What’s what

Well, haven’t posted in a long while.  No readers anyway, this is mostly just a way to chart my progress and muse.  If it comes to anything, maybe some other aspiring writer can benefit.

I did do a bit of writing through about the end of January, got up to about 30,000 words and some outline of other chapters.  But at the same time, I started to do some reading on writing.  What I found since I’m so new to writing, my style was changing as I read about how to write.  So I thought I would take a break and put in some time to gather some information and read more on  basic writing.

I went to the bookstore and acquired some more books, so that now I have the following.  I’m not saying these are the best, but they are the ones I’ve chosen:

  1. The Elements of Style, Strunk, White.  The basic rules of writing, grammar, style, etc.  Generally accepted as a ‘must have’ book.
  2. Word Painting, Rebecca McClanahan.  How to write descriptively.  A good set of tips ranging from grammar to style to descriptive passages, and more.
  3. Plot Perfect, Paula Munier.  A methodology for contemplating and capturing basic plot elements: theme, plot, subplot, scenes, pacing, etc.
  4. Make A Scene, Jordan Rosenfeld.  A guide to building scenes, one at a time.
  5. On Writing, Stephen King.  I’ve owned this for a while, but frankly haven’t gotten to it yet.  On lots of ‘must have’ book lists for writers.

I’ve read the first three (I’d read # 1 a while back).  I also outlined # 2 and # 3, and will outline # 4.  I am a bit of a list-oriented learner, so have an outline (as opposed to highlighting passages) seems to work best for me.

I read some reviews and # 2, # 3, and # 4, and there are some detractors.  Most of the detractors I read seemed to be established writers who thought the books either too basic or too formulistic.  As a novice writer, these criticisms didn’t bother me too much.  So far, I’ve found them to be informative and well structured.

I decided on individual books for certain elements: grammar, plot, scenes, descriptions – as a ‘best of breed’ approach instead of an all-in-one writing book.   I subscribe to the ‘find an expert’ approach – better to have a plumber doing plumbing and an electrician doing electrical than a general handyman doing a mediocre job.

As I outline # 4, I think I will start to do some ‘plotting’.  As for what I’ve written so far, it is just a hodgepodge of styles and subplots that I may just retain a few ideas but move on to something new.  This time, I intend on working out some of the theme and plot more formally before diving into the actual writing.

Writing progress

Well, the answer to the title is: not much since last post.  The holidays do seem to suck up a lot of time; fortunately, for me, because it is time that is centered on family and friends.  So, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I did do some thinking on the structure and story line.  I’ll expand more on this later, but my style is generally less structured than I’ve seen described in the writing ‘how-to’ books.  It remains to be seen if this is good or bad, but it is what I do.  Since I’m not under any sort of time pressure, I can afford to be a little less rigid in planning and execution.  My primary goal at this point is to get a completed novel.  I don’t have any expectations on quality other than I want to do the best I can, and see the results.  The ultimate gauge is the reader and their enjoyment.

Btw: I’m using the OpenOffice word processor.  It is free, although you can tell it is community-developed.  A bit confusing and not so user-friendly, but did I mention it is free?  I would recommend it for a low cost approach – it seems fully functional so far, and as with any software, has a learning curve.

Hopefully I’ll have a bit more time to write in the next week, and maybe add some more thoughts on AI, my novel idea, and what I’ve discovered about writing.  At the least, this will serve as my own personal diary on this journey.  Maybe it will serve others by pointing out the pitfalls I’m likely to fall in to.

Artificial Intelligence and Ethics

Artificial intelligence is very much a hot topic for engineers, investors, corporations, economists, and fiction writers.  Unfortunately, there is a reality gap between fiction writers and the rest.  Why is there such a gap between the current state of artificial intelligence and how it is depicted in fiction?  How does this gap affect the general public’s perception of what is possible today?  What does this mean for the current debate surrounding artificial intelligence and ethics?

Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly in the past decade.  What was considered to be ‘intelligent’ in a machine five years ago seems common place today.  But previously, the emphasis seemed to be on what the technology did, be it make a recommendation, find a trend in data, or intelligently route a network.  Most people don’t see these advances directly, or when they do, they aren’t necessarily impressed with what they see.  A lot of the work for such technology is under the hood, in resolution engines and algorithms that aren’t very visible or vibrant.

Recent advances have made the advances of artificial intelligence more apparent in everyday life.  Technology that interacts directly with us, through voice recognition and human-sounding speech generation, make it seem like there is more intelligence in these programs.  In fact, these changes merely close the gap between existing capabilities and everyday life by more improving the machine-human interface.

These rapid improvements in interface has generated a misconception – namely, that machines are becoming more human.  Seeing the results of a intelligent recommendation program is one thing; talking with an assistant who answers questions in a human voice is another.  Since the technology seems more real, more personal, we tend to view it as more intelligent.

In past years, writers who gave us Robbie or HAL or C-3PO were clearly engaged in science fiction.  Since there were no relatable real world instances of such beings, readers were left with a feeling that these characters existed well in the future.  Even when these characters broke moral boundaries, we did not feel the need to engage in a serious discourse on those moral issues.

Today, when writers create a robotic character, a mischievous android, or a malevolent program, moral questions seem to arise.  Are robots slaves? Should androids have rights? Will the machines rise against us?  Although previous literature touched on these very issues, previously they seemed to be vague and futuristic, not worth fretting too much about.  As interfaces to the existing technology improve, suddenly these issues seem more topical and urgent.

The truth is that although artificial intelligence has advanced significantly in the past decade, it is nowhere near jumping the gap to human-like behavior.  Bad decisions and human emotions in artificial intelligence technology is still a far ways off.  We are nowhere near that moment of singularity, where a program achieves so-called ‘consciousness’.  Although current technology can mimic many human-like characteristics, there is no need to arm ourselves against a computer revolt, at least yet.

However, you might not know that if you listen to some technology leaders.  We are being warned that artificial intelligence is taking a sinister turn, that we should be careful where we go, that this technology is a existential threat to mankind.  That may very well be true in the coming decades and centuries, but we face more danger today from buggy programs than from evil ones.

The rhetoric on the near-term dangers of artificial intelligence seems to be an attention seeking effort by those who want to stay in the news.  The danger is that we see a backlash against development of such technology, much as we saw a backlash against other technologies based on uninformed and irrational fears; for example, with stem cell research.  Although we should discuss artificial intelligence and ethics freely and openly, we should be in no hurry to stifle advances based on imaginative story telling and fictional apocalypses.

Let the Writing Begin! Novel Progress to Date.

I have a confession right out of the gate.  I started writing my artificial intelligence novel before I started this blog.  In fact, here are a few facts about my initial novel progress to date:

  1. I have about 17,000 words of a rough draft.
  2. With my current formatting – I have no idea if it is close to book format – is about 40 pages.
  3. I’ve kept track of time spent so far: about 36 hours of writing.
  4. I also spent about 4 hours on this blog so far, most of that in setting up the website, configuring WordPress, etc.

I will continue to track time spent both on the book and here on the blog.  Since I’m a numbers guy, it helps to see how much I’ve put in, and how that translates to progress.  When I don’t track some sort of data, I tend to just start puttering around.

I did a small bit of research on how long a novel should be, and of course found a wide range of answers.  First thing I found out is that your work is not tracked by pages, since they are so dependent on the format.  Instead, you count words.  Fortunately, since I’m using OpenOffice Writer (part of the free OpenOffice suite) I can use the word count feature.

It seems that the type of book (e.g. fiction or nonfiction), final format (printed or ebook), and pricing have a lot to do with the expected number of words.  Non-fiction books and ebooks seem to be shorter – as low as 15,000 to 50,000 or more.  Novels seem to be in the 80,000 – 120,000 range, unless you’re Stephen King, and then its just under a billion.  It seems that ebooks can more readily be marketed and sold as short books and novellas, hence the smaller range.  Additionally, they can be priced to match the smaller size, down to $1 for a shorter novella-length book.  Some authors trying to break into writing will do a series of books with a common theme/characters.  That way, they can offer the first installment or two for free or a very low price, to get readers interested in the story.

As always, if anyone has better or more detailed information, please feel free to comment.  I would love comments!  It really is one of the main reasons I’m doing this blog – more on that in a coming blog entry.

Here are a couple of resources I used to get an introduction to how to get a book written, published / self-published, and marketed.  Again, I am amazed at how many people are willing to take the time and energy to develop websites that help people, with all sorts of projects.  I hope to follow in their giving path.

http://nicholaserik.com/writing-career-blueprint/

http://nicholaserik.com/write-to-market-failure-lessons/

https://www.janefriedman.com/self-publish-your-book/

 

Artificial Intelligence and the Turing Test

Everyone today seems to be talking about artificial intelligence.  The entertainment industry views it as money-making science fiction; privacy rights groups worry about all-seeing monitoring of private data; technology leaders warn us of possible doomsday scenarios; economists worry about how it will impact labor markets.  I can tell you one thing: right now, artificial intelligence is the hot buzzword in the tech investment industry.  If you want to attract a lot of venture and investment capital interest, smear yourself with some artificial intelligence stink.

Today, many people only have a vague sense of what Artificial Intelligence is, what it can and cannot do, and where the future is moving.  I’m not an expert in this area, but maybe I can clear up some of the confusion, misinformation, and general nonsense that is floating around.  First off – and I always start here – is the relevant Wikipedia page at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

While we at it, I’d like to clear up another misconception first.  Wikipedia is not only an incredibly valuable resource for all sorts of information, it really is the best place to start your research into most any topic.  Articles offer a good introduction and overview of the topic, can fill you in on the general terminology of the subject, and lead you to other resources.  I don’t know if there is still a stigma about Wikipedia, but if you’re somehow reluctant to use it, I have some advice: Let it go.  Use the Wiki.  You’re welcome.

As you can see from the link, artificial intelligence is a broad category that covers a lot of areas.  What it really boils down to is in its name – an intelligence that is not ‘natural’ (i.e. from an organism), but created artificially.  For our purposes, we’ll assume that artificial intelligence is some sort of program (e.g. what people call ‘apps’) that will try to mimic intelligence.  Yeah, you could argue that a good quality, accurate watch demonstrates a lot more intelligence than your neighbor down the street, but let’s not digress.

When I was getting my degree in Mathematics (yes, I’m one of those, the nerdiest of the nerds), one of my graduate classes explored something called Turing Machines.  They are named after their inventor, Alan Turing, whom you might have seen portrayed in the recent movie ‘The Imitation Game‘.  Good movie, go rent, uh, stream it.  While you’re at it, watch ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity‘ at the same time; not many movies where the math guy is the hero.

Turing was an important figure in the early history of computer science.  Here is some background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

One of Turing’s contributions was something called the Turing Test.  Essentially, it is a way of testing to see if something is indeed intelligent.  It comes down to this: if a program can fool you into thinking it is a real person, it is intelligent and has passed the Turing Test.

Has a program ever passed the Turing Test?  Well, it depends on what you mean by passed.  There is a lot of debate about it, involving things like how long you have to fool someone, are there limited subjects that can be discussed, and how many people are fooled.  There are even cash prizes for developers who create programs that pass the test.  Let’s just say that, if the test has not yet been beaten, we appear to be close.  The dawn of the true era of artificial intelligence is now.

 

Getting Started with Artificial Intelligence in Fiction

Like most of us, I’ve long been interested in writing a book.  And like most of us, I haven’t.  The usual reasons apply; I don’t have time, talent, insight, and/or any story to tell.  Oh, I’ve written cute little stories at work, funny and insightful (at least in my eyes) posts, and the such.  But I’ve never sat down to write a real short story, much less a book, novel or otherwise.

A large number of sites exist with advice on how to get started in writing.  There is a good deal of really helpful information out there for beginners.  Naturally, some of the sites are trying to sell products or services, but I was surprised at the number of sites and posts that seemed to be genuine efforts to help fledgling authors.  It is heartening to see people helping people without direct benefit to themselves.  I hope to do a little giving back someday, either as one of those successful authors, or in answering questions on software and related topics on this blog.

A common piece of advice on writing is: write what you know.  It makes perfect sense, especially for new authors, as the mechanics and art of writing seems to be hard enough without throwing in the need to learn some whole new discipline.  Experienced authors, writers of non-fiction, and researchers might be able to tackle an entirely new subject, but I think that a first time novelist should have some prior experience with the subject material.  I’m sure there are those who can wing it, but I decided that this sounded like good advice.  Hence, my first novel will borrow heavily from my background in computer science.

That decision leads to the next dilemma – what particular themes or subjects of computer science might one be interested enough in to read about it in a novel?  I’m pretty sure people don’t want a book on the adventures of modular architecture, the travails of database design, or the merits of strong testing methodologies.  Hence, the artificial intelligence theme, which can – and has – lead to some interesting story lines.

Artificial intelligence in fiction is can span different genres.  Given that today artificial intelligence is a reality, any contemporary novel or non-fiction book could include its elements.  That being said, given the current state of artificial intelligence it seems that the most interesting stories involve technological advances that have not yet been made.  I believe that the best chance for well rounded, interesting artificial intelligence in fiction is in the realm of science fiction.  I don’t think we need to travel too far into the future to encounter the possibilities that make for good story telling.

So, my journey begins.  As I’ve stated, I’m writing this blog as an aid to my progress, and possibly as a record and guide for readers.  Whether it will be a tale of a successful experience or a dire warning on how not to proceed, only the future knows.

Welcome

I’m writing this blog to help in my voyage – writing a novel that includes themes on Artificial Intelligence.  I intend on using it as a tool to track my progress, explore applicable topics, and hopefully have some interaction with you.  I believe I can help people understand both the state of software and AI, and from within this blog, answer questions people might have on the subjects.

There seems to be a lot of hype and, yes, fear about the future of AI.  My overall goal is to show that AI is not separate from us, it is not a different organism, but a reflection of our thoughts, actions, and values.  As a society, if we want to avoid the potential pitfalls of AI, we should understand our influence in how it is developed, packaged, sold, and used.  For now, let’s set aside the dystopian view of the future of AI and explore both the possibilities and our responsibilities.  We control the outcome, as a society, and knowing what is fact and what is fiction may aid us in this journey.