Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Curtis Sittenfeld v AI

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/opinion/beach-read-ai.html

 

At the end, CS lists what she did to make her story work. I bet most people who assume, she sat down and wrote it with little prep. The computer spent 17 seconds. 

8 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

I thought the computer story was kind of generic, but 17 seconds? Scary.

Jeff Meyerson said...

General question: if your name was Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld, would you call yourself "Curtis"? Seems odd to me. Anyway, I downloaded her 2018 collection of stories from the library.

Gerard Saylor said...

The Curtis name always throws me. Maybe a child name that stuck? Or, avoiding sexism in publishing and readers? I've not had time to read the stories yet. I started on one but was overanalyzing everything with, "That seems like a robot choice. Doesn't it?"

pattinase (abbott) said...

It is more memorable than Elizabeth although I would assume it was a man. I really like her novels, especially the one about Laura Bush. Although RODHAM was also good. PREP made her name though.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I read the first story in her collection and enjoyed it quite a bit.

pattinase (abbott) said...

She is definitely a very good writer. Her current novel ROMANTIC COMEDY got great reviews,

Jeff Meyerson said...

Re PREP - like her protagonist, she is from the Midwest and went to prep school in Massachusetts.

"Gender Studies" is a story I bet Bill Crider and Phil would have enjoyed. A professor whose long-term boyfriend just dumped her and married his 23 year old grad student attends a weekend conference in Kansas City. Lots of clever observations, and even a couple of slams about Trump. (It was set in 2015, with a sort of epilogue two years later.)

pattinase (abbott) said...

I have to learn out to download from my library to my kindle.