Five for your weekend:
I’ve been reading a lot about generative AI lately, and found this piece by Ted Chiang (the science fiction writer who, among other things, wrote the story on which Arrival is based) to be especially helpful in conceptualizing how tools like ChatGPT work. It helped explain why, whenever we ask ChatGPT to describe the books I have authored, it brings up books I haven’t authored but maybe could have?
I also read this outstanding profile of the AI researcher Emily Bender, which put words to a lot of the lingering thoughts I’ve been having about what artificial intelligence can do and what it definitely, definitely shouldn’t (but probably will). It’s so good.
Sarah Weinman on the essential Patricia Highsmith.
I’m still reading Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock (it’s best read slowly, which I guess makes sense), but I am really savoring it.
And I am reminded of this wonderful interview with Odell, which I re-read periodically.
What I’ve been up to
Mostly trying not to panic about the impending end of my job?
But also, I found time during True/False to write about the new season of Party Down, which is splendid, and how it is just one big reminder that hustle culture is a scam.
And I talked with Michael Schulman — whose new book Oscar Wars is a delight — about why the Oscars are always way behind everything and seemingly always having some kind of crisis.
Enjoyed this? If you’re feeling it, I won’t object if you buy me a cup of coffee. Writers need fuel.