> The basic problem is that GPT generates easy poetry
I was going to come in here and say this. I'll even make the claim that GPT and LLMs __cannot write poetry__.
Of course, this depends on what we mean by "poetry." Art is so hard to define, we might as well call it ineffable. Maybe Justice Potter said it best, "I know it when I see it." And I think most artists would agree with this, because the point is to evoke emotion. It is why you might take a nice picture and put it up on a wall in your house but no one would ever put it in a museum. But good art should make you stop, take some time to think, figure out what's important to you.
The art that is notable is not something you simply hang on a wall and get good feelings from when you glance at it. They are deep. They require processing. This is purposeful. A feature, not a bug. They are filled with cultural rhetoric and commentary. Did you ever ask why you are no Dorothea Lange? Why your photos aren't as meaningful as Alfred Eisenstaedt's? Clearly There's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear.
Let me give a very recent example. Here[0] is a letter from The Onion (yes, that Onion, the one who bought InfoWars The Onion) wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court. It is full of satire while arguing that satire cannot be outlawed. It is __not__ intended to be read at a glance. In fact, they even specifically say so
> (“[T]he very nature of parody . . . is to catch the reader off guard at first glance, after which the ‘victim’ recognizes that the joke is on him to the extent that it caught him unaware.”).
That parody only works if one is able to be fooled. You can find the author explaining it more here[1].
But we're coders, not lawyers. So maybe a better analogy is what makes "beautiful code." It sure as fuck is not aesthetically pleasing. Tell me what about this code is aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand?
float InvSqrt(float x){
float xhalf = 0.5f * x;
int i = *(int*)&x;
i = 0x5f3759df - (i >> 1);
x = *(float*)&i;
x = x*(1.5f - xhalf*x*x);
return x;
}
It requires people writing explanations![2] Yet, I'd call this code BEAUTIFUL. A work of art. I'd call you a liar or a wizard if you truly could understand this code at a glance.
I specifically bring this up because there's a lot of sentiment around here that "you don't need to write pretty code, just working code." When in fact, the reality is that the two are one in the same. The code is pretty __because__ it works. The code is a masterpiece because it solves issues you probably didn't even know existed! There's this talk as if there's this bifurcation between "those who __like__ to write code and those who use it to get things done." Or those who think "code should be pretty vs those who think code should just work." I promise you, everyone in the former group is deeply concerned with making things work. And I'll tell you now, you've been sold a lie. Code is not supposed to be a Lovcraftian creature made of spaghetti and duct tape. You should kill it. It doesn't want to live. You are the Frankenstein of the story.
To see the beauty in the code, you have to sit and stare at it. Parse it. Contemplate it. Ask yourself why each decision is being made. There is so much depth to this and it's writing is a literal demonstration of how well Carmack understands every part of the computer: the language, how the memory is handled, how the CPU operations function at a low level, etc.
I truly feel that we are under attack. I don't know about you, but I do not want to go gentle into that good night. Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the morning last. It's easy to say not today, I got a lot to do, but then you'll grow up to be just like your dad.
Of course, this depends on what we mean by "poetry." Art is so hard to define, we might as well call it ineffable. Maybe Justice Potter said it best, "I know it when I see it." And I think most artists would agree with this, because the point is to evoke emotion. It is why you might take a nice picture and put it up on a wall in your house but no one would ever put it in a museum. But good art should make you stop, take some time to think, figure out what's important to you.
The art that is notable is not something you simply hang on a wall and get good feelings from when you glance at it. They are deep. They require processing. This is purposeful. A feature, not a bug. They are filled with cultural rhetoric and commentary. Did you ever ask why you are no Dorothea Lange? Why your photos aren't as meaningful as Alfred Eisenstaedt's? Clearly There's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear.
Let me give a very recent example. Here[0] is a letter from The Onion (yes, that Onion, the one who bought InfoWars The Onion) wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court. It is full of satire while arguing that satire cannot be outlawed. It is __not__ intended to be read at a glance. In fact, they even specifically say so
That parody only works if one is able to be fooled. You can find the author explaining it more here[1].But we're coders, not lawyers. So maybe a better analogy is what makes "beautiful code." It sure as fuck is not aesthetically pleasing. Tell me what about this code is aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand?
It requires people writing explanations![2] Yet, I'd call this code BEAUTIFUL. A work of art. I'd call you a liar or a wizard if you truly could understand this code at a glance.I specifically bring this up because there's a lot of sentiment around here that "you don't need to write pretty code, just working code." When in fact, the reality is that the two are one in the same. The code is pretty __because__ it works. The code is a masterpiece because it solves issues you probably didn't even know existed! There's this talk as if there's this bifurcation between "those who __like__ to write code and those who use it to get things done." Or those who think "code should be pretty vs those who think code should just work." I promise you, everyone in the former group is deeply concerned with making things work. And I'll tell you now, you've been sold a lie. Code is not supposed to be a Lovcraftian creature made of spaghetti and duct tape. You should kill it. It doesn't want to live. You are the Frankenstein of the story.
To see the beauty in the code, you have to sit and stare at it. Parse it. Contemplate it. Ask yourself why each decision is being made. There is so much depth to this and it's writing is a literal demonstration of how well Carmack understands every part of the computer: the language, how the memory is handled, how the CPU operations function at a low level, etc.
I truly feel that we are under attack. I don't know about you, but I do not want to go gentle into that good night. Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the morning last. It's easy to say not today, I got a lot to do, but then you'll grow up to be just like your dad.
[0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...
[1] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/peeling-layers-onion-he...
[2] https://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-quakes-fa...