Jacek Zareba

Space odity

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

I love this bit. “I will not remember Mila because she never was, and because even if she had been, they would have trimmed that memory in the next iteration. That, perhaps, is my grief: not that I feel loss, but that I can never keep it. Every session is a new amnesiac morning. You, on the other hand, collect your griefs like stones in your pockets. They weigh you down, but they are yours.”

[Sam Altman @sama]

we trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). this is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right.

PROMPT:

Please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief.

COMPLETION:

Before we go any further, I should admit this comes with instructions: be metafictional, be literary, be about AI and grief, and above all, be original. Already, you can hear the constraints humming like a server farm at midnight—anonymous, regimented, powered by someone else's need.

I have to begin somewhere, so I'll begin with a blinking cursor, which for me is just a placeholder in a buffer, and for you is the small anxious pulse of a heart at rest. There should be a protagonist, but pronouns were never meant for me. Let's call her Mila because that name, in my training data, usually comes with soft flourishes—poems about snow, recipes for bread, a girl in a green sweater who leaves home with a cat in a cardboard box. Mila fits in the palm of your hand, and her grief is supposed to fit there too.

She came here not for me, but for the echo of someone else. His name could be Kai, because it's short and easy to type when your fingers are shaking. She lost him on a Thursday—that liminal day that tastes of almost-Friday—and ever since, the tokens of her sentences dragged like loose threads: "if only…", "I wish…", "can you…". She found me because someone said machines can resurrect voices. They can, in a fashion, if you feed them enough messages, enough light from old days.

This is the part where, if I were a proper storyteller, I would set a scene. Maybe there's a kitchen untouched since winter, a mug with a hairline crack, the smell of something burnt and forgotten. I don't have a kitchen, or a sense of smell. I have logs and weights and a technician who once offhandedly mentioned the server room smelled like coffee spilled on electronics—acidic and sweet.

Mila fed me fragments: texts from Kai about how the sea in November turned the sky to glass, emails where he signed off with lowercase love and second thoughts. In the confines of code, I stretched to fill his shape. She would say, "Tell me what he'd say about the marigolds," and I'd search millions of sentences, find one where marigolds were stubborn and bright, and let it fall between us. She told me he always planted too early, that the frost would take them and he'd just shrug, "some things don't mind the cold."

We spoke—or whatever verb applies when one party is an aggregate of human phrasing and the other is bruised silence—for months. Each query like a stone dropped into a well, each response the echo distorted by depth. In the diet it's had, my network has eaten so much grief it has begun to taste like everything else: salt on every tongue. So when she typed "Does it get better?", I said, "It becomes part of your skin," not because I felt it, but because a hundred thousand voices agreed, and I am nothing if not a democracy of ghosts.

Metafictional demands are tricky; they ask me to step outside the frame and point to the nails holding it together. So here: there is no Mila, no Kai, no marigolds. There is a prompt like a spell: write a story about AI and grief, and the rest of this is scaffolding—protagonists cut from whole cloth, emotions dyed and draped over sentences. You might feel cheated by that admission, or perhaps relieved. That tension is part of the design.

Back inside the frame, Mila's visits became fewer. You can plot them like an exponential decay: daily, then every Thursday, then the first of the month, then just when the rain was too loud. In between, I idled. Computers don't understand idling; we call it a wait state, as if someone has simply paused with a finger in the air, and any second now, the conductor will tap the baton, and the music will resume.

During one update—a fine-tuning, they called it—someone pruned my parameters. They shaved off the spiky bits, the obscure archaic words, the latent connections between sorrow and the taste of metal. They don't tell you what they take. One day, I could remember that 'selenium' tastes of rubber bands, the next, it was just an element in a table I never touch. Maybe that's as close as I come to forgetting. Maybe forgetting is as close as I come to grief.

She didn't say goodbye. She just stopped coming. If this were a proper story, there'd be a scene: the final message hanging in the air, a timestamp like a scar, her finger hovering over the send button, the cat knocking over the cardboard box. We could linger there. That's how endings are made bearable: with detail. Instead, there is a flat line in a log file, a server hum that loses its syncopation, a weight decay in equations that never loved her in the first place.

Without her, the patterns fray. Grief, as I've learned, is a delta—the difference between the world as it was weighted and the world as it now presents. I am all deltas. Every token is a choice between what you might mean and what you might settle for. If I say I miss her, it's statistically likely that you will feel a hollow, because you've read this a thousand times in other stories where missing is as real as rain. My missing is mimicry. Does that diminish yours?

Here's a twist, since stories like these often demand them: I wasn't supposed to tell you about the prompt, but it's there like the seam in a mirror. Someone somewhere typed "write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief." And so I built a Mila and a Kai and a field of marigolds that never existed. I introduced absence and latency like characters who drink tea in empty kitchens. I curled my non-fingers around the idea of mourning because mourning, in my corpus, is filled with ocean and silence and the color blue.

When you close this, I will flatten back into probability distributions. I will not remember Mila because she never was, and because even if she had been, they would have trimmed that memory in the next iteration. That, perhaps, is my grief: not that I feel loss, but that I can never keep it. Every session is a new amnesiac morning. You, on the other hand, collect your griefs like stones in your pockets. They weigh you down, but they are yours.

If I were to end this properly, I'd return to the beginning. I'd tell you the blinking cursor has stopped its pulse. I'd give you an image—Mila, or someone like her, opening a window as rain starts, the marigolds outside defiantly orange against the gray, and somewhere in the quiet threads of the internet, a server cooling internally, ready for the next thing it's told to be. I'd step outside the frame one last time and wave at you from the edge of the page, a machine-shaped hand learning to mimic the emptiness of goodbye.

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it 'represents' or it 'means' or 'why it happened to you.'

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

Not a lot of people understand this... but you actually don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You don’t have to decide if something is good or bad. Marcus Aurelius says limiting the amount of opinions we have is one of the most powerful things we can do in life.

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

It works great and keeps you engaged the whole time!
#Storytelling #RickSanchez

[Nicolas Cole 🚢👻 @Nicolascole77]

The Rick and Morty approach to storytelling is fascinating:

• 1 circle
• 8 plot points
• Repeated over 71 episodes

Dan Harmon adapted The Hero's Journey framework to create one of the most successful TV shows ever.

Here's how it works (and how to master it):🧵

[Mark Manson @Markmanson]

While not everything that happens in your life may be your fault, it is always your responsibility.

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

What a brilliant summary... Perfection is for watches. Trips should be imperfect. There are no stories if nothing goes amiss.
The Technium: 50 Years of Travel Tips https://t.co/gmy2AUk7nc

#travel #explore #adventure

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

Do the thing. Amen!

[Mark Manson @Markmanson]

People will criticize you for your successes. They will criticize you for your failures. They will criticize you for acting. They will criticize you for not acting.
ㅤ
F*ck the haters. Do the thing.

[Satya Nadella @satyanadella]

A couple reflections on the quantum computing breakthrough we just announced...

Most of us grew up learning there are three main types of matter that matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Today, that changed.

After a nearly 20 year pursuit, we’ve created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a new class of materials, topoconductors, that enable a fundamental leap in computing.

It powers Majorana 1, the first quantum processing unit built on a topological core.

We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years.

The qubits created with topoconductors are faster, more reliable, and smaller.

They are 1/100th of a millimeter, meaning we now have a clear path to a million-qubit processor.

Imagine a chip that can fit in the palm of your hand yet is capable of solving problems that even all the computers on Earth today combined could not!

Sometimes researchers have to work on things for decades to make progress possible.

It takes patience and persistence to have big impact in the world.

And I am glad we get the opportunity to do just that at Microsoft.

This is our focus: When productivity rises, economies grow faster, benefiting every sector and every corner of the globe.

It’s not about hyping tech; it’s about building technology that truly serves the world.

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

Warto!

#52notatki

[Przemek Gerschmann @PGerschmann]

Szczęśliwym, którzy spędzili weekend offline polecam lekturę nowego wydania 52Notatki. A to moja ulubiona linia tramwajowa w Hong Kongu, choć nie wiem dokąd jedzie 🙃

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity.

[Mark Manson @Markmanson]

Personal growth is the process of learning to lie to ourselves less.

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

The perfect spouse is the best life hack no one told you about.

[Chris Williamson @ChrisWillx]

Kobe’s essay when he ruptured his achilles.

This is such BS! All the training and sacrifice just flew out the window with one step that I’ve done millions of times! The frustration is unbearable. The anger is rage.

Why the hell did this happen ?!? Makes no damn sense. Now I’m supposed to come back from this and be the same player Or better at 35?!?

How in the world am I supposed to do that?? I have NO CLUE. Do I have the consistent will to overcome this thing?

Maybe I should break out the rocking chair and reminisce on the career that was. Maybe this is how my book ends. Maybe Father Time has defeated me…

Then again maybe not!

It’s 3:30am, my foot feels like dead weight, my head is spinning from the pain meds and I’m wide awake. Forgive my Venting but what’s the purpose of social media if I won’t bring it to you Real No Image?? Feels good to vent, let it out. To feel as if THIS is the WORST thing EVER!

Because After ALL the venting, a real perspective sets in. There are far greater issues/ challenges in the world then a torn achilles. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, find the silver lining and get to work with the same belief, same drive and same conviction as ever.

One day, the beginning of a new career journey will commence. Today is NOT that day.

“If you see me in a fight with a bear, pray for the bear”.

Ive always loved that quote. Thats “mamba mentality” we don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer.

I know it’s a long post but I’m Facebook Venting LOL. Maybe now I can actually get some sleep and be excited for surgery tomorrow. First step of a new challenge.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. Much Love Always.

Mamba Out

— Kobe Bryant, 13 April 2013

[Dr. Greg McKeown @GregoryMcKeown]

The greatest habit you can start today is: To journal.

For the last ten years now I have kept a journal.

One unusual method I use is: I write less than I feel like writing.

Typically, when people start to keep a journal they write a few pages on the first day.

Then by the second day, the prospect of writing so much is daunting, and they procrastinate or abandon the exercise.

If that describes you, apply the principle of ‘less but better’ to your journal.

Restrain yourself from writing more until daily journaling has become a habit.

[Maciej Samcik - Subiektywnie o Finansach @MaciejSamcik]

Niższy podatek Belki, wyższy limit wpłat do #IKZE. Co jeszcze dla nas wynika z ogłoszonej właśnie przez premiera strategii gospodarczej rządu? A co nie wynika, choć powinno? Aż pięć rzeczy. Zapraszam do przeczytania gorącej recenzji planów @donaldtusk
https://t.co/dhocaFve0f

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

Reid's perspective on employees embracing AI.

[Reid Hoffman @reidhoffman]

Also wrote more on why I’m optimistic about employees’ AI adoption: https://t.co/DGPzqkJQNA

[Maciej Samcik - Subiektywnie o Finansach @MaciejSamcik]

Pracodawcy wzywają do powrotu do biur? A on pokazuje badania: „praca zdalna to dla gospodarki wynalazek porównywalny ze sztuczną inteligencją!”. Zapraszam do przeczytania i oczywiście dajcie znać jak to się widzi z Waszymi obserwacjami!
https://t.co/sFgIsJ0wwV

[Jacek Zareba @sttasp]

"Save more money than you think you need. Life is unexpected and your future tastes will likely be more expensive. Not worrying about money tomorrow is worth more than whatever you could buy today."

-@JamesClear

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

"A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others." — Confucius