Searches

From the author of When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching A.I.-powered machines to write and talk like human beings. Its creators had a sweeping ambition--to get machines to communicate for us. But if this came to pass, would it be liberation or subjugation?; Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with this question. In 2021, she used a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral. The experience, revealing both the appeal and the danger of corporate-owned language machines, forced Vara to interrogate how technology has changed how she uses language, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the <Wall Street Journal’<s first Facebook reporter, to testing early versions of ChatGPT--all while adding to the trove of human-created material that Big Tech exploits. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life--including the viral A.I. experiment that started it all. <Searches< illuminates Big Tech’s incursion into our lives, while proposing that by harnessing the collective imagination that taught us to communicate in the first place, we might invent a nobler, freer relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.

Auteur

Vauhini Vara

Texte du rabat

"From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a personal and provocative exploration of how technology companies have reshaped human language, and, if we let them, could steal it from us When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching A.I.-powered machines to write and talk like human beings. Its creators had a sweeping ambition-to get machines to communicate for us. But if this came to pass, would it be liberation or subjugation? Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with this question. In 2021, she used a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister's death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral. The experience, revealing both the appeal and the danger of corporate-owned language machines, forced Vara to interrogate how technology has changed how she uses language, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journal's first Facebook reporter, to testing early versions of ChatGPT-all while adding to the trove of human-created material that Big Tech exploits. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life-including the viral A.I. experiment that started it all. Searches illuminates Big Tech's incursion into our lives, while proposing that by harnessing the collective imagination that taught us to communicate in the first place, we might invent a nobler, freer relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another"--

Résumé
From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a personal exploration of how technology companies have both fulfilled and exploited the human desire for understanding and connection

When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that could not only communicate, but could do all kinds of other activities, better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?

Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with these questions. In 2021, she asked a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral.

The experience, revealing both the power and the danger of corporate-owned technologies, forced Vara to interrogate how these technologies have influenced her understanding of her self and the world around her, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journal’*s first Facebook reporter, to asking ChatGPT for writing advice—while compelling her to add to the trove of human-created material exploited for corporations’ financial gain. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life—including the viral AI experiment that started it all. *Searches illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence, while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.