With the release of various interesting text generation tools, I’m starting an experiment this and next month.
I will be posting computer generated text, prompted by my own current interests, to a separate blog and Mastodon account. For two months I will explore how such generated texts may create interaction or not with and between people, and how that feels.
There are several things that interest me.
I currently experience generated texts as often bland, as flat planes of text not hinting at any richness of experience of the author lying behind it. The texts are fully self contained, don’t acknowledge a world outside of it, let alone incorporate facets of that world within itself. In a previous posting I dubbed it an absence of ‘proof of work’.
Looking at human agency and social media dynamics, asymmetries often take agency away. It is many orders of magnitude easier to (auto)post disinformation or troll than it is for individuals to guard and defend against. Generated texts seem to introduce new asymmetries: it is much cheaper to generate reams of text and share them, than it is in terms of attention and reading for an individual person to determine if they are actually engaging with someone and intentionally expressed meaning, or are confronted with a type of output where only the prompt that created it held human intention.
If we interact with a generated text by ourselves, does that convey meaning or learning? If annotation is conversation, what does annotating generated texts mean to us? If multiple annotators interact with eachother, does new meaning emerge, does meaning shift?
Can computer generated texts be useful or meaningful objects of sociality?
Right after I came up with this, my Mastodon timeline passed me this post by Jeff Jarvis, which seems to be a good example of things to explore:
I posted this imperfect answer from GPTchat and now folks are arguing with it.Jeff Jarvis
My computer generated counterpart in this experiment is Artslyz Not (which is me and my name, having stepped through the looking glass). Artslyz Not has a blog, and a Mastodon account. Two computer generated images show us working together and posing together for an avatar.
The generated image of a person and a humanoid robot writing texts
The generated avatar image for the Mastodon account
Another overly busy and high speed week, but it should be a bit less hectic and more manageable after this one.
This week I
Had a half day of sessions on the Dutch intergovernmental data strategy at an event with 300 participants. I came away somewhat worried as it seems that the rol of geo-information in it is rather invisible, and that the Dutch strategy talks about the connection to the European data strategy as a hierarchical one which seems a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s in the works.
Had the weekly client meetings.
Got asked to talk about ActivityPub for the Dutch general standardisation body during an informal meet-up.
Worked on a memo on the EU High Valu Data implementation for the strategic government geo-information council
Had a conversation with the Ministry for the Interior about the implementation of the EU High Value Data list, and the process for an implementation review to be conducted by government data holders early next year. Such reviews are generally free format, but we suggested using the impact framework that was part of the original advice about these datasets I co-authored for the European Commission in 2020, and structure the impact on costs along the same lines. This so the reviews are comparable between dataholders.
Presented and participated in the interprovincial digital agenda project leaders meeting.
Participated in a preparatory call for a visit of the deputy minister for the interior in January to a client.
Had an interview with a potential new hire for our team.
Had the monthly all hands half-day meeting with our team.
Got re-elected as treasurer of the Open Nederland association for two years, at the fall general assembly. Open Nederland is the Dutch Creative Commons chapter, and represents makers and creatives.
Had a conversation with a potential member of the interprovincial digital ethics committee we are forming, to explain the plans for it.
Took on the role of project lead for the digital ethics projects at the interprovincial body, from January 1st. The current project lead is leaving, and for the final 3 months they don’t want to bring in a new face.
Participated in a session about the Data Spaces Support Centre, to hear more about their work planning for the coming year(s)
Spent a day on creating a presentation about the positioning of the strategic government geo-information council in the context of European data strategy developments. To be presented at, and turned into a memo after, next week’s meeting of the council.
Went and picked out a new Christmas tree.
Celebrated Sinterklaas with E’s family in our home. Only Y is still in the age of believing in Sinterklaas, so we mixed it with the exchange of crafted Sinterklaas surprises for the rest of us. It took some hours for me to craft a factory building, with lighting inside, and a machine in the middle. Inside the machine the actual present for nephew M. was hidden. It was fun to have everyone over.
Launched an experiment to play with computer generated texts.
The factory I crafted from the outside, not shown is the machine and control room light switch on the inside, nor the accompanying poem.