Late to the party

Hu Dat Lin strikes again

I hope you enjoy this guest post from Hu Dat Lin. Please note that any opinions, insinuations, and claims expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by Turtle Paradise.

Gentle readers,

It has been over a year since we were last in communication, and many of you have no doubt feared the worst. A unfortunate accident high in the Himalayas. A dangerous run-in with backwoods dwellers. A severe infection from a soil-covered garden implement.

I can assure you that none of these scenarios has come to pass. The truth is quite different—an extreme lassitude has overcome me in these past months as I struggle to come to terms with the remarkable advancements in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, and the way they are potentially revolutionizing not only writing, but reading. Not quite sure what I'm going on about? Let's take a deep dive.

During the past year I have become obsessed with attempting to identify AI presence in everything that I read—to the point that content has become not just secondary, but completely immaterial. My consuming goal has been to detect the signs of the non-human, left behind like grubby, machine-generated fingerprints in specific words and phrases, easily recognizable with the proper tools. Crouched in my cave-like abode, I have become like a reverse Dr. Frankenstein, striving over the not-quite-human, not in an attempt to create and animate, but to expose and banish.

During this dark time not only have words on the screen or page become completely devoid of meaning for me. I have also been tortured by the thought that should I again become capable of writing something, my own words will be scrutinized by others merely for the purpose of ferreting out the influence of artificial intelligence, their message lost to this obsessive task. Further contemplation of the topic served as a stepping stone to the realization that perhaps all along I have peppered my writing with unforgivable clichés. Perhaps my writing has not been groundbreaking, with the potential to revolutionize the thoughts of all who read it—as I had previously believed—but corny and amateurish.

During this past year I have suffered nightmares of the most abominable sort. I dreamed that LLMs were trained exclusively on my writing, which was the source of all the shop-worn metaphors and banality found in AI writing. In the worst of my nighttime visions I am trapped on a spot-lit stage while faceless Luddites hurl bitter melons at me, my parents (Jean-Claude Van Damme and P. D. James) standing in the wings with stern but approving looks. (I won't be providing a deep dive into this aspect of the nightmare, though a more robust evaluation is definitely needed!)

For now let's delve into the details of my state of mind as I set out into the new year. Weary and desultory after months of endless consumption of meaningless words, I came to a realization. It wasn't that my answers were incorrect. I was asking the wrong questions. Previously I had wondered if it was possible for humans, even boomers, to successfully identify AI influences in writing. My new question is, “Can an unwavering commitment to the exciting and groundbreaking technology of AI play a crucial role in determining my retirement income?”

I threw myself into the new task of gaining a nuanced understanding of the problem. The potential of significantly enhancing revenue streams by harnessing the ever evolving wonders of our digital age cannot be overstated, and no doubt my readers are waiting with bated breath for a comprehensive overview.

Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I saw reason and have decided not to provide an in-depth overview of my valuable insights, nor offer any actionable tips. Not because I don't deeply care about my readers. But because I’d rather use my knowledge to benefit solely myself. That's not selfishness. That's common sense. I will, of course, continue to offer my usual content. Nothing useful. Nothing profound. Just fluff. And that's not a threat. It's a promise.