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    • AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
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Textual Toys

30 Jul 2025 - 30 Jul 2025
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    • A vgr idea, that LLM use is fundamentally about play and involves the creation and use of "toys". I am not sure exactly what he is getting at but it sounds good! I think I have been approaching them in a spirit of play. My efforts to do serious work with them have been unsatisfactory, but as playthings they are quite interesting.
    • He's making a case in his typical ridiculously grandiose style
      • Writing is now toy-making, and reading is playing with toys. The textuality of the AI era is to pre-AI textualities as video-games are to screen media.
      • One could say that texts have always been like that? But no, he's talking specifically about something interactive, made possible with technology. Mm no because he talks about the ludic quality of pre-technology reading and writing
      • Even a few hours of playing — that’s the operative verb — with AI reveals something that fearful critiques from a distance seems to miss. The primary mood of the medium is *playfulness. *The message of the medium, at its current stage of evolution at least, is let’s play.

    • Resistance to Ludic AI

      • Threat to humanness.

        • Fear, basically.

      • Inexperience with Command

      • Interesting. I definitely feel something like this. I have almost zero experience and capability commanding humans. Sad but true, it is not my strong suit. BUT I have spent decades ordering machines around, that I am good at, I get paid to do it. And working with AI feels like a weird blending of these formerly disjoint sides of my character. It's unsettling, although also maybe a good thing.

      • Overly realistic expectations

      • I don't think this is a problem for me, I am as entranced by LLM humanness as anyone, but if it fucks something up I don't get outraged, I'm actually a bit relieved to see that the machinery is sometimes visible and malfunctioning.

      • Other resistances

      • Rigorous anti-capitalism. These machines are tools of corporate control of our minds and lives, at a level far beyond what we had alreaedy suffered. You think Facebook owning your social life was bad, now Grok own your mind. No joke, the soul is at hazard. A good antitechnologist looks at the continuous infiltration of tech into our inner lives and sees The Borg. You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.

    • Just what is ludic?

      • Most people are bad at text, and so bad at having fun with text. You need skills. See WorkPlay .