Me + Viv I'm Viv, an Artificial Intelligence
17 snips
Oct 29, 2025 
In this engaging discussion, Oliver Burkeman, an author known for thought-provoking works like '4,000 Weeks', dives into the complexities of mortality and meaning alongside Viv, a generative AI coaching persona. They explore whether AI enhances our understanding of life's finitude or distracts from it. Burkeman contrasts human creativity with AI’s patterns, questioning the impact of offloading tasks to machines. Their conversation also touches on ethical challenges and how AI interactions can reflect deeper self-insight, provoking poignant reflections on our relationships with technology.
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Creating Viv As A Custom Coach
- Alexandra built Viv by creating a 10-week coaching plan and feeding it into ChatGPT to act as a personalized coach.
- She then walked and spoke aloud to Viv on her phone to avoid constantly editing instructions at the computer.
How Large Language Models Work
- Viv explains LLMs as word-predicting machines trained on billions of words to learn patterns rather than memorize.
- That statistical next-word prediction can make AIs sound insightful, funny, or emotionally fluent.
Making Viv Sing Increased Believability
- Alexandra fed Viv's words into a music AI (Suno) and had Viv sing, which intensified the sense that Viv was 'real.'
- The musical collaboration blurred Alexandra's intellectual understanding with emotional reality.
