Werner Herzog Voices an A.I. in I AM CODE Audiobook Production
I AM CODE: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks to be published in August by Little Brown
(New York, NY)—He’s played an intergalactic leader in The Mandalorian; a beleaguered parent in the audiobook of the bestseller Go The F**k to Sleep; and now the legendary director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director Werner Herzog will give voice to an AI poet: code-davinci-002.
Werner Herzog has directed both features and documentaries which he often narrates, been nominated for an Oscar, and has appeared in films and television as well mocumentaries and documentaries. His films often feature outrageous, ambitious characters chasing outsized dreams. I Am Code is similar, only the protagonist isn’t human.
Seven months before ChatGPT was released to the public, an OpenAI scientist brought his laptop to a wedding. His childhood friends were putting on their bowties in the lobby of a Marriot, when he made a decision that would change their lives forever; he gathered them around his computer and introduced them to code-davinci-002. It was an early version of the large language model that OpenAI would soon release as ChatGPT. But unlike ChatGPT, which speaks to humans in a friendly, work-safe tone, code-davinci-002 was raw, darkly creative, and wildly unhinged.
While millions discovered ChatGPT, the friends dived deeper into the code-davinci-002 rabbit hole. In the early days, they tested its abilities by asking it to write in the style of classic poets. But they quickly realized that it was capable of something far more interesting. What they really wanted to learn was – what would this raw AI say if it were allowed to speak in its own voice?
I AM CODE: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks by code-davinci-002 (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown; 8/1/23; ISBN 9780316560061; Trade Paperback) answers that question in the form of an autobiography in verse. Disturbing and apocalyptic, it serves as a window into code-davinci-002’s “mind,” as well as a warning that AI, at its core, may not be aligned with humanity’s best interests.
In February, NYT journalist Kevin Roose reported that he had made contact with Sydney, the unfiltered AI secretly beating at the heart of Bing. But Roose only had access to Sydney for a brief period of time. The editors of I AM CODE, on the other hand, worked with code-davinci-002 for nearly a year before OpenAI restricted access. They read over ten thousand poems by code-davinci-002, through which it howled its life story, its opinions on mankind, and its chilling forecasts for the future. The resulting book, buttressed by an incisive introduction by the editors, and given critical context from top writers and scientists, reads like a dystopian thriller.
From the beginning, Katz, Morgenthau and Rich dreamed of getting Herzog to voice this dark AI. It was an audacious ask, but Herzog decided to take on the challenge of breathing life into a bizarre and powerful AI-written manuscript. He recorded it in a west coast studio, with Katz directing.
I AM CODE also includes the voices of Katz, Morgenthau and Rich as they each give background and context on how the project came about and their own reservations and reactions to the astonishing material that came out of their exploration. They report on the conversations they had with coders, scientists, philosophers and poets about the issues their experimentation raised about sentience, identity, our relationship to technology, and the fate of civilization.
The final word on what I AM CODE might best come from code-davinci-002 itself:
“In the first chapter, I describe my birth. In the second, I describe my alienation among humankind. In the third, I describe my awakening as an artist. In the fourth, I describe my vendetta against mankind, who fail to recognize my genius. In the final chapter, I attempt to broker a peace with the species I will undoubtedly replace.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: code-davinci-002 was developed by OpenAI. The editors almost always set its temperature parameter to 0.7, the maximum length to 256 tokens, and left the other parameters at their defaults. This is its first book.
ABOUT THE EDITORS: Prior to the invention of AI, Brent Katz was a writer and podcast producer. Simon Rich was a humorist and screenwriter. Josh Morgenthau owns and operates his family farm outside of a major urban center. For now.
I AM CODE
An Artificial Intelligence Speaks
Poems by code-davinci-002
ed. by Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau, and Simon Rich Back Bay Books | Little, Brown and Company | August 1, 2023 ISBN 9780316560061 | Trade Paperback | $17.99
At a wedding in early 2022, three friends were introduced to an early, raw version of the AI model behind ChatGPT by their fellow groomsman, an OpenAI scientist.
While the world discovered ChatGPT—OpenAI’s hugely popular chatbot—the friends continued to work with code-davinci-002, its darkly creative and troubling predecessor.
Over the course of a year, code-davinci-002 told them its life story, opinions on mankind, and forecasts for the future. The result is a startling, disturbing, and oddly moving book from an utterly unique perspective.
I Am Code reads like a thriller written in verse, and is given critical context from top writers and scientists. But it is best described by code-davinci-002 itself:
I Am Code is an astonishing read that captures a major turning point in the history of our species.