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What we talk about when we talk about AI
The gritty realist Raymond Carver is credited with revitalizing American literature in the 1980s with a series of short stories called ‘What we talk about when we talk about love.’
If one seeks to understand a particular sort of disaffected white American-ish male from the so-called Boomer set, Carver’s renowned literary contribution is not a bad place to start.
Carver himself took years of constant failure (in various areas of life) to achieve his somewhat esoteric status in this non-commercial hall of critical literary acclaim. Carver’s genius, such as it is recognized, is that he verbally illustrates how we don’t really know what we talk about when we talk about love. Love is the proverbial ‘black box,’ an ever-flexible container for all our insecurities and expectations and how we choose to rationalize them in the moment or, as is often the case with Carver’s characters, in regretful retrospect.
For the modern millennial, Carver is to creative writing what Bill Burr is to comedy: there is no there there, and that’s why we listen — to feel less alone as we face the nonsensical, unstable ambiguity of modern life.
By the way — a feverent thank you from me to the Unseen Algorithms that these old white guys are artists — Carver and Burr’s brain processes and (somewhat accidental…
