[Vwoolf] Woolf and AI

[Jane deGay]

Happy Friday, Woolfians

Here's a Woolf sighting for you. Bernardine Evaristo, President of the UK's Royal Society of Literature has given a speech warning of the threats to literature posed by ChatGPT. She gives the example of asking GPT to write a sequel to Mrs Dalloway:


'Evaristo urged attendees to "understand" how the "polymathic" artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT - a chatbot that provides humanlike responses to questions and commands by drawing on internet data - will have an impact on "our precious literature culture". She said that the tool is in one sense a "parasitic, plagiaristic, rapacious super-brain", but that on the other hand it could prove to be "an incredibly useful tool that improves our lives".

'Evaristo described some commands she had fed ChatGPT, including coming up with a sequel to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, writing a love poem and penning a short story in the style of Evaristo herself, the result of which she called "awful and a little embarrassing". The author said that though the technology is "nascent", its "potential to improve is exponential", adding that a worst case scenario would be that "we stop thinking for ourselves and slowly become self-lobotomised".'
Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows | Books | The Guardian<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/12/royal-society-of-literature-aims-to-broaden-representation-as-it-announces-62-new-fellows__;!!KGKeukY!1lNgx8datrRe3fZHDD1AmmQxdfA66RqfqfYyDPUngsjwRaXXqklz6FWVjPywkm7fKZRufn_JrxXnqT-x-fQlKth6IVx48tpmq8uAqLj0$ >

Best wishes
Jane
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