It’s kind of funny that when I googled AI the first item that popped was a definition of AI produced by…AI: “the ability of a machine to perform tasks that are usually associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning and making decisions.”  (Holy Skynet, Batman!)

However, I felt the entire thing was irrelevant to me.  I haven’t written a termpaper or academic essay in fifty years.  That seemed to be the only use for it.

First Brush With AI

It took a Broadway play to make me take a second look.  McNeal, starting Robert Downey Jr. in a limited run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, weaves a clever web with AI as a key plot element.  It’s practically a tutorial, since large screens purportedly show RD Jr., as author Jacob McNeal, using AI in real time to write a book and solve personal dilemmas…despite his complex and contradictory fascination with it.

Without giving too much of the plot away (and it was great, albeit a bit gimmicky) author McNeal throughout the play mentions that almost all works of art are derivative in some way, depending on influences from previous authors and artists.

He points out that Shakespeare may have acted in a play called King Leir, a tragedy about a ailing king with three daughters and that much of the dialog in Shakespeare’s version is close or identical to that in King Leir.

The play is wonderfully clever and Downey is terrific in his stage debut as an arrogant, talented, utterly flawed human being, – a real counterpart to the neutral and dispassionate AI presence, which acts as an extra character. The play actually merges the two in one scene featuring a scarily realistic Metahuman Digital Likeness of RDJ, Jr.

But the aspect that pushed me to try AI for the first time was the many AI prompts McNeal uses to generate predictions, solve problems, and more, especially at the end. The final screen shows the prompt “Please write a final speech for an audience confused by what is real and what isn’t, inspired by Prospero’s final speech to the audience in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.”

RDJ Jr rocked the house with it.  It was a very good approximation of Shakespeare’s language – and begged the question: who or what really wrote the play? 

Nick Buchholz, Director of PR for Lincoln Center, wrote me that playwright and author Ayad Akhtar “has been experimenting with the LLMs(Large Language Models) since they’ve gone public, and the play is a result of his experiences with the various chatbots. Ayad did not use GPT or any other LLM to write the play’s text, including the final speech — with the exception of the last speech’s final couplet, which was generated by AI.”

Are you curious about AI?  Senior Planet has you covered with a full slate of programs!  The AI landing page with listings of upcoming classes, an infographic and a fun quiz, can be found here.  

The AI takeaway

So as soon as I got back home, I fired up ChatGPT and asked it to summarize the plot of 300 as a Shakespearean sonnet…and two seconds later, there it was. It was fabulous entertainment and I was impressed…but it reminded me of something Samuel Johnson said.

Since then, I’ve experimented with it creating a diet and exercise plan, and making a timeline for getting certain long-procrastinated tasks done. It’s like a Roomba – it saves me a bit of time with routine tasks.  I tried to use it to write something, but nah.  There was no zip, no insight, no inspiration – and no enjoyment or involvement by me.  And that, really, is the point, isn’t it?

Still AI, seems to be a useful tool we all should learn more about. Here are some upcoming online classes to get you started:

Tues, 11/5: AI All Around

Tues, 11/12: AI & Disinformation

Tues, 11/19: Intro to AI

Tues, 11/26: Everyday Uses of AI

Photo Credit: Cast of McNeal with Robert Downey Jr. in foreground, courtesy of Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

YOUR TURN

What have you used AI for? Were you satisfied? Share your experiences in the comments!

Virge Randall is Senior Planet’s Managing Editor. She is also a freelance culture reporter who seeks out hidden gems and unsung (or undersung) treasures for Straus Newspapers; her blog “Don’t Get Me Started” puts a quirky new spin on Old School New York City. Send  Open Thread suggestions to editor@seniorplanet.org.