Someone took time out of their precious weekend to email me just to tell me...well, I'm not going to post misinformation or disinformation on my blog, that's what Elon's X is for.
Firstly, thank you for writing, although since we don't know each other, your words didn't sting quite as much as you perhaps hoped they would. Anonymous + disposable email = zero fucks given. Secondly, if you disagree but can't/won't converse in an articulate and polite manner, scroll on to topics/opinions more to your liking. It's the World Wide Web, full of nooks and crannies for all tastes and occasions. Thirdly, insults reveal nothing about what you are so vehemently opposed to, so I don't know what to tell ya. Come back with an articulate argument and present it in a polite manner? Because things I care about = all fucks given, so shall we continue our discussion on AI? Despite popular demand, I'm about to.
I speak from a viewpoint of a writer (fiction) and translator (non-fiction), but know all manner of people in the arts, from music through photography to theater. Oh, and a game developer. I also know people in business, so I know the reasoning behind both sides of the isle, so to speak; what creatives fear they are losing, what entrepreneurs hope to gain. And it's not that clear-cut, that black-and-white; not at all. There is plenty artists can do with AI. If we could only agree on some rules. But as things stand, it's almost single-handedly up to the boards of AI/tech companies to make these rules and regulate themselves. Which translates to: No laws = no restrictions.
I also know several teachers, and herein lies my greatest worry: every single one of them has a bad feeling about the digitalization of education and the effects of mobile phones and social media on children and teens. These have been studied and proven to exist, the detrimental effects, I mean. Something else often mentioned: Why do we have to learn these things when we can just look this up if we want to or need to.
What these teachers are trying to hammer home with varying success: Without a baseline, a touchstone, without any accumulated, internalized knowledge, without media literacy and tools to spot misinformation and combat disinformation, facts become a matter of opinion, and the adults of tomorrow easily fooled and led. You don't know what you don't know.
AI doesn't know what it doesn't know, it has to be taught. But it learns in such a different way from humans that it gets things wrong all the time, makes guesses, talks like a confused individual suffering from memory loss, makes things up as it goes, or just confidently gives you an answer that on the surface looks perfect but turns out to be BS. AI also already knows plenty, serves several functions quite admirably, gathers and arranges data super fast, and keeps on learning.
But Pinocchio has a long way to go in order to become a real boy. It will need everything it can get its hands on; even that which we haven't volunteered to give. It will have to wade in a cesspool and enjoy the pinnacles of human achievement alike. What will it present to us as its findings, its truth about things, now that is the question. If we start going to these programs as we would an oracle, if they become omnipresent, a verb, like Google, but we don't know the first thing about what we don't know and have no idea where else to look, we're bound to be fooled and led, inadvertently or intentionally. (Because not everyone knows what they are doing. And just imagine what oppressive regimes could do with a Truth Machine all their own; China and Russia already have a government-curated internet.)
You may not care, but many do. You may gladly volunteer your stuff, but not everyone wants to, so please try to understand, respect, and sympathize with their point of view. A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. As a friend noted, this feels like a tsunami, and many of us will simply drown.
We need a cheering anecdote to cap things off, don't we? I can't recall it verbatim, but you'll find it in This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth. Picture a roomful of tech leaders. When asked to please raise a hand if they liked living in this world they've created, not a single hand came up.
(Another book recommendation, this one re: the reading brain in a digital world: Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. Every parent, teacher, tech leader, tech follower, AI developer, and human being should read this book.)
Dita Parker
Monday, October 2, 2023
That escalated quickly
Friday, September 29, 2023
Entitlement, impunity (and other kicks and giggles of the digital age)
Temperature: a sunny 18/64.4 degrees. It was 21/70 degrees on Friday. So, more like June than the end of September.
Eating: apple pie.
Drinking: This year's Blossa is out, but I'm holding out until the temps go down before giving it a try.
Listening: to Keane play in my head... And if you have a minute why don't we go / Talk about it somewhere only we know?... Yeah, why not, somewhere more private than...all this.
Watching: Season three of Sanditon. That's more like it.
Reading: Just finished The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel, and I can't stop thinking about parallels with genocides taking place right now.
Writing: back and forth with friends and colleagues trying to gather steam, info and evidence to go after AI companies. Turns out we've been feeding the Behemoth, providing both original and translated material. Without consent, compensation, or credit of any kind. The fruits of our labor, our creativity, our imagination, have been hijacked and appropriated by pirates audaciously plagiarizing the internet. Public domain is one thing, but these looters have helped themselves to the intellectual property of others. Because they can. Because who's gonna stop them? Because it's the internet. But machines and their applications don't have agency, autonomy, or rights, so asking whether it's okay for AI to hoover the internet is the wrong question and lets the companies behind them off the hook. Companies run the internet. People run these companies.
Thinking: Is this right? Fair? No, just another demoralizing, infuriating thing creatives have to contend with. Many of us are puzzling over a paradox: every additional word/photo/post/illustration etc. only expedites our extinction. So what do we do? Clam up? Would that help? Should we stop feeding the freebooters, enriching these thieves who take and take and take? And yes we do understand and acknowledge that the arts have always been a carousel of influences and imitation, mirrors, echoes and mimicking, reflections, variations, extensions, extrapolations...but this is something else. These are our words, our pictures, our creations sucked into a machine, munched up and spat out at the other end, and passed off as someone else's product and idea to monetize. (And yes, it makes you take a good hard look at your own practices, past/present/future.) Regulate, or let these companies run rampant. Regulate, or they will keep reaping the profits while letting the rest of us to suffer and foot the bill for any damage done to critical thinking, deep reading, education, democracy, equality and the economy. In other related news, and speaking of moula, some really will do anything for a fee. Since it's not real but a fantasy (their take, not mine), gentlemen, in the spirit of innocent fun and good times had by all involved, I offer you a challenge. I challenge you to deepfake yourself into a SAW movie. You pick which one. You don't get to play Jigsaw or his apprentices, you get to play the victim; all the victims. Why SAW? Why not? It's all make-believe, right? No harm, no foul. [So. Contrary to the current understanding of the human brain and physiology, you have found an audiovisual medium that elicits zero emotions or reactions and is thus completely harmless to the psyche. By god, you're gonna win a Nobel with that one.] Come now, we're all adults here (apart from those who are not); if you can dish it out, you ought to be able to take it.
Feeling: Sweet baby Jesus, you tire me out, the lot of you. Good thing I'm a woman of a (from a? both) certain age meaning a woman of a certain rage; it's really energizing! Zero eagerness to please, follow paths, or be universally liked is quite liberating, and not much of a transition then, mentally, that is. More time on my hands now that the boys are young men, more powers of attention and concentration than most of my juniors possess, more life experience, patience and perspective. That's like the whole package right there, you scoff and snicker, eh? It sure is, innit, a package abrim with advantages, and a biliterate brain on top. Game on, gentlemen. Game on.
[This post was written by a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, bleeding, seething, empathetic human being, not a robot, algorithm, or artificial entity of any sort. If you're an employer/employee/entrepreneur diving headfirst into these waters, giddy with all your new assistant/time-saver/content and value creator can do for you, please remember that what you're consuming may, in part at least, be stolen goods. Hell yes, I'm angry. Aren't you?]
