What’s that saying, “if it’s free, you’re the product” ? Something like that. I like that you brought up the point that it’s not just the dangers of humans using AI, but humans being used by it.
Thank you for this, Emma. I am the generation above you and still remember when a ‘computer’ was a whisper in the engineering lab of my uni, to which I paid scant attention - I was more interested in photography and developing my own photos. I sometimes wonder if I am living in a hologram, a parallel X, or a cyclic universe where I am condemned to live repeats of cycles of technological advancement. Is Atlantis 2.0 around the corner? And if so, do I want it? All the glorification of the intensely anthropocentric interpretations of what is ‘good’ or ‘right’ in a self-devouring species which has reached the part of the cycle where the brain/mind is devoured from above has always been somewhat repugnant to me. I even have wondered about it photography for decades, as per Wim Wenders ‘Until the end of the world’, totally prescient. This twisting into self-obsession has reached ever more dizzying heights with every teenage girl’s lips frozen into a chimp pout, and adult women frozen into a botox trout pout. Where are the men that take a stand on this one wonders, for is it not to please them, or is it actually self-obsession...or is it manipulation? Anyhow, this is a welcome debate and one not explored enough, so thank you again.
Thanks Emma, I enjoyed your thoughts on this. To me, AI is a tool, not inherently good or evil, but beholdent to the intention of the creator and the user. When it is expressly being used in amplifying or promoting something human-made in a manner that would take a person far longer to do manually for the same result, I think it makes sense. I was not opposed to using carefully-selected AI-generated visuals for my poems, as it meant I could get my poems (very much a human creation!) in visually appealing forms far more efficiently than otherwise.
I'm not opposed to using real art or not relying on AI tools for projects at all, but from my own experience my downfall as a creator was getting so bogged down in trying to take on absolutely everything that it could interfere with my ability to actually get anything published. I see this as a far worse fate - not having the human creation shared in any form - than having something human-made out in the open even if it is supplemented by something AI-made. But in all of my uses of AI, I'm never trying to deceive someone that this AI generation is a substitution for something that exists in reality. That to me IS a dishonest use of AI with a poor intention behind it.
I do suspect many of the well-known tech companies investing in AI may not have honest intentions in mind in how they use those tools. And with that, I also suspect that the push by those same companies and by media outlets for "AI regulation" is really just to create legislative or financial barriers to smaller collectives wanting to use AI for positive means and giving a free pass to the tech giants to do what they want with it.
But in short, I'm not worried about the AI itself. I'm instead focused on who is creating it and how its being used instead.
We are coming quickly to an age when your observations will be perhaps indistinguishable from and swamped by output from AI. At that point, what will happen to trust across the internet? I already see major breakdowns in social networks such as Facebook, where a free site to connect with friends has morphed into an AI-controlled ad-spewing hell-site.
I feel we are powerless to resist the trend as a society. This will happen whether we like it or not, barring some major disrupter. We must be aware of and guard personally against this new "opiate of the masses". Perhaps our only hope is to treat AI as a drug: beneficial in small doses for proscribed tasks, but mostly dangerous on levels our psychology and society are not prepared for.
What’s that saying, “if it’s free, you’re the product” ? Something like that. I like that you brought up the point that it’s not just the dangers of humans using AI, but humans being used by it.
Thank you for this, Emma. I am the generation above you and still remember when a ‘computer’ was a whisper in the engineering lab of my uni, to which I paid scant attention - I was more interested in photography and developing my own photos. I sometimes wonder if I am living in a hologram, a parallel X, or a cyclic universe where I am condemned to live repeats of cycles of technological advancement. Is Atlantis 2.0 around the corner? And if so, do I want it? All the glorification of the intensely anthropocentric interpretations of what is ‘good’ or ‘right’ in a self-devouring species which has reached the part of the cycle where the brain/mind is devoured from above has always been somewhat repugnant to me. I even have wondered about it photography for decades, as per Wim Wenders ‘Until the end of the world’, totally prescient. This twisting into self-obsession has reached ever more dizzying heights with every teenage girl’s lips frozen into a chimp pout, and adult women frozen into a botox trout pout. Where are the men that take a stand on this one wonders, for is it not to please them, or is it actually self-obsession...or is it manipulation? Anyhow, this is a welcome debate and one not explored enough, so thank you again.
I hate the whole idea of it. Dehumanizing is the word that comes to mind first.
Thanks Emma, I enjoyed your thoughts on this. To me, AI is a tool, not inherently good or evil, but beholdent to the intention of the creator and the user. When it is expressly being used in amplifying or promoting something human-made in a manner that would take a person far longer to do manually for the same result, I think it makes sense. I was not opposed to using carefully-selected AI-generated visuals for my poems, as it meant I could get my poems (very much a human creation!) in visually appealing forms far more efficiently than otherwise.
I'm not opposed to using real art or not relying on AI tools for projects at all, but from my own experience my downfall as a creator was getting so bogged down in trying to take on absolutely everything that it could interfere with my ability to actually get anything published. I see this as a far worse fate - not having the human creation shared in any form - than having something human-made out in the open even if it is supplemented by something AI-made. But in all of my uses of AI, I'm never trying to deceive someone that this AI generation is a substitution for something that exists in reality. That to me IS a dishonest use of AI with a poor intention behind it.
I do suspect many of the well-known tech companies investing in AI may not have honest intentions in mind in how they use those tools. And with that, I also suspect that the push by those same companies and by media outlets for "AI regulation" is really just to create legislative or financial barriers to smaller collectives wanting to use AI for positive means and giving a free pass to the tech giants to do what they want with it.
But in short, I'm not worried about the AI itself. I'm instead focused on who is creating it and how its being used instead.
Just some thoughts!
We are coming quickly to an age when your observations will be perhaps indistinguishable from and swamped by output from AI. At that point, what will happen to trust across the internet? I already see major breakdowns in social networks such as Facebook, where a free site to connect with friends has morphed into an AI-controlled ad-spewing hell-site.
I feel we are powerless to resist the trend as a society. This will happen whether we like it or not, barring some major disrupter. We must be aware of and guard personally against this new "opiate of the masses". Perhaps our only hope is to treat AI as a drug: beneficial in small doses for proscribed tasks, but mostly dangerous on levels our psychology and society are not prepared for.