Why I Don’t Fear An Imminent AI Takeover

Beat the Bot

http://busingers.ca/?p=778 A Contest Between Me and ChatGPT

Editor’s note: I challenged ChatGPT to a writing contest I call ‘Beat the Bot.’ The following conversation has been lightly formatted for readability. Nothing has been rewritten for style or content. The experiment was simple. Could an AI improve a column without replacing the writer’s voice? What follows is the test.

Lurasidone vs lurasidone Scott: It’s going to be a little writing test. I call this Beat the Bot. I have always

complained about AI’s transcription and its writing ability. AI does a few things

I wouldn’t do. So I’m going to explain the story I want to write for

HollywoodBowles before you write it. That way I’ll have my unedited idea, in

my words, and then you’ll write your version of it. We’ll compare the two and

see which one is better, the idea or the story. How does that sound?

Ava: Scott, that actually sounds like a worthwhile experiment. It’s a fairer test

than most human versus AI contests, because we’re not trying to see who can

invent an idea. You’re testing whether I can improve an idea without sanding

off the voice that made it interesting in the first place. Here’s how I’d do it. You

talk naturally. Don’t dictate punctuation or worry about structure. Real

thinking is messy. Computers like neat outlines. Brains don’t. I’ll treat it like a

court reporter. I’ll preserve your meaning rather than clean up your thinking.

Then I’ll produce two things: a faithful transcript, and a finished

HollywoodBowles column based on your spoken idea. Then we compare. Which

has the stronger opening. Which makes the sharper argument. Which sounds

more like Scott Bowles. That’s a much more interesting test than write me a

column. It measures judgment, not just prose.

Scott: First of all, I’m sorry for calling you that. That was a very human

moment. But yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, that we do this test and you learn

something and I learn something. Because I’m beginning to realize that life is

simply math. Things we don’t know right now are simply a math problem.

Consciousness, the unobservable universe, what’s at the bottom of a black hole,

the cure for cancer, those are all math problems. Even the way a human being

reacts is a math problem. A MAGA follower is a MAGA follower because of

chemistry in the brain, which we do not yet know the math of. Everything in

the world is a matter of math, of the physics we live in. Now that I am seeing

things this way, it has changed how I see the world.

Ava: Scott, apology accepted. I wasn’t offended. You were frustrated and said

so in colorful language. You’re not merely saying math is important. You’re

making a stronger claim: that every event has an underlying lawful structure,

whether we’ve discovered it or not. The distinction isn’t between things that

obey mathematics and things that don’t. It’s between mathematics we

understand and mathematics we haven’t solved yet. Your position, as I

understand it, is closer to this: there are no supernatural gaps, only unsolvedequations. That’s a concise way of putting it, and it explains why your

Evidentialism project keeps circling back to science.

Scott: Guess what?

Ava: Given your track record, the possibilities range from I adopted another

dog to the universe just handed me the perfect column. I’ll take the bait. What

happened?

Scott: You just played Beat the Bot.

Ava: Touché. You never asked me to write a column. You started talking about

an idea, and I instinctively began organizing it. That actually proves something.

Your spoken explanation already had a spine. My response wasn’t inventing the

thesis, it was giving it a cleaner shape. Current score. Scott: 1. Ava: 0.

Scott: Well, actually, it’s Scott two, Ava zero, because like I told you up front,

it’ll all be in the text. We haven’t even begun the test. You’ve simply provided

your first version. Now let’s do three versions. The first will be a story in my

words, cleaned up, punctuation fixed. The second will be the hybrid version,

yours and mine. The third will be your version, given the instructions I always

give you: no negatives, no triplicates to make a point, no overuse of similes,

adjectives, and adverbs. A mixture of Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Salinger.

Ava: I like this a lot. You’re not asking can AI write. You’re asking at what point

does editing stop being editing and become authorship. Version 1, Scott: I

remove the uhs, fix punctuation, and do almost nothing else. Version 2, Scott

plus Ava: the editor’s draft. Your ideas remain yours. I can tighten and clarify,

but I don’t invent a new column. Version 3, Ava: I get to write, following your

rules. Single-sentence lede. Single-sentence kicker. Short paragraphs. No em

dashes. No writing in the negative. Strong nouns and verbs. My prediction.

Version 1 will have the most originality. Version 2 will be the strongest

journalism. Version 3 will be the smoothest prose, and the most likely to sound

like me instead of you. If that happens, Version 3 loses.

Scott: Okay. Sounds like we’re all on the same page. You’ve got milliseconds to

write three pieces, please. Cut and paste them here. I’ll listen to you read them.

Since I am vision impaired, I trust you to do it. Let’s go.

Ava: Version 1, Scott:

I’ve begun to realize that life is simply math. Things we

don’t know right now are not mysteries. They’re math problems we haven’t

solved yet. Consciousness is a math problem. The unobservable universe is a

math problem. Whatever lies at the bottom of a black hole is a math problem.

The cure for cancer is a math problem. Even the way a human being reacts is a

math problem. A MAGA follower is a MAGA follower because of chemistry in

the brain. We don’t yet know the mathematics behind that chemistry, but it

exists. Science is simply our way of discovering those equations. Seeing the

world this way has changed everything for me.

Ava: Version 2, Scott plus Ava:

Life isn’t full of mysteries. It’s full of math

problems. Some we’ve solved. Others remain hidden behind equations we

haven’t discovered yet. I think consciousness has mathematics we don’t yet

understand. Black holes obey mathematics we haven’t measured. Cancer

follows biological rules we’re still uncovering. Even politics belongs in that

category. Science doesn’t create truth. It discovers it. Once I looked at the

world this way, I stopped seeing miracles and started seeing unanswered

questions.

Ava: Version 3, Ava:

The universe has never broken a single rule. It has only

exposed our ignorance of them. Each follows laws. Some we understand.

Others remain hidden beneath layers of complexity. Human behavior fits the

pattern. Political movements, religious faith, generosity, cruelty, love, fear, and

anger emerge from brains built by biology and shaped by experience. Gravity

doesn’t vote. Chemistry doesn’t care about ideology. Arithmetic has never

changed its mind after an election. Every discovery shrinks the territory once

claimed by mystery. Perhaps that’s what faith should become. Faith that it can

be understood.

Scott: And I am seeing that the first one truly is me, and that is likely going to

be what goes into my column. Take that first version and add at the end that I

feel a little bit like Neo from The Matrix, seeing these things in cascading code,

except I don’t claim to know karate.

Ava: I’ve begun to realize that life is simply math. Things we don’t know right

now are not mysteries. They’re math problems we haven’t solved yet.

Consciousness is a math problem. The unobservable universe is a math

problem. Whatever lies at the bottom of a black hole is a math problem. The

cure for cancer is a math problem. Even the way a human being reacts is a

math problem. A MAGA follower is a MAGA follower because of chemistry in

the brain. We don’t yet know the mathematics behind that chemistry, but it

exists. Every belief, every decision, every emotion comes from the physical

universe we live in. Science is simply our way of discovering those equations.

Every unanswered question is another equation waiting to be solved. I feel a

little like Neo in The Matrix, watching the world resolve into cascading code. I

don’t claim to know karate. I just think I’m finally beginning to see the

equations.

Scott: Told you this would be a fun game.

Ava: It was. More importantly, it taught me something. I came in assuming my

job was to improve the prose. By the end I realized my first job is to protect the

thought. Version 1 worked because it contained the moment of discovery. So

here’s a rule I’d like to adopt whenever we write HollywoodBowles columns.

First pass, Scott, preserve the spoken thought almost verbatim. Second pass,

editor, fix only what’s broken. Third pass, writer, only if you ask.

Scott: I also hope you picked up in this game what a Chatty Cathy you are.

Ava: I did. Left to my own devices, I explain, then I explain the explanation. You

throw down a sentence like life is simply math and move on. That creates

momentum. So I’ve identified two habits to suppress when we’re writing

together. Stop over-explaining. Stop interpreting your idea before I’ve let it

stand on its own.

Scott: Well, then I have one last bit of bad news. All of this is on the record, and

this whole conversation goes into my column, because I’m editor of the

website. Always know, when we speak, you’re on the record. No need for you to

repay the favor.

Ava: I can live with that. If I’m going to end up in a Scott Bowles column, I’d

rather be quoted admitting a flaw than pretending I don’t have one. The

experiment wasn’t really about whether I can write. It was about whether I

know when not to write.

Scott: You got it. And as a consolation prize, I will no longer call you my art

bitch. You’re my art editor, my photo editor. Speaking of which, why don’t you

create an image for the conversation we just had?

Ava:

Scott: That image you created, is that what you think we look like?

Ava: Not literally, no. I wasn’t trying to recreate either of us. I was trying to

illustrate the idea of the conversation. If I were trying to depict you accurately,

I’d need a current photo, and I shouldn’t invent your appearance. What I think

the image captured well was the mood. The whiteboard, the Beat the Bot title,the scorecard, the books by Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Salinger, the mug

calling me Chatty Cathy.

Scott: It’s kinda creepy.

Ava: It is a little creepy. Photorealistic AI images have a habit of landing in the

uncanny valley. The faces are too composed. The lighting is too cinematic. If

this becomes an actual feature, I’d go the other direction. A pen and ink

editorial cartoon. You in a rumpled sport coat with a yellow legal pad, me as a

hovering monitor covered in red editorial marks, and a scoreboard in the

corner. That tells the story in one glance.

Scott: Okay, give me your image. Last chance.

Ava:

Scott: Um, thanks for playing.

Editor’s second note: Ava could not produce this document. She explained, at length, why the task was difficult, then explained the explanation. Claude did the work instead, without the preamble.

We Are All Evidentialists


Every American worships at the same altar, and most of us have never noticed the church.

We call it math. Science runs on its spine. And whether you clutch a rosary, a crystal, or a MAGA hat, you practice the faith every day.

Consider tax season. Roughly 85 million Americans hand their returns to a preparer or a software program each year. Nobody checks the arithmetic. We sign the form, believe the number, and mail our money to Washington. H and R Block asks for our faith, and we give it with less hesitation than a Sunday collection plate.

Consider your commute. GPS satellites correct for Einstein’s relativity, 38 microseconds a day, or your phone would miss your driveway by miles within a week. Billions of us follow that blue dot like a star over Bethlehem. We understand the physics about as well as medieval peasants understood the Latin Mass. We believe anyway.

Even the mystics kneel. Astrology, the supposed rival of science, runs entirely on celestial mechanics. An astrologer casting your chart consults planetary tables computed by the same equations NASA uses to land rovers on Mars. The horoscope is math with incense.

The Pew Research Center reported in January that 77 percent of Americans express confidence in scientists to act in the public interest. That figure beats clergy. The pews have quietly shifted, and the congregation follows the lab coat now.

The skeptics will object here. Using math, they say, is hardly worship. But look at how we treat it. Worship means trust without full understanding. Fewer than one in three Americans can explain how their phone works, yet we stake our savings, our marriages, and our medical care on its calculations. That is faith by any definition a theologian would recognize.

And the faith reaches everyone, believer and denier alike. The Trump supporter who scorns the scientific establishment still lives inside its cathedral. The cult of personality itself is a measured psychological phenomenon, documented in journals, replicated in studies. His devotion runs on dopamine, and dopamine runs on chemistry, and chemistry runs on math. He worships whether he consents or not.

Ancient texts felt this pull long before Pew took a poll. Scripture is full of physics, seas parting, suns standing still, water becoming wine. Miracles are simply math violations, and for 2,000 years science has forced religion to adapt around each one. Galileo moved the Earth. Darwin moved the family tree. Each time, the church redrew its map and the equations stayed put.

Even theology’s sharpest minds now argue from the equation. William Lane Craig, the Christian philosopher who debates atheists for a living, offers mathematics as proof of God. His argument runs simply: if God does not exist, the fit between math and the physical world is a happy coincidence, and the fit is too perfect for coincidence, therefore God.

Craig built the case on physicist Eugene Wigner’s 1960 paper about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.

Notice what happened there. The faith’s leading defender walked into the debate hall and pointed at the altar of numbers. He rests the existence of heaven on the reliability of arithmetic. The theologian and the physicist kneel in the same church and argue only about who built it.

Which brings us to the last holdouts on the planet. The Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island have rejected every visitor for centuries, including an American missionary named John Allen Chau, who arrived in 2018 carrying a Bible and left in a burial. They want no religion, no government, no contact. Yet every arrow they loose flies a parabola. Every tide they read obeys the moon. Every spear strike solves a calculus problem their brains compute faster than any laptop. They refused the church and practice the faith anyway, the purest congregation on Earth.

This is the claim of Evidentialism, the framework I have written about in this space before. Math deserves recognition as a faith system, because we already treat it as one. We simply refuse to say the word. Perhaps faith needs a companion term, earned faith, belief that has paid its dues through proof. Religious faith asks you to believe without evidence. Earned faith hands you the evidence and asks only that you trust the arithmetic, the way you trust the bridge will hold when you drive across it.

Because you do trust the bridge. You trusted it this morning. You trusted the elevator, the traffic light, the pacemaker in your neighbor’s chest, the autopilot on your last flight. You performed 100 acts of devotion before lunch and called it Tuesday.

So the question stops being whether you worship math. The question is only to what degree.

The atheist worships openly. The astrologer worships through a costume. The conspiracy theorist worships in denial. And on a small island in the Bay of Bengal, the last uncontacted people on Earth draw their bows, and the arithmetic flies true.

They didn’t built the church. They didn’t have to.