Presented at 'AI & the Arts: How Tech Shapes the Creative' as part of the 2022 Pint of Science programme (Sheaf Street, Leeds, 9 May 2022). Proposes general questions to encourage non-academics to think critically about computer-generated text generation and output.

1. Funny, Fake,
Freaky,
Fascinating?
Making sense of computer-generated texts
@leahhenrickson

2. Your phone is
learning how to
text from you -
what are you
teaching it?
@leahhenrickson

3. 'A robot
wrote this
entire article.
Are you
scared yet,
human?'
The title of a Guardian article from September 2020.
transformer.huggingface.co
app.inferkit.com/demo
@leahhenrickson

4. MICROWHAT,
NOW?
'My takeaway from this journey is
that maybe A.I.s are meant to be
more like imaginary friends.
Maybe it's not about whether it's
real or not.
Maybe it's about whether it's real
enough to be real to you.'
Lucas Rizzotto on bringing his childhood imaginary friend - Magnetron, 'an
English gentleman from the 1900s, a WW1 veteran, an immigrant, a poet...
and of course, an expert @StarCraft Player.' - to life (Twitter).
@leahhenrickson

5. AI IS JUST REALLY
DOLLED-UP STATISTICS.
Statistics need data.
We are the source of that data.
But how can we quantify language?
Feelings sparked by certain words?
Communicative intention?
Text generation systems give us back
what we put in - sort of.
@leahhenrickson

6. What can text generation help us do?
What should text generation help us do?
Who's in charge here?
What are the environmental impacts?
@leahhenrickson

7. Leah Henrickson
Lecturer in Digital Media
University of Leeds
L.R.Henrickson@leeds.ac.uk
@leahhenrickson