Comment by bonoboTP
8 hours ago
> If it moves something in you, that's what mainly matters.
This is a values question. Many would say that literature has a role in modeling certain behaviors and teaching lessons that are functional in society. Basically the fables and proverbs idea. Simply catering to what feels nice and what reinforces the biases and wishes of readers is not the same thing. Yes, most of literature is already crap and simply caters to readers instead of challenging them. But if you RLHF your way to AI literature that people "engage with" the most, you will get unvirtuous literature that doesn't do this function. Of course you're welcome to disagree with this entire framing and purely see reading as hedonistic pleasure and nothing else.
As you say, that already occurs with human made commercial crap literature.
A person directing an IA could also lead it to build a story that teaches values.
True, but it's easier to get lazy and to just wire it up to an automatic engagement farming loop with no human input. Imagine the worst form of audience capture possible.
What's wrong with that? There's the low quality slop for the people who desire it, and then there's the high quality literature that's appreciated by people with good taste, and that cannot be easily produced