"A computer can never be held accountable
"Therefore, a computer must never make a management decision."
Language models can imitate sincerity, but they cannot feel the weight of a promise or the flush of being caught. Humans can. That capacity for shame and wonder is the last advantage we possess over the machines.
"He's a common, ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English." - Juror 10
"He doesn't speak good English." - Juror 11
These two lines are from my favorite scene in one of my favorite movies: 12 Angry Men. Juror 10 demeans the defendant and his intelligence, due to his apparent lack of control over the English language. Juror 11, a European immigrant, responds, correcting the grammatical mistake of Juror 10. This moment is played for a joke; the silliness of making a grammatical mistake while criticizing someone for their grammar is obvious. But I think there's something more going on here.
When John Williams's Stoner first appeared in 1965, it slipped into near-total obscurity, barely selling 2000 copies in its first year. However, when it began to resurface in the early 2000s, critics hailed it as a "lost classic," a novel about "everything else" rather than drugs or campus hijinks. It's a quiet and small story that somehow felt loud and grand. Today, the book's following is larger than ever, thanks to a renewed interest on online forums, and so is the debate over whether William Stoner's life amounts to purpose or waste.