The Muse December 2022 issue

I've gone and done it. Set up an OpenAI account and gave ChatGPT a whirl. Several whirls. First, an attempt at a natural conversation. That failed. For every one-line question or comment I wrote, it dumped a bucket of unwieldy verbosity on my screen. Repeated itself ad nauseum, as if it felt we humans have lost all of our capacity to remember a conversation of 2 seconds ago. It seemed more suited to answer specific questions or prompts that aligned with the content it had been trained on... and not necessarily the latest or most accurate content. When I asked it if it could engage in a human-like conversation, it said, "I don't have personal experiences or emotions, and I don't have the ability to have a 'human-like' conversation."

Well that's a relief.

I got bored with it fairly quickly. It's decent for specific questions and prompts but ask it to do deeper or more original writing and it flails. But the Internet did explode over it, gushing over how well ChatGPT writes, with some writers-and English teachers-already grieving over the apparently imminent end to the writing profession. Artists feel the same—most are none too thrilled with some neural network busting its way into their sacred creative space. And with good reason. AI like DALL*E can wipe away years of practice and effort.

It's not just the processing speed though. These algorithms have been trained (by human engineers) on millions of pieces of writing that we, human writers, have put out into the world for other humans to read. On milllions of images of art that have been published online. So it should come as no surprise that a neural network that has gobbled up millions of instances of images and text, would digest them all, remix them, and regurgitate them back at us in a dizzying variety of iterations. What takes us humans hours to write or create, it can take an AI mere seconds.

I won't sugarcoat it. It is highly likely that we writers will lose some portion of our livelihoods to these AI scribes--depending on the industry or market segment. In one sense, it's not all bad news. Take content mills, for example. The filler content that's clogging up the Internet's arteries for that extra hit of SEO either needs to be flushed down the pipes or significantly improved, and I dare imagine the human writers of that content have secret longings either to move on to more challenging writing or to engage in some other professional activity.

There's so much to unpack here. So much so I can see multiple books already being written about the impact of AI on creativity, even as I write this. (Hopefully they're all being written by humans). So much so I've decided to commit a whole Substack to the topic. And that brings me to the announcement that this... is the last issue of The Muse. On this email platform, that is.

More on this below in "Making the Scene." Fear not. A brave new world of the written word is blossoming!

~ Birgitte

 

Our sweet Mini Muse Aria has taken a year off from painting, but she has continued to draw and create... and as far as we know, none of her work has been gobbled up by DALL*E — although it did return images when I prompted it to generate a "Sunflower in the style of Aria Luna." None of them were really her style though, so I can't help but wonder if the AI is cheating a little, pretending to know who Aria Luna is but making it up as it goes along... you know, kinda like we humans sometimes do.

She's been focused on school, playing the piano and learning drums and the ukulele. And singing. I'm terrified I might have to start a music channel for her next because she's nearly as good at music as she is at art.

She does continue to do exhibits though... the most recent that just concluded is Red Dot Miami, where her work was displayed as part of a digital exhibit. She's got a few events coming up in 2023 as well, Los Angeles and New York.

We've also updated her site with new works for sale—do check out the original works and fine prints as gifts for the holidays! And if you love sending holiday cards as much as we do, she's got a beautiful selection. Use this code to get 10% off: THEMUSE2022. Code is valid through December 31, 2022.



Before the pandemic, I was planning on setting up something on Substack. Something a little different. I had a few ideas about what I could write about. It felt like a good platform then, better than Twitter, Instagram, and definitely TikTok. Snapchat has always made me physically nauseous, which I cannot explain. As for Facebook... also off the table. Whenever a platform starts to get saturated, and there are too many voices publishing content and clamoring for attention, my natural instinct is to go quiet. Conversation cannot be sustained in a loud room. Connection cannot be forged in a cascade of disjointed comments (not to mention the personal attacks, troll rolls, and out-of-context memes).

That's why it felt like a breeze of fresh air to see platforms like Medium and Substack come online. Then the only issue was, haha, time. And despite my best efforts to go full force on Substack, when the pandemic hit, well, that plan was put on hold... until now.

It's time.

It's time to say good-bye to this newsletter. I've enjoyed so much hearing from many of you over the years, knowing that the stories and musings I shared were resonating, and at times gave perhaps a different take on things. And that it made you smile.

But it's also time to say hello to a new home for The Muse. A larger, more comfortable, upgraded home. One with a plot of (online) land, and a small literary orchard (where you can read the first few pages of all my books).

The big move is January 2023! Starting next month, The Muse will go live on Substack. Yes, you can take a sneak peek. And yes you'll be ported over to the new email list.

One note: I am planning a subscription mode, for those pieces that take more research and effort, but there will be plenty of free posts as well, similar to what you are used to here.

Oh, one more thing. I'm starting work on a new novel. More on that next year.

As we come to the close of yet another ride around the Sun, I want to wish all of you and your families a blessed holiday season. I hope you are able to spend it with loved ones and friends. I hope you are able to slow down, release some of the pent up stresses of the year, hold close all the good times, and of course, enjoy great food with those you care about the most.

See you next year, at The Muse's new online digs!

~ Birgitte