Can humans talk to whales?
Adventures with artificial intelligence, part 1
I spent a lot of time this summer swimming and talking to artificial intelligence.
I did my swimming in Lake Washington and the Columbia River, where there are no whales, much less sperm whales, although the occasional orca can make its way up the Columbia. Usually I only think about sperm whales when I’m thinking about Moby Dick.1 Or right now, as I’m writing this post, trying to figure out what’s up with this sperm whale image above.2
But I think about orcas all the time, especially after writing 10,000 words about this one. (May she rest in peace.) I have a painting of an orca in my living room. I’ve flown in a seaplane painted to resemble an orca. The other day I was visiting a friend in Victoria, BC, and while I was sitting in her apartment, which is right along the edge of the Salish Sea, I saw wild orcas. Two pairs or more. Turning and splashing. Magical.
And, of course, not really “magical” at all, but organic and natural.
ANYWAY, artificial intelligence—
Which I have been playing with. Getting to know. Putting to work. Because I want to understand exactly how it’s going to obliterate me and all my friends. Writers, editors, teachers, designers, lawyers, et al. If I can’t outsmart AI, I want to tame it. I want to train it to be my assistant.
At the very least I want to understand it, and one way I get closer to understanding things is by writing about them. Also, reading about them. After a summer of reading Elif Batuman on AI (that piece is hilarious) and Mary Gaitskill on AI (that piece is not hilarious) and reading the answers ChatGPT gives me when I talk to it, I have many thoughts.
So, this is the first of a new series of occasional posts from me about AI and the writing life. What is AI doing to the field of writing? How can writers harness AI for their benefit? What scientific discoveries are being made as a result of machine learning? And how might it change the world? These are some of the topics I hope to address in these posts.
These posts will be for paid subscribers only.
And they won’t all be doom and gloom. In fact, I want to kick off this series on a hopeful note. AI could potentially change the world for the better. It could potentially save the world.
How?
Well, the answer has to do with sperm whales.