On the Pulse of Things

 Like any serious writer, I read a lot. The latest from my TBR pile are mysteries by two of my favorite authors, The Big Empty by Robert Crais, and Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson. Both novels lean into themes resonating in pop culture: wildly successful young female social media influencers and serial killers. Another similarity between the books is the design aesthetic of the covers: burnt orange fading into an abrupt dark foreground, each black space presenting a relevant element to draw you further in. The curve of highway in The Big Empty, alluding to movement and isolation amid urban clutter, and in Tell Me What You Did, the voyeuristic allure of a woman's silhouette framed within a yellow window. From those junctures, however, the stories differ quite a bit. 

Wilson's forte is the psychological thriller and he masterfully plucks at the narrative, driving the momentum with staccato beats that tighten the suspense with each new reveal. The protagonist, famous podcaster Poe Webb, is no angel and has plenty of skeletons in her closet, which the serial killer is keen to exploit. The ambiance is claustrophobic, and the mood stifling with menace and dread.

Crais delivers another episode in the exploits of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, two PIs digging into intrigue and murder in the sweeping landscape of Los Angeles. In this quest, the influencer is the MacGuffin who draws Cole into the crosshairs of the serial killer. The plot unravels as a good noir mystery should, through the eyes of the detective as he peels back each rotten layer of lies and misdirection. There's much that I admire about Crais' writing: his sharp turns of phrase, his ability to present characters as they collide egos, his concise descriptions of time and place that put you right in the scene.

 

Scribes to our Robot Overlords

 The previous Type M post from John Corrigan touched upon writing samples from the Artificial Intelligence app, ChaptGPT and its worrisome implications, especially to us writers. I've also seen other examples of what AI can produce as it scrubs the Internet for content in remarkable ways. What really impressed me were its Mid-Century and Art Deco period recreations of Burning Man. However, all was not perfect as like many other amateur artists, AI had difficulty rendering hands. Plus the occasional person was given three legs. Or it could be, AI has already decided that people do need these extra appendages and when it controls the human birthing process in artificial wombs (coming soon to a clinic near you), our children will be the deformed pets of our robot overlords. 

But there are groups who cheer AI's ability to generate content almost instantly. At the 20Books Vegas writing conference, the attitude was that since many of its authors write to market and depend on a prolific output to meet audience demands, the ability for AI to "write" sequels can be leveraged into more books to sell, i.e., more profit. Another group that welcomes AI are Instagram/TikTok influencers, such as models, who also need to produce a continuous stream of content to satisfy their audience and keep the algorithms happy. Many argue that since much of their content is the same--posing in bikinis, etc., why not use AI to make more pictures? 

The ability of AI to mimic reality is both its greatest strength and greatest danger. We're close to seeing credible imitations of people--"deep fakes"--in outlandish video simulations. One app claims it can sample a brief recording of your voice and from that, produce an audio of you saying anything. Couple that with similar video software and your identity as an individual can be at risk. Looking deeper into this dark mirror and acknowledging that the demographic most harmed by social media are adolescent girls, can you imagine the humiliation when an unassuming young woman sees that her image was uploaded into a AI porn app? Whoops, it's already happened.