It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that OpenAI’s GPT store could be used on newspapers. My only fear is that it will take newspapers way too long to figure out how to embrace GPTs and still make money.
GPTs are a transitional phase in our trek towards the Web collapsing into a singularity and everything — including the news — being presented to us via some combination of AI and XR technology. As such, you might wear a very fashionable successor to the Apple Vision Pro that would be hooked up to some successor to ChatGPT.
I just don’t see the Web as we currently interact with it lasting much longer, given how fast AI is advancing, and especially with the advent of the GPT store. Maybe it won’t be GPTs, but I do think every major Website will be replaced with something akin to a GPT that will talk to your digital agent and, as such, the Web will collapse into a Singularity.
The details of all of this are still very fuzzy. But that seems to be the general trend.
The New York Times is a great newspaper — maybe even the best newspaper in the world. But as is shown by the existence of the NYTimes Pitchbot parody Twitter account — something, on a structural basis, is wrong with the place. It’s so bad that I fear that the failure of The New York Times to properly address the threat that is Trump will be written about a great deal once we sort all these issues out one way or another.
It seems as though The Times is — on an institutional basis — is really nervous about being seen as a bastion of liberal thought. It is, of course, but it’s doing its readers a disservice by not being more adamant in its defending of freedom in the face of the rise of MAGA fascism.
It’s all very curious.
I mean, if a doofus like me can notice something so obvious, you’d think the popinjays at The Old Gray Lady might do something about it. But, no, here we are. The Republic is on the cusp of either collapsing into civil war / revolution or turning into an autocracy.
The central mistake of my life is probably that someone did not sit me down, at about 15, and tell me I would never be a journalist. Had someone — preferably a male figure in my life — done that, then, maybe, I wouldn’t have wasted my 20s thinking I could be a daily newspaper reporter.
Me (background) during my crazier days in Seoul.
It has taken me decades to realize that being a good journalist isn’t really that hard, it’s just difficult for me. I am thinking about this because of the review of the Jayson Blair imbroglio I’m reading in the book “The Times” about the modern history of The New York Times.
The way Blair is described at times hits a little bit too close to home, but for the fact that I’ve never done cocaine and I’m honest to a fault — I would never just make shit up in a newspaper article, especially one I knew would be in The New York Times.
Other than that, yikes. I feel seen.
Anyway, there has to be a statute of limitations on alternative universes. I’ve had the life that I’ve had and hopefully — hopefully — I will somehow manage to write a breakout hit novel.
Editor’s Note: Please note, the “Old Gray Lady” in the title is a nickname for The New York Times.
I could care less that Judith Miller of the New York Times would “whip it around” as is said in the song “I Got A Man” with various people, including sources, but I do have beef with her for her Iraq WMD coverage.
Judith Miller
I only even mention her self-avowed bed hopping because she is rather matter of fact about it in the book “The Times” that I’m reading at the moment. I’m sex positive, I don’t care what she did with her body, even if it a bit cringe worthy that she was working at The Times and boning sources with great abandoned.
But like I said, that’s not my beef with her — my beef with her comes from her WMD reporting that was the basis for the US’ invasion of Iraq. I have conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — who took 20 YEARS to admit that that there were no WMD in Iraq.
Twenty fucking years!
And they admitted it in such a casual way because by that point Trump was on the scene so, lulz, all the blood and treasure spend on a lie was no big deal.
Anyway, you go girl, is all I gotta say. But it is amusing that editors of The Old Gray Lady were played so well by Miller at such a crucial juncture in our history.
Adam Nagourney’s “biography” of the modern New York Times is really, really good. In fact, so far, the only quibbles I’ve had with it are one formatting issue and one stray word that did not quite fit the idea he was trying to convey.
Adam Nagourney But, in general, the major “quibble” I have with the book is that it reads like An Official Book About The Times, even though the book says it’s not. It reads like it was sanctioned by the Powers That Be at the paper to give we plebes The Official Line about some pretty dramatic events in the paper’s history.
I will also note that I would read a 500 page book that was nothing more than a tick-tock of even events of, say, Sept 1., 2001 to Oct. 1st, 2001. That would be great. I would love to know EXACTLY what each major player at the paper was doing on Sept. 11 during the course of the day. (Has someone already done that?)
I pinged the author of the book about The New York Times, “The Times” that I’m reading — Adam Nagourney — and he was kind enough to say thank you about my praise.
Adam Nagourney
When I pinged him, I mentioned that while the book is great, there were a few quibbles. He said he wanted to know what they were, for future editions of the book.
I don’t know what to think about that. Was he being sincere, or was he kind of humoring a weird, random person on the internet? I just don’t know. But, anyway, the book is really good.
I have to accept that it definitely appears as though — barring something I can’t predict — that my dream of pulling of a third hat trick with my life is a bit…delusional? I say this in the context of reading the big new book about The New York Times, “The Times.”
I always though that I had one big third act ahead of me. But, lulz, even if I sell my novel and it’s some sort of hit, it’s not like I will be, uuuuhhh, YOUNG when it happens. Everything will happen in the context of me being in my 50s.
It’s not like I can get my act together an one day work at The New York Times. I MIGHT be able to, like, hang out with New York Times people if I was some sort of successful — and eccentric — novelist, but work there full time….nope. Not only am I too old, I’m too bonkers and my personality just doesn’t fit working at such a high pressure gig.
Meanwhile, my other option — making it big in Hollywood — is just as delusional, but for different reasons. Yeah, I could probably talk my way into a three picture deal while drunk at a cocktail party, but, still, the whole context would be different from what I always imagined.
Rather than partying with 24 year olds, I would be this guy that everyone is stunned became a success 25 years later than everyone else. “So, how does it feel to be a success later in life,” is the chief question every reporter would ask me.
All of this is delusional, of course.
And I have to appreciate that barring something REALLY BIG that I can’t predict, I probably won’t actually be able to physically see my novel on the shelf of a physical bookstore until my mid-50s. (And by that point, a combination of AI and XR may have even made physical print bookstores rather quaint.)
Who knows. I don’t. But no matter what, the context of any success I have at this point in my life just won’t be what I expected back in the day.
The conventional wisdom at the moment, which I think makes a lot of sense, is that soon all the major news Websites will essentially do the same thing — be something along the lines of CNN’s Website. They will feature a lot of video — even if they’re the Website for a print newspaper.
Now, remember, the times they are a changing and all of this should be seen in the context of the rise of AI.
Soon enough, lulz, AI will eat the Web to the point that rather than passively read Websites via a browser, we will simply ask our digital personal assistant to tell us the news — and maybe display news via our XR vizor display that we’re wearing.
It definitely seems as though everything we know about media is about to be upended very, very quickly. And, what’s more remember the fucking Fourth Turning may be happening as all of this is going on, so we won’t be able to enjoy any cool AI shit until, well, we’re done totally and completely re-arranging the world order for various dumb reasons including “vibes.”
Anyway. It will be interesting to see what happens next, I suppose.
Many moons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a lowly hawgan teacher in Incheon. It was my first year in South Korea, so it had to be at some point between late 2004 and late 2005. Anyway, I learned that the World Association of Newspapers was having a conference in Seoul.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr
So, I did what every failed journalists who doesn’t realize his career is over does — I engaged in a bit of light fraud and, using some credentials faked via my membership in the Society of Professional Journalists, got myself into the event.
This is where I mention that, in general, I’ve had fairly good interactions with New York Times people to date, those few times I’ve actually interacted with them. But I don’t know how much of that graciousness was simply humoring a drunk loser and how much of it was genuine.
I will note that Jennifer 8. Lee was superficially gracious to me when I met her in Seoul, but I fear that to this day she may mention what a freaky loser I was to her high end cocktail party friends — to this day, occasionally someone will show up in my Webstats wanting to read my account of meeting Lee and her friend Tomoko in Seoul. (I presume to gawk at what a fucking loser I am.)
So the day of the event, I traveled all the way from Incheon to the center of Seoul and went to the WAN event. It was all a bit overwhelming. I think it was at this point that I saw the President of Korea. I would be a lot more calm and collected now if I went to such an event, but then, about 20 years ago, I was a ball of nervous energy.
Anyway, I went to one event and kept staring straight at Arthur Sulzberger Jr and, to his credit, rather than having the guards escort me out for being weird, after the event was over he made a beeline to me. That was a very memorable event for me.
I was supposed to spend, like, an hour with him and a small group of people talking about Very Important Things, but I had to go back to work in Incheon. I think that was probably for the best. I kind of dodged a bullet on that one, I think. That could have been very, very ackward.
Anyway, no harm no foul. It was a one of the more surreal experiences of my time in South Korea.
I’m reading the new book “The Times” about the recent history of The New York Times and I’m taken aback by how aspirational working for The Old Gray Lady continues to be in my mind.
I’m too old for it to be any such thing, of course. And, what’s more, reading the book keeps reminding me of the issue of class. For all my ability to fake a good conversation with someone who works at The Times, there is no denying that in the end, they would dismiss me because of — if nothing else — my socio-economic status.
I’m broke as fuck.
Which, of course, raises the issue of what might happen if my novel is some sort of break out hit (this is just a daydream at the moment). I think, in fact, that being a best selling author would be just about the ONLY WAY that anyone who worked at The New York Times might take me seriously.
Even then, I would be an outsider. I just have to accept that as the old saying goes, “You take yourself wherever you go.”
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