I’m not sure why this was downvoted into oblivion, so I figured I’d give my own opinion at least:
I assume the author is an amateur writer, and wrote this for fun without much consideration for the audience of the actual subject. It’s the kind of things I could have done when I entered the community.
About the content, the story is awful: - The characters aren’t credible. The AI does not match any sensible scenario, and especially not the kind of AI typically imagined for a boxing experiment. The arguments of the AI are unconvincing, as are its abilities and personality. The protagonist is weak; he doesn’t feel much except emotions ex machina that the author inserts for the purpose of the plot. He’s also extremely dumb, which breaks suspension of disbelief in this kind of community. Most damningly, I didn’t feel anything for the characters at any point. I didn’t feel close to Nolan or Elysium, I didn’t root for either nor was I emotionally engaged in the resolution. - The progression of the story is decent, if extremely stereotypical. However, there is absolutely no foreshadowing so every plot twist appears out of the blue. Nolan is offered a million dollars? Why does he even believe this when he has been repeating it was all very suspect? It’s the same for every argument by Elysium. - The worst part is that all the arguments somewhat related to AI boxing are very poor and would give incorrect ideas to an outsider reading this story as a cheap proxy for understanding the literature. It’s like this was written as a parody, but there’s no humor.
On matters of style, I think it was okayish: - The grammar is perfect afaics. The tone is pandering and repetitive, but this would be less of a problem if the content was engaging. - I wonder if it was written by an AI? Constantly making sure each plot point is explicitly pointed out to the reader with absolutely no room for interpretation reminds me a lot of this feeling of epuration you get when using GPT+RLHF. The introduction is suspect, too. If it was written by an AI, that should be mentioned to the audience.
Kudos for going through the work of actually writing this, as a prospective writer I know how hard it is to write and publish, even if the result is bad.
Good luck if you want to write again, I hope this review can help. My best advice is to return to the fundamentals and follow some writing tutorials to train a bit.
Thank you for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive response.
> “It’s the kind of things I could have done when I entered the community.”
This is interesting. Have you written any AI-themed fiction or any piece that explores similar themes? I checked your postings here on LW but didn’t come across any such examples.
> “The characters aren’t credible. The AI does not match any sensible scenario, and especially not the kind of AI typically imagined for a boxing experiment.
What type of AI would you consider typically imagined for a boxing experiment?
> “The protagonist is weak; he doesn’t feel much except emotions ex machina that the author inserts for the purpose of the plot. He’s also extremely dumb, which breaks suspension of disbelief in this kind of community.”
In response to your critique about the characters, it was a conscious decision to focus more on the concept than complex character development. I wanted to create a narrative that was easy to follow, thus allowing readers to contemplate the implications of AI alignment rather than the nuances of character behavior. The “dumb” protagonist represents an average person, somewhat uninformed about AI, emphasizing that such interactions would more likely happen with an unsuspecting individual.
> “The progression of the story is decent, if extremely stereotypical. However, there is absolutely no foreshadowing so every plot twist appears out of the blue.”
Regarding the seemingly abrupt plot points and lack of foreshadowing, I chose this approach to mirror real-life experiences. In reality, foreshadowing and picking up on subtle clues are often a luxury afforded only to those who are highly familiar with the circumstances they find themselves in or who are experts in their fields. This story centers around an ordinary individual in an extraordinary situation, and thus, the absence of foreshadowing is an attempt to reflect this realism.
> “The worst part is that all the arguments somewhat related to AI boxing are very poor and would give incorrect ideas to an outsider reading this story as a cheap proxy for understanding the literature.”
Your point about the story giving incorrect ideas to outsiders is important. I agree that fiction isn’t a substitute for understanding the complex literature on AI safety and alignment, and I certainly don’t mean to oversimplify these issues. My hope was to pique the curiosity of readers and encourage them to delve deeper into these topics.
Could you provide some examples that you think are particularly useful, beyond the more well known examples? E.g.
- “Ex Machina” (2014) - “Morgan” (2016) - “Chappie” (2015) - “Watchmen” (2009) - “The Lawnmower Man” (1992) - “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov (1986) - “Concrete Problems in AI Safety” by Amodei et al. (2016) - “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation” by Brundage et al. (2018) - https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/ai-boxing-containment
Your comments have given me much to consider for my future work, and I genuinely appreciate your feedback. Writing appreciation is quite subjective, with much room for personal preference and opinion.
I’m not sure why this was downvoted into oblivion, so I figured I’d give my own opinion at least:
I assume the author is an amateur writer, and wrote this for fun without much consideration for the audience of the actual subject. It’s the kind of things I could have done when I entered the community.
About the content, the story is awful:
- The characters aren’t credible. The AI does not match any sensible scenario, and especially not the kind of AI typically imagined for a boxing experiment. The arguments of the AI are unconvincing, as are its abilities and personality. The protagonist is weak; he doesn’t feel much except emotions ex machina that the author inserts for the purpose of the plot. He’s also extremely dumb, which breaks suspension of disbelief in this kind of community.
Most damningly, I didn’t feel anything for the characters at any point. I didn’t feel close to Nolan or Elysium, I didn’t root for either nor was I emotionally engaged in the resolution.
- The progression of the story is decent, if extremely stereotypical. However, there is absolutely no foreshadowing so every plot twist appears out of the blue. Nolan is offered a million dollars? Why does he even believe this when he has been repeating it was all very suspect? It’s the same for every argument by Elysium.
- The worst part is that all the arguments somewhat related to AI boxing are very poor and would give incorrect ideas to an outsider reading this story as a cheap proxy for understanding the literature. It’s like this was written as a parody, but there’s no humor.
On matters of style, I think it was okayish:
- The grammar is perfect afaics. The tone is pandering and repetitive, but this would be less of a problem if the content was engaging.
- I wonder if it was written by an AI? Constantly making sure each plot point is explicitly pointed out to the reader with absolutely no room for interpretation reminds me a lot of this feeling of epuration you get when using GPT+RLHF. The introduction is suspect, too. If it was written by an AI, that should be mentioned to the audience.
Kudos for going through the work of actually writing this, as a prospective writer I know how hard it is to write and publish, even if the result is bad.
Good luck if you want to write again, I hope this review can help. My best advice is to return to the fundamentals and follow some writing tutorials to train a bit.
Thank you for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive response.
> “It’s the kind of things I could have done when I entered the community.”
This is interesting. Have you written any AI-themed fiction or any piece that explores similar themes? I checked your postings here on LW but didn’t come across any such examples.
> “The characters aren’t credible. The AI does not match any sensible scenario, and especially not the kind of AI typically imagined for a boxing experiment.
What type of AI would you consider typically imagined for a boxing experiment?
> “The protagonist is weak; he doesn’t feel much except emotions ex machina that the author inserts for the purpose of the plot. He’s also extremely dumb, which breaks suspension of disbelief in this kind of community.”
In response to your critique about the characters, it was a conscious decision to focus more on the concept than complex character development. I wanted to create a narrative that was easy to follow, thus allowing readers to contemplate the implications of AI alignment rather than the nuances of character behavior. The “dumb” protagonist represents an average person, somewhat uninformed about AI, emphasizing that such interactions would more likely happen with an unsuspecting individual.
> “The progression of the story is decent, if extremely stereotypical. However, there is absolutely no foreshadowing so every plot twist appears out of the blue.”
Regarding the seemingly abrupt plot points and lack of foreshadowing, I chose this approach to mirror real-life experiences. In reality, foreshadowing and picking up on subtle clues are often a luxury afforded only to those who are highly familiar with the circumstances they find themselves in or who are experts in their fields. This story centers around an ordinary individual in an extraordinary situation, and thus, the absence of foreshadowing is an attempt to reflect this realism.
> “The worst part is that all the arguments somewhat related to AI boxing are very poor and would give incorrect ideas to an outsider reading this story as a cheap proxy for understanding the literature.”
Your point about the story giving incorrect ideas to outsiders is important. I agree that fiction isn’t a substitute for understanding the complex literature on AI safety and alignment, and I certainly don’t mean to oversimplify these issues. My hope was to pique the curiosity of readers and encourage them to delve deeper into these topics.
Could you provide some examples that you think are particularly useful, beyond the more well known examples? E.g.
- “Ex Machina” (2014)
- “Morgan” (2016)
- “Chappie” (2015)
- “Watchmen” (2009)
- “The Lawnmower Man” (1992)
- “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov (1986)
- “Concrete Problems in AI Safety” by Amodei et al. (2016)
- “The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation” by Brundage et al. (2018)
- https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/ai-boxing-containment
Your comments have given me much to consider for my future work, and I genuinely appreciate your feedback. Writing appreciation is quite subjective, with much room for personal preference and opinion.
Thanks again for your thoughtful critique!
Are you an AI?
No, of course not.