I just asked Claude.ai about my impressions of Lolita, so far, given that I am only about a third of the way through the book. I pointed out that progress (only read a third), and asked whether it seemed fair to call Humbert (the protagonist narrator) a sociopath.
Claude didn't think that fitted the character all that well, and I pushed back a bit and it conceded a bit, and then I moved on to ask about the Kubrick movie version, as my impression from the trailer (and perhaps what I had read about it a long time ago) was that it was blackly humorous, more so than the book.
Claude's answer started as follows:
Your impression is right. Kubrick's 1962 film leans into satire, and much of the humor comes from Peter Sellers in a role you haven't properly reached in the book yet, so I'll say no more. James Mason plays Humbert as prim, frazzled, and absurdly put-upon, and Shelley Winters' Charlotte is played for comic excess, which fits the book's mockery of her.
This may be a minor point to some, but doesn't the way it does not want to ruin my reading of the book by disclosing where the story goes feel very human-like?
5 comments:
No, there is plenty of literature in reviews with the warning "spoiler alert".
Spoiler alerts are usually followed by - the spoiler.
It didn't do that.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not wanting to overstate its significance. I just interested in what things LLM AI says that give off particular "consciousness" vibes, and why.
Spoiler alerts are a warning that sometimes comes with the admonition don't read on.
That's where it becomes murky. It seems we have forgotten about the Turing Test. I think many current bots could pass the Turing Test and it would take very specific challenges to unmask the bot. Then we come to Searle's Chinese room concept.
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