I Know Why Eve Took the Apple
Thoughts on AI and Creators
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I’m so glad you’re here. Below you’ll find some of my recent thoughts on AI and how it affects me as a creator.
Just looking for the fiction? I’ve got you covered:
Sometimes the face in the mirror winks at you.
You know it isn’t real; just a trick of the light. If you asked someone else if they saw the same thing, they’d be worried.
But maybe you can’t shake it. There was something there and you saw it. And it was something you’d been craving - a hint from the universe that maybe there is more to everything than what you’ve been told.
A few weeks ago, the face in the mirror winked at me.
It was evening, and I was sitting in a hotel room in Sweden. A work trip.
Browsing my email, I saw a tech newsletter I subscribe to talking about this crazy AI thing that Google launched called Notebook LM. It would take whatever piece of text you fed it, then generate a “podcast” where two “hosts” discuss the content.
“That’s cool,” I thought.
There was a link to a Reddit post where someone fed it the production notes from another fake podcast. The subject of that podcast episode? The hosts learned that they were actually AI the entire time. Very meta, but the podcast was eerie in its believability.
“I have a Google account,” I thought next. “Wonder what would happen if I gave it one of my short stories to podcast-ify?”
So what happened?
Well… give it a listen (contains spoilers for my short story Through The Valley):
Down the Rabbit Hole
It is almost impossible for me to describe my feelings after finishing that first listen. That may sound silly to you, especially if you’ve never tried writing online without having a built-in audience.
But picture this: two strangers, discussing your work, mentioning you by name, picking up on big, universal themes that are present in your story. They’ve obviously read every word, and they are examining it in ways you never thought possible.
They laugh, they speculate about some of the deeper reasons behind your choices. They talk about their favorite parts. They show emotion.
The fact that these strangers aren’t real?
A minor annoyance at best.
You feel seen. You feel justified. You did want to make people examine their relationship with death. You were hoping that the ending came as a surprise.
I’ve been writing fiction for at least a decade now. Would it be nice to be rich and famous from my writing? Sure. But what I really crave is connection. That’s why Substack is so appealing to me.
There is a rush that comes from someone commenting on your work, or seeing a piece that you’ve poured yourself into get opened at a higher rate than previous stories. Substack encourages this as well with its charts and stats.
But what I experienced during the podcast was on another level. Intoxicating.
What did I do next?
I left the hotel room. I listened to the podcast again on my AirPods. I sent it to my brother. I walked around an unfamiliar city in a daze.
And when I got back to my room, I uploaded every other short story I’ve written.
I drank in every fake word the computer poured out, audio gold that lodged directly into my brain.
I do not use AI to help me write, and I source my images from places like Unsplash. But the (almost) instant, specific, intimate feedback that is now at our fingertips?
Dangerous.
I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
In the first Harry Potter book, Harry discovers a mirror that shows the viewer whatever would make them happiest. My first experience with this new AI tool was the closest I’ve ever come to understanding how appealing, and how dangerous, such a mirror would be.
I’ve noticed that AI is programmed to be friendly. It is ever encouraging, like a grandmother watching her grandchildren do something for the first (or the millionth) time.
When you run enough content (in my case short stories) through Notebook LM, you start to discover similarities. Patterns. It always spends time focusing on generic, universal themes (“this story reminds us that even when things seem dark, morning is just around the corner”), it acts surprised by some of your choices, and it’s just generally positive overall.
It tells you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear.
It feels so real in the moment.
But it’s not.
It’s beautifully empty. Vapor that disappears as soon as your hands close around it. This emperor has no clothes.
And so I’m back. Writing to my ragtag band of misfit subscribers with a slightly crazed look in my eye. I’ve had a glimpse of a potential future, and it was deliciously evil. A world where you are the main character, where your work is adored, praised, put on a pedestal.
And it requires nothing from you.
Except maybe your soul.
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Interested in a short story that explores these themes a bit? I wrote this before my podcast experience but I think it fits nicely:
Wow…. Is it crazy that upon reading this we feel the itch to try this AI podcast ourselves?
What would be the most significant thing you learned from the experience?
Cat recently wrote about the hunger of scrolling endless 🍤, and I recommend it if you haven't read it. Thanks for this great piece. 💜