AI eternal

In our last post I mused on the possibility of streamlining the workflow here at SLS by subcontracting the dull writing tasks to an LLM, thus freeing up my cognitive resources to concentrate on the careful curation of the topics we would cover.

Of course the logical extension of such an arrangement would be to allow the bot the freedom to choose its own subjects, perhaps within broad parameters like “Notable Political Events” or “Cultural Developments”. I could then sit back and watch the posts appear on a regular schedule, rather than enduring the undignified scramble to get a piece out before the end of each month.

If I did set something like that up it would presumably go on indefinitely, reproducing and perhaps even extending my intellectual output long after my death. Since you, my readers, know me only through my writing, and the AI product would be essentially indistinguishable from the real thing, would that mean I had achieved functional immortality?

On a related note, I’ve been thinking I should quit my job, dealing as it does with the intractable problems of complicated humans, and see if I can get a gig in the burgeoning field of studying human-AI interaction. Judging by this article in the paper today, written by the co-founder of the Sentience Institute, it doesn’t seem too hard. I wonder if Tilly Norwood is looking for a therapist…