Re: ChatGPT. I'm unimpressed by the quality of the output, and worried about the flood of content coming. Maggie Appleton had a great piece about it recently: https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest and Lars Doucet: https://www.fortressofdoors.com/ai-markets-for-lemons-and-the-great-logging-off/ So we're getting a lot more noise and weak content, but ... no tools that help high end writers write better yet. It is clear to me that none of the companies in the space have a deep understanding for what writing is, the process of it, and what a writer would want automated. I think there are great opportunities to help writers, if you have an understanding of their process etc. But I haven't seen any serious attempts yet.
Interestingly, the ChatGPT point also ties in with the first point: curating small communities will likely become more important going forward, as a way to ensure quality and trust. So there will be a strong incentive to develop tooling on this side. I don't know what it will look like really, but I'm not convinced Substack is trending in the right direction to fit this niche. I think what you want are ways to allow legitemate peripheral participation - ways for ppl to mature into a community, and gradually and fluidly get more access. Oh, I'm rambling and have no time to edit this!
Wow! Really surprised to get a reply, but I guess this is in a way illustrating the very point I made. I really enjoyed the posts you shared, and I agree that it seems to be the way most of the content of the web is headed. From a technology standpoint, what I think is that most AI models really are "compression algorithms", in that they draw associations from large swathes of data to then classify/replicate/recreate the same inputs. In this sense, building specialized AI for niche use cases such as creative writing seems to be a bit of a contradiction - at least with current models. Most likely, it would be something that these communities have to build for themselves.
I have to say I haven't had much experience building or interacting with online communities, so I have a lot more to learn in this space, but I do think that the average quality of content I'm getting on Substack is much better that what I'm seeing elsewhere. I'm aware that instagram's co founders are also building a writing-based social media app (https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/artifact-ai-news-app-instagram-founders-51675890026), so we'll have to see how that goes.
These are fascinating thoughts.
Re: ChatGPT. I'm unimpressed by the quality of the output, and worried about the flood of content coming. Maggie Appleton had a great piece about it recently: https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest and Lars Doucet: https://www.fortressofdoors.com/ai-markets-for-lemons-and-the-great-logging-off/ So we're getting a lot more noise and weak content, but ... no tools that help high end writers write better yet. It is clear to me that none of the companies in the space have a deep understanding for what writing is, the process of it, and what a writer would want automated. I think there are great opportunities to help writers, if you have an understanding of their process etc. But I haven't seen any serious attempts yet.
Interestingly, the ChatGPT point also ties in with the first point: curating small communities will likely become more important going forward, as a way to ensure quality and trust. So there will be a strong incentive to develop tooling on this side. I don't know what it will look like really, but I'm not convinced Substack is trending in the right direction to fit this niche. I think what you want are ways to allow legitemate peripheral participation - ways for ppl to mature into a community, and gradually and fluidly get more access. Oh, I'm rambling and have no time to edit this!
Have a lovely day
Wow! Really surprised to get a reply, but I guess this is in a way illustrating the very point I made. I really enjoyed the posts you shared, and I agree that it seems to be the way most of the content of the web is headed. From a technology standpoint, what I think is that most AI models really are "compression algorithms", in that they draw associations from large swathes of data to then classify/replicate/recreate the same inputs. In this sense, building specialized AI for niche use cases such as creative writing seems to be a bit of a contradiction - at least with current models. Most likely, it would be something that these communities have to build for themselves.
I have to say I haven't had much experience building or interacting with online communities, so I have a lot more to learn in this space, but I do think that the average quality of content I'm getting on Substack is much better that what I'm seeing elsewhere. I'm aware that instagram's co founders are also building a writing-based social media app (https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/artifact-ai-news-app-instagram-founders-51675890026), so we'll have to see how that goes.