“I’m a fool in search of wisdom … and I’m on the road to madness.”
Queensrÿche
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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 