market before established manufacturers gear up to stop you.
I'm from Detroit. My dad worked in auto plants most of his life. One of my older sisters dated a high-level General Motors manager. I worked in an auto plant-- Dodge Truck-- right out of high school. I worked on cars with my dad from when I was eight. Growing up I was steeped in car culture, and more, in car industry culture. Based on John DeLorean's sad story, as well as the movie "Tucker," I was taught to believe it's impossible to build a car company from scratch and compete with the giants. Too much knowledge and expertise required, too many resources involved.
To date Tesla Motors has fifteen manufacturing plants of all kinds around the world both operating and planned. General Motors alone has 122, half of which it claims can be converted for EV manufacture.
Tesla's gamble is akin to the gamble taken by the German army in the summer of 1941 when it invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. (Sorry for the analogy, but I can't come up with a better one.) Or: Invade Russia, get to Moscow and defeat the decrepit regime before said regime can mobilize its enormous resources and population to stop you-- and before the brutal Russian winter does likewise. Even maniacally overconfident Hitler knew the risk. He's quoted as saying it was like opening the door to a dark room, in which you don't know what awaits on the other side.
History shows the Germans won many battles, had phenomenal success, but it wasn't enough. They lost.
Is this the fate which awaits Tesla Motors and Elon Musk?
(I'll have more to say on the topic.)
