The-Asterisk Reboot - Welcome the New Collaborator

What is creativity? In the age of AI, this is not a trivial question.

Consider the act of creation. When Joe Walsh would warm up before an Eagles concert, were the arpeggio licks that birthed "Life In The Fast Lane" solely his genius? Or was it the ear of Glenn Frey and the collaboration of the entire band?

When an author writes a first draft, does its brilliance belong entirely to them? Or does a large part of the success come from friends' suggestions, the editor's rewrites, and the library of books that came before it?

The point is this: people do not create in a vacuum. Most mold-breaking creatives—like David Bowie, Quentin Tarantino, and Pablo Picasso—are profoundly influenced by their predecessors.

To complicate this creative process, what if a key element were replaced? If a producer remixes an uninspired recording to create a hit song, does that modification taint the creation? Does it make the credited creator any less valid or less "true to their art?" I think not.

Today’s creatives who self-publish on YouTube or influence others on TikTok are mastering a new genre that was not created by themselves. Even the solo artists who record, cut, edit and produce their own original work use tools to do so. Artists do not make their own brushes and paint, singers do not build their own microphones and sound boards, musicians might tweak their equipment, but rare is the musician who builds their own instruments - looking at you Brian May and Tom Sholtz. As The Beatles said, we all "get by with a little help from our friends."

The New Collaborator

OK, you might say. So what? The final result is what matters. How you got there is fodder for a "Behind the Music" vignette, but all that really matters is… THE CONTENT!

Consider this... what if your collaborator isn't your editor, your friend, your producer, your encyclopedia? What if your collaborator is AI?

Three years ago to this very day, ChatGPT was released. It achieved one million users in five days, and over 100 million users within two months - an unprecedented scaling. It hit a previously unexpressed and latent need, one that transcended a single use case. Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and others soon followed, all founded on the same core technology: the Large Language Model (LLM).

While LLMs are fundamentally "next word predictors," the training they’ve received approaches the sum of the entire internet. These LLMs do so much more than predict the next word. Even the scientists who built them admit they don't fully know how you can ask a question and get a forty-page, well-reasoned document in response. Nevertheless, it works.

My Dialogue with the Machine

So, what does this talk of AI and collaboration have to do with The-Asterisk?

I’ve been using LLMs since December 2022, a couple days after ChatGPT burst onto the scene. I currently use Claude for its thoughtfulness and its interface, Gemini for its access to current information, and sometimes Grok or Perplexity for a creative edge or current events.

Many people use AI as a quick replacement for Google Search or for a "one-shot" request, like drafting an email.

My most valuable use of LLMs is different: I have long dialogues with the AI.

Much like if I could sit down with Warren Buffett I would ask him a barrage of investment questions, I ask the AI a series of questions starting with a premise from somewhere in my own imagination. Sometimes the AI and I follow a serendipitous route, and sometimes I push back and redirect the conversation. Sometimes the AI adopts my mindset, and sometimes it refuses to agree with me.

Regardless of the final conclusion, I learn things and, every now and then, I even discover the flaws in my own previously held assumptions.

The-Asterisk's Promise

I have been so impressed with the results of these deep discussions that I want to try something new for The-Asterisk. I will share the conclusions we (AI and me) reached - together. I know that sounds a bit weird, but this collaborative process is not going away. In fact, it is just getting started.

My promise to you, the reader, is simple:

• I will continue to use The-Asterisk to say the quiet part out loud. In our fractured political and social relationships, it is important to look beyond the “song” and go “Behind the Music”.

• I will always tell you when the post is the result of a conversation with an AI. This is the new meaning of The-Asterisk for this blog—a clear note of collaboration.

• I will also share the initial premise.

• If I create something entirely on my own (like all my previous posts), I will note that at the beginning.

I am really looking forward to trying this out. I don’t yet have a Substack, so I will post here for now. Feel free to comment below. I should be posting some new content very soon.

V/R

The-Asterisk