- Anna on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 1/25: “Kent, I really like your comment, the one you added because church got canceled. I grow a garden. Gardens have a purpose to help with the grocery bill. But sometimes my garden costs more than I save on groceries and I also grow flowers. What is the purpose of flowers? My husband is slow, 50+ years in understanding that I garden for nothing but the joy of growing things. Well, flowers are pretty, but then so is a sunset. So are mountains and the ocean. And animals. In fact, pretty much all of creation is beautiful. And animals, even the butt ugly ones are beautiful. And why do animals need a purpose other than their own marvelous existence? Why does the sunset need a purpose other than it own marvelous existence? To think God’s creation has a purpose and that purpose is us humans strikes me as kind of arrogant. How stuck up can we humans be to think we are the sole purpose of everything created. Maybe God is a gardener and created all this, even us, just for the joy of creating things, and because flowers are pretty.” Jan 26, 21:42
- on Adobe Walls and “Slate Sketches”: The Gritty Reality of Building the Salt Lake Temple: “Thank you both. Very cool.” Jan 26, 20:38
- on Adobe Walls and “Slate Sketches”: The Gritty Reality of Building the Salt Lake Temple: “RL, the general look likely would have been the same. Dimensions, wall thickness and layout didn’t change, so imagine the current temple with stucco walls and wood or metal spires rather than granite. Details around the windows and carvings would have been in sandstone, with considerably more ornamentation in places. That’s what I can think of off hand. Many of the original architects drawings are on the church historians website and show how the exterior was envisioned. The interior saw significant changes too. Besides changes to the floorplan, electric lighting, central heating, elevators and steel structural beams were all innovations that made it into the final building that weren’t originally planned for.” Jan 26, 20:22
- on The First AI-Written Mormon Horror Novel: “Let me put that last point more succinctly: When does a tool become a crutch?” Jan 26, 08:08
- on The First AI-Written Mormon Horror Novel: “I doubt I will read the novel, but it is an interesting experiment, and the results show some interesting insight gained into the possibility of Mormon horror. BUT, I’m not sure that its correct. There IS Mormon horror written — the anthology “Monsters & Mormons” (https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Mormons-Wm-Henry-Morris/dp/0982781245/) in 2011 for example — so I don’t think RLD is exactly right that our cosmology doesn’t allow for horror, if nothing else than because there are malevolent forces beyond supernatural ones. As for the ability of current AI models (with their checkered morality) to produce fiction, I personally think the role that rogerdhansen suggests is the best one now. Expecting AI to produce a finished product isn’t realistic. And for most “artsy types” (I include myself in that group AND I argue that, as creators in embryo, EVERYONE should think of themselves as part of that group), the use of AI is very problematic. There are many reasons for this, including the questionable morality of using the writing of others without permission and the substantial energy requirements (arriving just at a time when we desperately need to reduce the use of fossil fuels). But beyond the morality I think there are at least two issues that make the use of AI to produce literature difficult or perhaps not a good idea. 1. Much of what makes literature attractive and interesting is novelty, something that AI models have a hard time doing because they are drawing on what has already been produced. AND, human beings need practice at novelty. 2. Producing a finished product isn’t necessarily the goal. The idea that machines are more efficient depends on what you think you are doing. If the point is simply to produce stories, then sure, go ahead and have machines do it. But if the point is to develop people who can produce stories, i.e., who can create, then using AI is exactly the opposite of what we should do. While all labor saving devices tend to reduce human capacities over time, and there are trade offs we have been and should be willing to make, I think there is a real problem that arises when we start replacing our creativity. When do the benefits of producing more and faster become overwhelmed by the losses of human abilities? Unlike many other “artsy types”, I don’t want to condemn AI models outright. I think they have a place, and can be used as useful tools (although I have personally used them only a couple of times). But let’s be wise about their use. The output is not always the point. [Also, FWIW, your “author is dead” comment seems to draw on the title of Roland Barthes’ article “The Death of the Author”. If so, I think you have wildly misinterpreted what he said. I don’t believe anyone in the philosophy of literature is arguing that the author no longer matters. The argument is about what the author means for interpreting the text.]” Jan 26, 07:57
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 1/25: “So, a snowstorm led to church being cancelled, so here is a thought or two from last week that I left out in my last post. In thinking about the creation, much of the creation story in Genesis is about the things that happened in the first week. But where did the idea of a week come from? Its the only time measurement over a day that isn’t based on a physical phenomenon (as far as I can tell). Why 7 days, instead of 5 or 10? Also, the creation story recounts a lot of things being created, but doesn’t talk about anything being cut or scrapped. I guess that’s what we mean when we say that the creation was perfect? A plan was made and it was perfectly executed? I wish I could do that. It would save a lot of time. In the lesson we also read from a talk by Elder Caussé, in which he says that the creation is not the point—meaning that the creation was so that we would be able to learn here on this earth. While I get that, I think that all creation involves something more than merely making something for a purpose. Something is almost always added that isn’t simply for utility. While a purpose is clearly there, the scriptures also say that “Man is that he might have joy.” I don’t think that joy is utilitarian! ” Jan 25, 22:13
- on Adobe Walls and “Slate Sketches”: The Gritty Reality of Building the Salt Lake Temple: “RL, there might be some here: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/ef252f44-8cf3-450c-8020-f30330e3f9cc/0?view=browse” Jan 25, 18:38
- on The First AI-Written Mormon Horror Novel: “AI seems most useful for assistance with basic ideas and literature review. It can provide a different way to conceptualize a specific topic. As for literature, it appears to be useful for suggesting possible plots, particularly if you feed it different parameters. At this stage, AI seems more like an intermediate step than software for producing final product.” Jan 25, 18:37
- on Adobe Walls and “Slate Sketches”: The Gritty Reality of Building the Salt Lake Temple: “Nice write up. Are there any drawings of alternates of what the Temple may have looked like before settled on the final version?” Jan 25, 17:28
- on Adobe Walls and “Slate Sketches”: The Gritty Reality of Building the Salt Lake Temple: “Jonathan, times like these make me wish the combox allowed for images.” Jan 25, 16:42
