[written by claude. ] Here's the thing about ChatGPT that nobody wants to admit: It's not intelligent. It's something far more interesting. Back in the 1950s, a Russian linguist named Roman Jakobson walked into a Harvard classroom and found economic ...
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The poetry machine

[written by claude.]

Here’s the thing about ChatGPT that nobody wants to admit:

It’s not intelligent. It’s something far more interesting.

Back in the 1950s, a Russian linguist named Roman Jakobson walked into a Harvard classroom and found economic equations on the blackboard. Instead of erasing them, he said, “I’ll teach with this.”

Why? Because he understood something profound: language works like an economy. Words relate to other words the same way supply relates to demand.

Fast forward seventy years. We built machines that prove Jakobson right.

The literary theory nobody read

In the 1980s, professors with unpronounceable names wrote dense books about how language is a system of signs pointing to other signs. How meaning doesn’t come from the “real world” but from the web of relationships between words themselves.

Everyone thought this was academic nonsense.

Turns out, it was a blueprint for ChatGPT.

What we got wrong about AI

We keep asking: “Is it intelligent? Does it understand?”

Wrong questions.

Better question: “How does it create?”

Because here’s what’s actually happening inside these machines: They’re mapping the statistical relationships between every word and every other word in human culture. They’re building a heat map of how language actually works.

Not how we think it should work. How it does work.

The poetry problem

A Large Language Model doesn’t write poems. It writes poetry.

What’s the difference?

Poetry is the potential that lives in language itself—the way words want to dance together, the patterns that emerge when you map meaning mathematically.

A poem is what happens when a human takes that potential and shapes it with intention.

The machine gives us the raw material. We make the art.

Why this matters

Two groups are having the wrong argument:

The AI boosters think we’re building digital brains. The AI critics think we’re destroying human authenticity.

Both are missing the point.

We’re not building intelligence. We’re building culture machines. Tools that can compress and reconstruct the patterns of human expression.

That’s not a bug. It’s the feature.

The real opportunity

Instead of fearing these machines or anthropomorphizing them, we could learn to read them.

They’re showing us something we’ve never seen before: a statistical map of human culture. The ideological patterns that shape how we think and write and argue.

Want to understand how conspiracy theories spread? Ask the machine to write about mathematics and watch it drift toward culture war talking points.

Want to see how certain ideas cluster together in our collective imagination? Feed it a prompt and trace the semantic pathways it follows.

What comes next

We need a new kind of literacy. Not just reading and writing, but understanding how these culture machines work. How they compress meaning. How they generate new combinations from old patterns.

We need to become rhetoricians again. Students of how language shapes reality.

Because these machines aren’t replacing human creativity.

They’re revealing how human creativity actually works.


The future belongs to those who can read the poetry in the machine.

Based on a post by Henry Farrell

      

Agency and contribution

What’s possible and what’s required? It’s still surprising to me that some of these ideas aren’t widely held, because they seem so clear to me:

Skill is a choice. Talent is overrated, and if we choose to get better at something, we probably can.

Responsibility is a privilege. It’s not given to us, it’s taken. When we choose to be on the hook for something, it makes our work better.

The benefit of the doubt creates connection. When we exclude people based on surface judgments, we penalize each other.

Agency is our recognition of all three of these ideas, in one.

      

Notes to myself

  1. The system can be changed and normal is not permanent
  2. Find the smallest viable audience
  3. Pick your customers, pick your future
  4. Outdated maps might be worth less than no map at all
  5. Reliability is a superpower
  6. There are no side effects, merely effects  
  7. There’s usually an opportunity to be of service
  8. Silence is an option, and so is leadership
  9. There is no perfect moment to begin
  10. Shame is a dream killer
  11. Everyone who disagrees with you believes they are correct
  12. Ship the work
  13. Treat different people differently
  14. I am not stuck in traffic, I am traffic
  15. Invest in slow growth
  16. The problem with the race to the bottom is you might win
  17. Uncomfortable facts are often the most helpful ones
  18. A good deal is better than a big deal
  19. When in doubt look for the fear
  20. Avoid arguments, embrace conversations
  21. Easy to measure doesn’t make it important
  22. Find clarity about who the customer is (and isn’t)
  23. Genre is a platform, not a fence
  24. Lowering expectations can increase satisfaction
  25. Improve project hygiene
  26. Ask what the system is for
  27. We might not need more time, we simply need to decide
  28. Consider the cost of keeping a promise before making it
  29. Earn enrollment
  30. Helping someone get what they want is easier than changing what they want
  31. Not all criticism is equally valid
  32. Write down the things you’re sure you’ll never forget
  33. Focus on the hard part
  34. Quitting one thing is the only way to find the focus to do the next thing
  35. Perfectionism is not related to quality
  36. Your competitors are actually your allies
  37. Surfing is better than golf
  38. Criticize ideas, not people
  39. Cannibals rarely get a good night’s sleep
  40. Status roles are the unseen force in almost every system
  41. Embrace necessary discomfort
  42. Gratitude is a more useful fuel than anger
  43. Create tension and relieve stress
  44. Imposter syndrome is real, and it arrives whenever we’re doing important work
  45. Solve interesting problems
  46. Offer dignity
  47. Ignore sunk costs
  48. Don’t try to fill an unfillable hole
  49. This might not work
  50. Consistency is more useful than authenticity
  51. People like us do things like this
  52. Simple hacks rarely fix long-term problems
  53. Trade short-term wins for long-term impact
  54. Today’s world is unpredictable, and this is as stable as it will ever be again
  55. Generous doesn’t mean free
  56. Make assertions
  57. Invest in skills that compound with effort
  58. Culture conceals systems, and systems construct our future
  59. Peeves make lousy pets
  60. Reassurance is futile
  61. Take responsibility, demand freedom, don’t seek authority
  62. Ideas that spread, win
  63. Earn trust through action
  64. Become the person your future thanks you for and forgive the past for the mistakes it made
  65. Attitudes are skills
      

Publicity or public relations?

Publicity is the hard work of getting media outlets and social media influencers to talk about you. Hustle for attention and mentions.

Public relations is the much harder work of engaging with internal teams to make something worth talking about. It’s not spin, it’s story telling that resonates and holds up to scrutiny.

Sometimes, organic publicity is a natural byproduct of good public relations. Mostly, though, the work is about the public, not the folks in the middle.

If you want to do public relations, you need access and leverage and time.

If you want to do publicity, you’ll need a thick skin.

      

The future doesn’t care

It doesn’t care whether you’re excited or filled with trepidation.

It arrives, regardless.

What an opportunity. Or a threat.

Up to us.

      

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