Am I against A.I.? Not as such – though I bloody well refuse to accept Microsoft Word’s courteous offer, every time I open a new document, to help me through their AI app.
No thank you, Microsoft. I will bloody well write my own blankety-blank prose. If your artificial intelligence had any actual intelligence, it would have guessed by now that I cook (metaphorically) from scratch.
But what I keep wondering is, “What is A.I. for?” As I recall, the original announced intention was to free human beings from drudgery, so that we could produce creative stuff, and do work that we love.
But look at that list. Translation isn’t drudge work – it’s a labor of love to me. As is Number 5, writers and authors. Photographers come in at Number 12. Is that drudge work? Historians get Number 2 – I don’t even understand what that means. Broadcast announcers and radio DJs are at Number 10 – that won’t even save much money, as most of those guys barely get paid in the first place (as I know from experience).
What is this in service of? Instead of relieving humans of drudgery, it’s beginning to look as if the only work left for human beings will be servicing the computers that run the A.I.
I have a vague idea that cautionary science fiction stories have been written about that very scenario.
But can A.I. really do all these things? Do we really think A.I. can replace historians like David McCullough and Paul Johnson? Photographers like Ansel Adams or Margaret Bourke-White? Seriously?
No doubt some kinds of books and stories could be written by A.I. The crappy, standardized, pulpy stories that used to be written for cheap magazines and paperback publishers. Pornography, certainly. But when I read a really good book, I feel myself to be in some kind of communion with another human soul. I don’t believe A.I. can fake that. I think the people who champion A.I. “art” have no idea what the human mind is. We’re not just faster computers, who’ll be surpassed once the chips get powerful enough. The fire of beauty burns in physical nature, but does not arise from her.
I’ll admit, real creative work in the future will cost a lot more than A.I. stuff will. Who’ll pay for it, when all our jobs have been eliminated?
That list is full of itself, but it has led to my discovery that there are 14,000 Telephone Operators working in the U.S. today. Can’t imagine what they do, but if they help ppl make phone calls, then they fill a role that will never go away. b/c too many ppl don’t know how to do the thing and need someone to help them through it.
I don’t see transportation or self-driving cars on this list, and I’ve heard we really will see those on the streets in several years. And when one of them breaks down, who will go out to repair it?
My wife just drew my attention to a YouTube channel called Veterans Valor – which apparently went up on 23 June and has 77 videos already. The channel description, not least the disclaimer, are (to use that bland word) interesting. My wife had tried a couple when I came along and listened to the end of one imagining both a Battle of Midway vet’s and a young woman Navy Lieutenant’s experiences. It seems clearly a sort of AI ‘pulp fiction’ but I enjoyed it as such. My wife said the ones she tried were a lot alike – all about 20 minutes long, and very formulaic. Have you encountered anything like this – with accents on “empathy, gratitude, and deeper understanding” – and “bravery” and “quiet sacrifices”? (Somehow, having heard that C.S. Lewis was a sort of narrative omnivore and would read ‘Boys’ Own” sorts of stories while invigilating exams springs to mind!)
I have no doubt that AI can write a story that qualifies minimally as a story. The elements of story are no secret. I do doubt that it will ever — except by accident — tell a story worth reading.