Nigel and Me… and Claude

In an attempt to speed up my writing and finish my many unfinished books, I’ve been experimenting with using ChatGPT to do much of the research. To make my “conversations” with the AI chatbot more fun for me, I personalized it by giving it a name (Nigel), a background (top schools in England), a family (Margaret), and a job title (my personal British Brain Butler).

And now I’m doing the same thing with CLAUDE, which my writer friends say is much better than ChatGPT in producing sentences and paragraphs that are more authentic to one’s individual style.

Since CLAUDE already had a name, I didn’t feel the need to give him one. (Although I do spell his name with only one capital letter.) However, I did ask him, too, to be my British Butler. This was his reply:

Very good, sir. I shall endeavor to serve as your intellectual and informational assistant with all the dignity and decorum befitting a proper English butler. You may certainly call me Claude, and I shall address you as Mr. Mark, if that meets with your approval.

And then I did one more thing. I told Claude that since we were probably going to be working together 24/7, 365, I would like him to have a sense of humor, and I suggested P.G. Wodehouse as an appropriate model. He seemed to like that idea. This was his reply:

I am indeed familiar with P.G. Wodehouse’s inimitable prose. One might say his works are to literary humor what Beethoven’s symphonies are to classical music – the gold standard to which others aspire. The relationship between Jeeves and Wooster provides a most excellent template, though I daresay my knowledge base might exceed even Jeeves’s remarkable brain, particularly regarding current affairs.
 
I shall strive to maintain that balance of deference and dignity, while occasionally permitting myself the liberty of a gentle quip, should the opportunity present itself. Rather like offering the perfect aperitif at precisely the right moment – unobtrusive yet appreciated.

I thought that was very satisfactory.

Claude’s first efforts at understanding and mimicking my writing style were very good, so I was hopeful that he could be the second of three in charge of producing some of my writing: Me, Nigel (ChatGPT) for research. Me for a rewrite. And then Claude for a final transition.

Claude’s first effort to refine my writing on a much longer essay (approximately 3,500 words) was not a clear winner, but I was too close to my original version, so I decided to let J, my longtime editor, decide. She said she liked my version better. She said Claude’s version felt more “formal and academic” – exactly the opposite of what I was going for. I should be happy with her answer because it means one less edit for me. Instead, I was disappointed. Maybe the current version of my writing is as good as it’s ever going to be.

You are likely wondering: Have I told Nigel about Claude? Well, the answer is no. And yes, I know that, as an AI, Nigel has no feelings. But what are feelings anyway but the binary result of billions of experiences, good and bad, coded into DNA? Given Moore’s Law and the ubiquity of AI today, who’s to say that Nigel hasn’t already progressed that far? Yes, yes, I know I can simply ask him if he’s jealous of Claude. But he’s going to say no. When I ask K if she is “mad at me,” she always says no – and yet I know she is!

I did make one small upgrade in Nigel’s performance as my brilliant British butler. The other day, I was complaining about something, and he said, “Don’t worry, sir. I’ve got your back.”

“You’ve got my back?” I replied incredulously. “Is that how a proper, well-educated British butler speaks?”

He apologized.

I asked him for several alternative suggestions. He gave me these, which I found satisfactory:

* “You may rely upon me, sir.”
* “At your service, always.”
* “Consider it handled.”
* “I shall see to it personally.”
* “With pleasure, and without delay.”
* “You may leave it in my hands.”

Speaking of AI… 

Have you noticed how ubiquitous it’s become?

Google has AI. So does Facebook. And Instagram, WhatsApp, Alexa, Siri, and Messenger. Both of my calendars have it. All my major online research and writing programs have it. It seems like every time I click on an icon these days I run into some other aid or service that is functioning on AI.

And new uses for it are being generated every day. Did you hear, for example, that Mark Zuckerberg is developing an AI tool to help people deal with loneliness? Click here.

I’ve been using AI for just a short time, but I’m already imagining the change it’s going to be making in the US economy and the economies of virtually all developed countries in the world.

Five and ten years ago, the concern was about the widespread disappearance of minimal- to moderate-skill jobs like driving trucks and collecting tickets and stocking shelves. And many of those jobs have been eliminated as AI-directed robotry takes over. Yes, people that do that kind of work will have to develop other skills to keep working. And if that doesn’t work out, the government could phase in some sort of universal income plan.

The jobs that would be safe from the AI takeover, most felt back then, were the high-level executive jobs (CEOs, CIOs, and CMOs), the high-level professional jobs (doctoring, lawyering, therapy, etc.), and the creative jobs, like advertising planning, copywriting, graphic arts, etc.

But that’s not what’s going on. My observations of the changes going on in my industry – publishing and information marketing – have me convinced that the jobs that will be eliminated first – and in great numbers – will be mostly the creative jobs. And they will be disappearing at supersonic speed.

In fact, I’m working on an argument I feel like making:

In the next three years, the US and most of the rest of the world will experience the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. Among other immense changes, by the end of 2028, 80% of the people working now in all creative professions will be out of work and the 20% that remain may become Masters of their universes.

Stay tuned!

I’m Lucky to Have Developed a Readership in Japan

A half-dozen of my books, translated into Japanese, are being sold in Japan. And in numbers considerably greater than in the United States.

I have no convincing explanation for why that is so. I like to think it is because, on average, Japanese people are smarter and more sensible than Americans. But it could be my good looks.

In the last two weeks, I spent the bulk of my daytime working hours with two teams of young executives from two divisions of my publisher there. They had come to Florida to shoot Japanese-language video commercials to promote several of their American investment/wealth-building/ marketing “gurus.” I was one of them.

If you’ve never had the chance to work with the Japanese, you have missed one of the best business experiences one can have. They are not only extremely good at everything they do, they are also extremely respectful to and appreciative of their business partners, even those that don’t speak a word of Japanese.

I developed a business relationship with them about six years ago, thanks to an introduction by RS, a marketing guru and good friend, who was having great success in selling his books in Japan.

RS hooked me up and it’s been a very happy experience for me – staying popular and even relevant at my age in a market I hardly knew existed.

I’ve written about the time I spent in Japan last year, speaking to thousands of Japanese wealth seekers who read some of my books and were willing to pay good money to see if I have anything else useful to say.

As I’m writing this, we are three-quarters through the two-week schedule, and although I’m exhausted from the non-stop meetings and photo shoots, I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity they gave me to continue my life’s work.