I caught the parody the moment I noted that Hadden had liked your post (I had just read his post). If one were to just skim the first few lines one might easily think that you are trying to make a serious argument - this piece made a perfect case for reading articles to the end! It also raises serious concerns about the ease with which ChatGPT will be able to sway peoples perceptions and opinions....
I was taken by that too, Ruth, the argument seemed to just effortlessly flow in the piece that ChatGPT wrote - plus its vocabulary was so sophisticated. I was relieved when Mike revealed it was in fact ChatGPT what wrote it, even though I had detected the parody before the end.
I was a bit crafty in my interjections, so that it wove seamlessly with the specific issue at hand. This 'personalising' of machine text is what makes Ruth's point so important. I think we can (still) mostly spot the pure form of ChatGPT. But if a reasonably skilled writer adapts say 5% of it, all bets are off.
I was initially suspicious of the photo, I was thinking it was a photoshop fake. Whilst reading the article I kept thinking I must in investigate this to see if it is real or if you'd made it up.
Sokal and Bricmont had a great discussion on these points in "Fashionable Nonsense". I suspect the obscurity of scholarly language emerges as the result of an arms race between scholars in their fields. As you point out, it conveniently creates a barrier to entry for outsiders afterwards.
Typically, for me, I have only read *about* Fashionable Nonsense but now you've recommended it it's on the list. I share your suspicion too, because I think that status-seeking plays much too big a role in influencing how people *say* they see the world, especially in the Humanities.
It is a great book. I highly recommend it. Both entertaining with the unpacking of nonsensical citations misusing scientific concepts, and insightful about what science is (should be).
This was brilliant Mike, and had me laughing - a lot. And you are right about when the joke was realised - it was the reference to the Isle of Man. This made me chuckle and reminded me of the dry, blunt British humour that I love so much. The Bristol Aiport Abomination may represent all that I despise about my home country - but then I remember we have mastered dry humour and that compensates a little.
I love your point as well about convoluted language puts up a barrier between the "common man" and "the elite". I wonder if in a debate only simple language could be used whether the common man would be found to be more witty, sharp and intelligent than the expert elite.
Ok, well my first thought was "but it does look like a bus stop". I thought you were being conciliatory or trying to offer the pov of "the clever people" - trying to say what they would say. I did notice the destination list and that just made me think that you were poking fun at hideous public architecture after all. My last thought was pedantic: but strictly speaking it's not even a building as it doesn't have a proper door.
Photo was immediately suspicious, "As an expert..." had me scrolling to where you confessed to using LLM to generate text. 😅
On the Sokol hoax, I would not trust Sokol's own account, personally. The incident was a red flag about peer review, though, one still ignored and far more serious than mere magniloquent prose or concept-dense essays.
Yes, I've read a lot (from academics) about peer review often not fulfilling the quality assurance - or even basic accuracy checking - function that we expect it to. See Ian Leslie's Ruffian pieces on the 'African metallurgists' as a dispiriting recent example.
Experience rather than skill, perhaps... Large Language Models are like matte paintings in movies - once you're familiar with the technique it stands out (although matte paintings are beautiful artefacts, and LLMs ugly brutes).
When the quality of the writing plummeted, I knew a talented human had been replaced with a witless robot. 😋
Excellent piece. I found the Bristol Airport destinations humorous as I was reading, but still thought this was your genuine view (one I disagreed with but everyone is entitled to their view); until the reveal this was a parody. At which point I laughed out loud. But seriously it does show the power of ChatGPT to come up with what looks a rational and reasoned point of view. I wonder that it would come up with if its brief was to write something that is a humorous parody ?
That's an interesting thought, because parody is subtle, relying on a distinctly human appreciation of when sincerity crosses the invisible line into mischief. I don't think it does brilliantly with the prompt I just tried below. It's reasonably amusing, but sounds too 'midwit' to me.
You've got me thinking about humour and the timing of the jarring moment that gives it impact. I'm thinking that the humourist has to really know their audience to make that work. (I might also not be a very good prompt writer, though).
I've noticed with Chatty that it would do well at school, but it would never be able to hang with the cool kids who can always detect when someone is trying too hard.
I think humour is a fascinating area for Turing-type tests.
Write 250 words parodying intellectuals who like brutalist architecture. Make it as stupid but believable as possible
Ah, behold the sublime majesty of Brutalist architecture, a testament to the unparalleled genius of concrete enthusiasts. Picture this: a utopian society where we revel in the sheer absurdity of angular concrete blocks, a manifestation of architectural enlightenment that transcends mere mortal comprehension.
In the realm of Brutalism, we find solace in the raw, unapologetic brutality of exposed concrete, a material so refined that it scoffs at the frivolity of aesthetics. Who needs intricate ornamentation when you can have the sheer audacity of a featureless monolith? It's the epitome of sophistication for those who appreciate the delicate dance between industrial coldness and the warmth of... well, nothing.
Intellectuals, the vanguards of architectural absurdity, extol the virtues of Brutalism with fervor. "Ah, the sublime beauty of unadorned concrete," they muse, sipping artisanal soy lattes in angular coffee shops that could easily be mistaken for a parking garage.
In their esoteric discussions, they wax poetic about the transcendental experience of navigating a Brutalist maze – a metaphorical journey through the labyrinth of pretentiousness, where every cold, hard surface is a testament to their enlightened taste. For them, it's not just buildings; it's a way of life, an ode to the unforgiving embrace of brutalist absurdity.
In this alternate universe of architectural satire, the pinnacle of sophistication is a concrete bunker with all the charm of a Soviet-era parking structure – because who needs charm when you can have the cold, unyielding embrace of Brutalism?
Nov 25, 2023·edited Nov 25, 2023Liked by Mike Hind
Oh, you'd taken me in on this until about a quarter of the way through the defense of the building, when I thought "Is this just fucking with me? Since when does Mike Hind write deliberately embellished drek like Wes Yang?"
I'll take a moment to say that I think ChatGPT's defense is not entirely crap. The structure certainly is simple and *could be* functional (though I have my doubts; does water leak under those seemingly-open spaces at the bottom? are there actual affordances for "faith rituals" like prayer kneeling benches or somesuch inside?). Its lack of anything overtly religious or spiritual supports a non-denominational idea. It got me thinking about the rhetoric of structures: that as much as the structure may be clean, simple, and functional, there is a reason for embellishment: structures make people feel things, and this one does totally feel like a bus stop. In my personal opinion, not an ugly one, but it did not "say" anything about faith or spirituality to me.
It's surprising how naturally this led into the other areas you went to, about obscure language. I remember some of the anthropology texts my girlfriend showed me back in college: they were nigh-impenetrable. You had to read each sentence multiple times, and then summarize it for yourself in plain English. It certainly could have been written in plain English, so why wasn't it?
Part of the embellishments of both buildings and text have to do with their rhetorical situation. In many cases, one can boil this down to a sense of belonging. Does this thing (writing, structure) belong to what it wants to belong to? That anthropologist who wrote so much stuff that's impossible to parse easily (but not terribly hard to understand once translated) did so for a reason. That reason is the state of his field: if he hadn't written it that way, it wouldn't have been taken seriously in his field. Similarly, a structure that has a religious purpose without seeming to have any embellishments of the spiritual doesn't "read" correctly, doesn't belong to this set of structures that include structures for spiritual purpose. For a similar reason, churches in the US that just look like normal houses (or worse, like a commercial space) strike me as...in some sense gauche or bad (though they aren't). In some cases, there may be religious groups that deliberately choose a non-church-ish structure because of some elements of their faith, but in that case, that's still choosing embellishments for a rhetorical purpose.
This is inspiring me to think and maybe learn more about architecture as a 'language' (or rhetoric, yes). I had a thought recently that we might be able to argue that some of today's generic scepticism about 'experts' has a thick root in Britain's slum clearances and replacement by tower blocks. Those buildings said a lot to those who were moved into them. Part of which was the false claim that 'we know what's best for you'.
Something for readers to remember: by mere dint of you being the kind of person who reads Substack, we can infer that you are probably among the most intellectual people in your social circle.
It's true that if you tried to debate a leftoid Harvard professor, you might get your ass handed to you. But in reality you never have to do that. You're more likely to "debate" your 25 year old niece who's fresh out of university and enthusiastically spouting the Current Thing. And you're gonna win that one.
So what we all need to do is have some balls, and in our own small little local social life, make it clear that the Progressive Narrative is both stoooopid and big-E Evil. Stay calm, stay kind, stay gentle - but never back down and never apologize.
Don't expect to convert your friends & family in these discussions. That's not the goal. The point is to create an ambient mood - a vibe as the Zoomers say - where lies are refuted and the moral inversion rejected.
I laughed out loud when I first saw the photograph of the ridiculous "multi-faith area".
Then I started reading and wondered, "Hmm. Should I reconsider my initial reaction?"
Around, "But, no. It's apparently funny because it looks like a bus stop..." I began to wonder if you were making fun.
Read to the end.
These days, I love it when I question my own 'certainties' (which is why - despite your doubts in your last post, about the title of your Substack, I love "Rarely Certain"). The only title I like as much is The Great Humbling.
I usually find that when someone is trying really hard to sound clever, they are actually really dumb. Proper terminology matters but excessive jargon serves no practical purpose.
Cheers to GPT, it really threaded the needle between earnestness and parody, which was I kept reading instead of unsubscribing.
Just as people don’t want to see you smoking because it reminds them of their own mortality, people don’t want to see you praying at the airport because they fear their is good cause. Hence the wee privvy.
I caught the parody the moment I noted that Hadden had liked your post (I had just read his post). If one were to just skim the first few lines one might easily think that you are trying to make a serious argument - this piece made a perfect case for reading articles to the end! It also raises serious concerns about the ease with which ChatGPT will be able to sway peoples perceptions and opinions....
You make two important points for media literacy that I hadn't spotted - thanks Ruth !
I was taken by that too, Ruth, the argument seemed to just effortlessly flow in the piece that ChatGPT wrote - plus its vocabulary was so sophisticated. I was relieved when Mike revealed it was in fact ChatGPT what wrote it, even though I had detected the parody before the end.
I was a bit crafty in my interjections, so that it wove seamlessly with the specific issue at hand. This 'personalising' of machine text is what makes Ruth's point so important. I think we can (still) mostly spot the pure form of ChatGPT. But if a reasonably skilled writer adapts say 5% of it, all bets are off.
Absolutely. Gives university lecturers a headache I am sure.
I was initially suspicious of the photo, I was thinking it was a photoshop fake. Whilst reading the article I kept thinking I must in investigate this to see if it is real or if you'd made it up.
That's how bad the Multi faith area is.
Sokal and Bricmont had a great discussion on these points in "Fashionable Nonsense". I suspect the obscurity of scholarly language emerges as the result of an arms race between scholars in their fields. As you point out, it conveniently creates a barrier to entry for outsiders afterwards.
Typically, for me, I have only read *about* Fashionable Nonsense but now you've recommended it it's on the list. I share your suspicion too, because I think that status-seeking plays much too big a role in influencing how people *say* they see the world, especially in the Humanities.
It is a great book. I highly recommend it. Both entertaining with the unpacking of nonsensical citations misusing scientific concepts, and insightful about what science is (should be).
This was brilliant Mike, and had me laughing - a lot. And you are right about when the joke was realised - it was the reference to the Isle of Man. This made me chuckle and reminded me of the dry, blunt British humour that I love so much. The Bristol Aiport Abomination may represent all that I despise about my home country - but then I remember we have mastered dry humour and that compensates a little.
I love your point as well about convoluted language puts up a barrier between the "common man" and "the elite". I wonder if in a debate only simple language could be used whether the common man would be found to be more witty, sharp and intelligent than the expert elite.
Ha - glad you liked it (and caught the clue).
You pose an interesting question there. Maybe it's testable with AI. Something to play with, methinks.
Ok, well my first thought was "but it does look like a bus stop". I thought you were being conciliatory or trying to offer the pov of "the clever people" - trying to say what they would say. I did notice the destination list and that just made me think that you were poking fun at hideous public architecture after all. My last thought was pedantic: but strictly speaking it's not even a building as it doesn't have a proper door.
Love that you got the clue. It's good job I confessed to knowing nothing about architecture !
Damn. Either ChatGPT is really smart or I am really stupid.
Photo was immediately suspicious, "As an expert..." had me scrolling to where you confessed to using LLM to generate text. 😅
On the Sokol hoax, I would not trust Sokol's own account, personally. The incident was a red flag about peer review, though, one still ignored and far more serious than mere magniloquent prose or concept-dense essays.
Thanks for the diversion!
Good skills there.
Yes, I've read a lot (from academics) about peer review often not fulfilling the quality assurance - or even basic accuracy checking - function that we expect it to. See Ian Leslie's Ruffian pieces on the 'African metallurgists' as a dispiriting recent example.
Experience rather than skill, perhaps... Large Language Models are like matte paintings in movies - once you're familiar with the technique it stands out (although matte paintings are beautiful artefacts, and LLMs ugly brutes).
When the quality of the writing plummeted, I knew a talented human had been replaced with a witless robot. 😋
Stay wonderful!
Thanks - I'll do my best 🤠
But as much as I would like the photo to be fake - it really is real. Bristol Airport really did build this - and publicised it like they were proud!
Excellent piece. I found the Bristol Airport destinations humorous as I was reading, but still thought this was your genuine view (one I disagreed with but everyone is entitled to their view); until the reveal this was a parody. At which point I laughed out loud. But seriously it does show the power of ChatGPT to come up with what looks a rational and reasoned point of view. I wonder that it would come up with if its brief was to write something that is a humorous parody ?
That's an interesting thought, because parody is subtle, relying on a distinctly human appreciation of when sincerity crosses the invisible line into mischief. I don't think it does brilliantly with the prompt I just tried below. It's reasonably amusing, but sounds too 'midwit' to me.
You've got me thinking about humour and the timing of the jarring moment that gives it impact. I'm thinking that the humourist has to really know their audience to make that work. (I might also not be a very good prompt writer, though).
I've noticed with Chatty that it would do well at school, but it would never be able to hang with the cool kids who can always detect when someone is trying too hard.
I think humour is a fascinating area for Turing-type tests.
Write 250 words parodying intellectuals who like brutalist architecture. Make it as stupid but believable as possible
Ah, behold the sublime majesty of Brutalist architecture, a testament to the unparalleled genius of concrete enthusiasts. Picture this: a utopian society where we revel in the sheer absurdity of angular concrete blocks, a manifestation of architectural enlightenment that transcends mere mortal comprehension.
In the realm of Brutalism, we find solace in the raw, unapologetic brutality of exposed concrete, a material so refined that it scoffs at the frivolity of aesthetics. Who needs intricate ornamentation when you can have the sheer audacity of a featureless monolith? It's the epitome of sophistication for those who appreciate the delicate dance between industrial coldness and the warmth of... well, nothing.
Intellectuals, the vanguards of architectural absurdity, extol the virtues of Brutalism with fervor. "Ah, the sublime beauty of unadorned concrete," they muse, sipping artisanal soy lattes in angular coffee shops that could easily be mistaken for a parking garage.
In their esoteric discussions, they wax poetic about the transcendental experience of navigating a Brutalist maze – a metaphorical journey through the labyrinth of pretentiousness, where every cold, hard surface is a testament to their enlightened taste. For them, it's not just buildings; it's a way of life, an ode to the unforgiving embrace of brutalist absurdity.
In this alternate universe of architectural satire, the pinnacle of sophistication is a concrete bunker with all the charm of a Soviet-era parking structure – because who needs charm when you can have the cold, unyielding embrace of Brutalism?
Oh, you'd taken me in on this until about a quarter of the way through the defense of the building, when I thought "Is this just fucking with me? Since when does Mike Hind write deliberately embellished drek like Wes Yang?"
I'll take a moment to say that I think ChatGPT's defense is not entirely crap. The structure certainly is simple and *could be* functional (though I have my doubts; does water leak under those seemingly-open spaces at the bottom? are there actual affordances for "faith rituals" like prayer kneeling benches or somesuch inside?). Its lack of anything overtly religious or spiritual supports a non-denominational idea. It got me thinking about the rhetoric of structures: that as much as the structure may be clean, simple, and functional, there is a reason for embellishment: structures make people feel things, and this one does totally feel like a bus stop. In my personal opinion, not an ugly one, but it did not "say" anything about faith or spirituality to me.
It's surprising how naturally this led into the other areas you went to, about obscure language. I remember some of the anthropology texts my girlfriend showed me back in college: they were nigh-impenetrable. You had to read each sentence multiple times, and then summarize it for yourself in plain English. It certainly could have been written in plain English, so why wasn't it?
Part of the embellishments of both buildings and text have to do with their rhetorical situation. In many cases, one can boil this down to a sense of belonging. Does this thing (writing, structure) belong to what it wants to belong to? That anthropologist who wrote so much stuff that's impossible to parse easily (but not terribly hard to understand once translated) did so for a reason. That reason is the state of his field: if he hadn't written it that way, it wouldn't have been taken seriously in his field. Similarly, a structure that has a religious purpose without seeming to have any embellishments of the spiritual doesn't "read" correctly, doesn't belong to this set of structures that include structures for spiritual purpose. For a similar reason, churches in the US that just look like normal houses (or worse, like a commercial space) strike me as...in some sense gauche or bad (though they aren't). In some cases, there may be religious groups that deliberately choose a non-church-ish structure because of some elements of their faith, but in that case, that's still choosing embellishments for a rhetorical purpose.
This is inspiring me to think and maybe learn more about architecture as a 'language' (or rhetoric, yes). I had a thought recently that we might be able to argue that some of today's generic scepticism about 'experts' has a thick root in Britain's slum clearances and replacement by tower blocks. Those buildings said a lot to those who were moved into them. Part of which was the false claim that 'we know what's best for you'.
You may be interested in reading *A Pattern Language* -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language -- if you haven't already.
p.s. -- I read 'a cacophony of unnecessary ornamentation' and thought, 'this may be a prank'.
Your title puts me in mind of the servant Affery Flintwich in Little Dorritt.....her frequent references to "them clever ones".
Ha ! That's how us ordinary folk are supposed to think, isn't it.
Some of "them clever ones" (like the 'Deconstructivist' 'starchitect' Frank Gehry) are currently reshaping the world's great cities with stuff that makes your Chatgpt-aided spoof sound almost reasonable! https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/deconstructing-deconstructivism
I don’t see being against the public participation and facility facilitated dogma as a bad thing.
Something for readers to remember: by mere dint of you being the kind of person who reads Substack, we can infer that you are probably among the most intellectual people in your social circle.
It's true that if you tried to debate a leftoid Harvard professor, you might get your ass handed to you. But in reality you never have to do that. You're more likely to "debate" your 25 year old niece who's fresh out of university and enthusiastically spouting the Current Thing. And you're gonna win that one.
So what we all need to do is have some balls, and in our own small little local social life, make it clear that the Progressive Narrative is both stoooopid and big-E Evil. Stay calm, stay kind, stay gentle - but never back down and never apologize.
Don't expect to convert your friends & family in these discussions. That's not the goal. The point is to create an ambient mood - a vibe as the Zoomers say - where lies are refuted and the moral inversion rejected.
This is a very shallow take. There are other interesting angles that you could have taken on this apparently insignificant little story.
Your take was indeed much deeper.
I laughed out loud when I first saw the photograph of the ridiculous "multi-faith area".
Then I started reading and wondered, "Hmm. Should I reconsider my initial reaction?"
Around, "But, no. It's apparently funny because it looks like a bus stop..." I began to wonder if you were making fun.
Read to the end.
These days, I love it when I question my own 'certainties' (which is why - despite your doubts in your last post, about the title of your Substack, I love "Rarely Certain"). The only title I like as much is The Great Humbling.
I usually find that when someone is trying really hard to sound clever, they are actually really dumb. Proper terminology matters but excessive jargon serves no practical purpose.
Cheers to GPT, it really threaded the needle between earnestness and parody, which was I kept reading instead of unsubscribing.
Just as people don’t want to see you smoking because it reminds them of their own mortality, people don’t want to see you praying at the airport because they fear their is good cause. Hence the wee privvy.