How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars
My September column in Locus Magazine.
This Friday (September 8) at 10hPT/17hUK, I’m livestreaming “How To Dismantle the Internet” with Intelligence Squared:
On September 12 at 7pm, I’ll be at Toronto’s Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation:
https://anotherstory.ca/events/29283
In my latest Locus Magazine column, “Plausible Sentence Generators,” I describe how I unwittingly came to use — and even be impressed by — an AI chatbot — and what this means for a specialized, highly salient form of writing, namely, “bullshit”:
https://locusmag.com/2023/09/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-plausible-sentence-generators/
Here’s what happened: I got stranded at JFK due to heavy weather and an air-traffic control tower fire that locked down every westbound flight on the east coast. The American Airlines agent told me to try going standby the next morning, and advised that if I booked a hotel and saved my taxi receipts, I would get reimbursed when I got home to LA.
