I’m about 80 pages into writing my book, although most of it is classified except for the first couple chapters.
But as noted before, it can be fun to see how AI interprets my writing.
Having just finished chapter 6 of my book, I decided to use Speechfy’s “podcast” feature to generate a late-night show about the chapter.
I find the results amusing. What do you think?
As previously posted, I’ve been having a heck of a tricky time nailing down my Thunder Road cover.
The song is long and fast and has lots of words. It does not follow anything close to a standard rock song format. The chords are complex and unpredictable.
Being a total amateur, I specialize in covers of basic three-chord songs, so this craziness is hard for me.
But I like the challenge.
To a point.
Always an AI skeptic – but seeing glimmers of fun and utility – AI seems to have come to the rescue again. I don’t want AI to create music for me, but rather to help me create music.
it started when this music app called Moises recently won an Apple Design Award as iPad app of the year, so I decided to give it a try.
👉Btw I’m not trying to sell anyone’s apps here – this isn’t advertising. I don’t make a cent off of this blog. I just think it’s cool, so keep reading…
With Moises + GarageBand on my iPad, I was able to:
So I ended up up with my very rough guitar and kept Bruce’s vocals – all in one take (which is why it’s so rough). It’s just a proof of concept, but here it is: me playing grungy guitar while Bruce sings. Crazy!
Pardon it’s so messy. Sure, the sound is meant to be messy, but also this is the very first take and only a proof of concept.
My next step will be to sing the song myself, remove Bruce’s vocals, add my own drums and bass and maybe keys. And that will be my cover.
Stay tuned.
A couple of years ago, I decided to play with ChatGPT and have it write a blog post for me. The results, I wrote, were believable but super generic and cliched. They reminded me of like a blowhard who is good at showing off but not actually very smart.
Now we know that, despite all the computing power required, AI really isn’t that smart; this is why it requires way more training than a person does.
Although it can be a useful aid.
In that frame, it made me reflect in ways that AI has actually become useful while writing a novel.
And no, it’s not actually writing any of the book for me. I tried that today as a fun experiment, and it was still just… amusing. Here’s a sample, but it’s basically all like this.
Lena was gone. And with her, the version of James that believed love could be mapped, managed, or mutually agreed upon.
And so began that particular summer, where the tequila was cheap, the dreams were rented, and every good story started with a woman who left before the music stopped
Has AI gotten worse? 😆
Also note that ChatGPT somehow (by coincidence?) used the same protagonist name that I’m using in my book, although I did not give that name in the prompt. Interesting… 😤
Still, AI is actually amazing at a couple of things.
After writing a chapter of the book, I can feed the text into Speechify and instantly turn it into a really good audiobook. This is not just a basic Siri-style reading but a realistic voice with feeling. You can pick from a bunch of voices voice, including a few celebrities, although the founder “Cliff” is my favorite. It’s fun to listen to, and hearing your story interpreted in someone else’s voice is both instructive and fascinating.
I also like to use the summarize tool. Even the much maligned Apple Intelligence is helpful for simply summarizing a few paragraphs I just wrote. It’s a useful check to tell me if I’m getting the intended idea across, like, “Yeah, that’s what I meant,” or “Ohh, this needs work.” Like Speechify, it’s also just kind of fun to see what “someone” else thinks of your story.
As noted previously, ChatGPT is a pretty amazing AI chat bot with some very human limitations (basically, it’s kind of a bore and a blowhard).
For fun, I decided to have ChatGPT write me a blog post for my quotes section. I mean, maybe the bot can just take over here. 🤷🏻♂️
> write a brief, inspiring blog post with a famous quote
After spitting out several posts about Steve Jobs quotes, I had to clarify… while Steve Jobs had some great things to say, let’s try something new.
> write a brief, inspiring blog post with a famous quote not from Steve Jobs
The result is definitely Michael Scott certified.
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky
This quote from legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky reminds us that in order to succeed, we have to take risks and be willing to step out of our comfort zone. It's easy to play it safe and stick with what we know, but it's only by taking chances that we can truly grow and reach our full potential.
It's okay to be afraid of failure, but we have to remember that failure is a natural part of the journey towards success. Every missed shot is an opportunity to learn and improve. And even if we do fail, we can take comfort in knowing that we tried our best and that we have the chance to try again.
So don't be afraid to take that shot, whatever it may be. Whether it's pursuing a new career, starting a business, or trying something new, have the courage to step out and take a chance. You never know what amazing things you'll accomplish when you embrace the unknown.
So, mission accomplished: it is brief and inspiring and it does have a quote.
I don’t remember asking it to be comically generic and cliched. I guess it took its own initiative on that. 😆
ChatGPT is software that is designed to chat with you like a really smart person. It can make up a story, convert it to a Shakespearean poem, and then solve a math problem all automatically and all within seconds. 🤯
The Daily covered it nicely on the episode Did Artificial Intelligence Just Get Too Smart?
ChatGPT is pretty incredible, especially for students trying to fake a term paper. But the ChatGPT blog itself calls out some interesting and very human-like limitations. In particular, it’s sort of a bore and a blowhard. 😆
So it is overconfident and under-reliable, repetitive, a bit of a motormouth, makes assumptions, is biased, and sometimes lacks moral backbone. Does this sound like anyone you know? 😆
Still, this software an amazing accomplishment. Kudos to the team for being open about its limitations and good luck making it better (and hopefully not evil 🤷🏻♂️).
Mental Break Town 