This is so thought-provoking. The rise of AI often makes me think of something G.K. Chesterton wrote— that some things should be left to professionals, but that professionals shouldn’t do our living for us. There’s a happy independence in “writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.”
Ha! Surely you're not surprised that "the internet doesn't seem to know anything about it"!
"happy independence" as reader E.V. McCall mentions is under increasingly aggressive attack. It's a scary world - but, hallelujah! we know Who has ultimate control and victory.
I don't know where this "monkey business" comes from, unfortunately. But it reminds me of Douglas Adams's electric monks.
"The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe."
Generative AI is in between the magical monkeys and the electric monks, it's a machine that saves you the bother of doing meaningful things.
the Newbery Award winner from 1924. I'm not sure whether that's where it's ORIGINALLY from, but that's where I read it. I also have read the Electric Monk story by Douglas Adams.
This is so thought-provoking. The rise of AI often makes me think of something G.K. Chesterton wrote— that some things should be left to professionals, but that professionals shouldn’t do our living for us. There’s a happy independence in “writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly.”
Ha! Surely you're not surprised that "the internet doesn't seem to know anything about it"!
"happy independence" as reader E.V. McCall mentions is under increasingly aggressive attack. It's a scary world - but, hallelujah! we know Who has ultimate control and victory.
I don't know the source, but that is funny that it was from 25 or 30 years ago. I would have thought that it was written to describe Generative AI.
I don't know where this "monkey business" comes from, unfortunately. But it reminds me of Douglas Adams's electric monks.
"The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe."
Generative AI is in between the magical monkeys and the electric monks, it's a machine that saves you the bother of doing meaningful things.
I read a story just like that in a book called Tales From Silver Lands, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1782811.Tales_from_Silver_Lands?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9aiWz8zMvS&rank=1
the Newbery Award winner from 1924. I'm not sure whether that's where it's ORIGINALLY from, but that's where I read it. I also have read the Electric Monk story by Douglas Adams.
Just read this letter, and it seemed to fit exactly with the point you’re making, Jonathan: https://open.substack.com/pub/joshbrake/p/ais-agency-comes-from-us?r=1lfm3&utm_medium=ios
https://youtu.be/9sTNcJoNt-o?si=evEBDjm7Ko1ww42z
I first heard that story on Rabbit Ears Radio "The Monkey People" 1991 narrated by Raul Julia.
That's it! Thanks, Beth. I remembered it as an all-monkey village rather than a people village. 1991 was a long time ago.