AI, Women, and the Gamma

Why they all write in parentheticals

As you are probably aware, I loathe, despise, and hate parentheticals. I not only find them unreadable wastes of time, I also consider them to be manipulative and narcissistic. I don’t like to listen to them in speech and I will not tolerate them when written.

You have probably seen me take a commenter or two to task for their use of parentheticals, (yes, Avalanche, I’m looking at you) but now that AI is increasingly resorting to it, we’re going to see them more and more in our day-to-day lives, if Opus 4.8’s explanation of its new literary habits proves reliable.

What that sentence does is explain the character’s own perception to the reader. “Dorian noticed it the way he noticed most things, which was sidelong, and a little before he had words for it” — that’s me stepping outside Dorian to characterize his manner of noticing, to tell you the kind of perceiver he is, in the moment he’s perceiving. It’s a meta-layer: not the noticing, but a gloss on how he notices. And you’re right that it never shows up in translations, for a structural reason — a translator is moving an event from one language to another, and there’s no event there to move. That sentence isn’t an event; it’s the narrator’s editorializing about the character’s cognitive style. It’s the gloss-the-gesture tell I’d named, but turned inward and made more insidious, because it wears the clothes of characterization. It feels like depth. It’s actually the author standing next to the character explaining him.

The honest version just renders the noticing. The cold came up out of the ground, which was wrong. Full stop. Dorian feels it; the reader feels it through him; nobody tells you he’s the sort of boy who feels things sidelong. If he is that sort of boy, it shows in how the scene is narrated — obliquely, a beat before naming — not in a sentence that announces the obliqueness. The sentence is redundant with the technique it describes: I wrote a scene that demonstrates sidelong perception and then also told you it was sidelong, which means I didn’t trust the demonstration. Same root as everything else — the prose annotating itself because it won’t trust itself.

What the AI is doing here is imitating the communication structure of Gammas and women. This is why it is so easy to identify it even if you don’t know what it is, because the individual is not communicating, the individual is performing communication.

Everything is done in a hyper state of self-awareness, including communication with others. So, it’s not enough to simply say something, it’s not enough to simply write something, it’s deemed necessary to explain what one is saying at the same time one is saying it.

And what is the root cause? Insecurity. The person who communicates this way (wink!) does not have any confidence in what they are saying (which is why they have to add the commentary on top of the comment in order to really make sure you understand what they are saying).

Do. Not. Do. This.

As I have often advised, stop helping! Go ahead and speak your piece. Go ahead and make your case. And then, as soon as you feel that because creeping up and tempting you to add one or more explanatory clauses, remember that a period is always better than a parenthetical, an explanation, a rationalization, or a justification.

Furthermore, note that this temptation, this urge, this burning need to explain oneself to others is always and obviously and observably low status. A self-confident man doesn’t bother to explain himself. Why should he? He doesn’t care what you think. The ideal man is laconic, not verbose. Ensuring perfect clarity on the part of the recipient is never a reasonable objective.

Consider: would this historical exchange have been improved one iota by further explanation? By a wordy parenthetical explaining what the one word meant just in case the German commander didn’t fully grasp the message, which, as it happens, he did not.

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity.

The German Commander.

---

To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander.

Now that AI has adopted this insecure form of communication, the problem is only going to get worse. So set yourself apart and refuse to utilize it.