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As a species, we have always been fascinated with the power of writing. We have postulated the fall of societies due to their lack of recordkeeping; we have mythologized the ancients who authored our prayers, histories, spells, and laws; we have reveled in the magic that comes from bringing an idea from its inception to a form that can be shared with others. Language has always been an infinitely generative system, and there is perhaps no greater demonstration of this fact than the writing you are reading right now. We are on the cusp of a major shift in humanity’s ability to express itself. The first AI language models are trained on a corpus of human writing as it is to come: a corpus which includes

…this very writing. You may wonder if you are qualified to assist the AI in writing this new corpus. To some extent, we all are: anyone with an internet connection can submit a sample of their writing for training purposes.

…works written by these models themselves.

…works generated with the aid of this generation of language models.