“I’m a fool in search of wisdom … and I’m on the road to madness.”
Queensrÿche
Those words are from the soundtrack of one of the worst nights of my life. Anyone who’s waded into Shaky Places may remember them. Why do I mention the lyrics here? April the first is April Fool’s Day. This year, it seems especially important to commemorate.
A few months ago, I wrote a post called Authenticity. In it, I described a review that got my name wrong. Let me clarify that Kirkus, a widely respected company, was the culprit. Their opinion comprised a paragraph and a couple of sentences (available here). Partway through the appraisal, their use of Torres instead of Turner made me suspect that something was amiss. Like the extra finger on a typical hand in a lot of A.I. imagery, no human would have made the mistake. Had a machine composed the synopsis?
Every tech company touts a virtual assistant. Microsoft had launched their Copilot feature before I had sat down to write. Always second-guessing my choices, I had even made some to spite the digital stickler. After all, wasn’t I creating more than a business letter? Hadn’t I cited my esteem for the author Marcel Proust and his series, “In Search of Lost Time” (at a length of more than a million words)? How had a now-too-familiar annoyance climbed into the Kirkus cockpit to admonish me for my verbose style? The answer won’t change how badly the memoir got ignored. A $450 expenditure, the brief assessment took up most of my advertising budget.
What’s artificial intelligence really costing us? I’m bombarded with an avalanche of fakery wherever I look. In the meantime, my online publication of Shaky Places has earned a meager audience. Well, you can’t say that I didn’t try. The project ends today. Am I the fool in the final analysis … or am I just a member of a world where they abound? Either way, I’m on the road to madness.
Colin Turner's Work 