Thoughts on AI

I'll go ahead and disclose that I've played around with AI image generator to make silly images like my cat fighting in WW2 or the Indianapolis Colts winning the World Series. I've decided to put a freeze on that because I'm at a point in my life where I'd just rather make more friends than enemies.

I'm old enough to remember when most people didn't want computers in their homes. There was even a time when I didn't want my own cellphone. I was 26 when I first signed up for one in 2005. We didn't see a need to be constantly connected with everyone else back then. We still had books, magazines, newspapers, vinyl records, cassettes, CD's, TV's, and radios. We had lots of ways to stay entertained. But computers started creeping into homes. Your nerdy friend might show you how cool America Online was, and maybe you'd snap up his old PC cheap when he wanted to upgrade. Eventually we got to a point where the luxury became a necessity. It's a big crisis now when your computer won't boot up, unless it's backed up to the cloud and you can access your data with your phone. We were afraid of becoming dependent on technology, and yet here we are now, a nation of digital junkies.

We can talk about AI generated entertainment. If you work in entertainment, someone should have told you up front that job security isn't a thing. You will likely have to tend bar or work in a warehouse to make ends meet if you want to be an actor. However, there will always be demand for human generated content. I don't use AI to write my stories for the simple reason that I can do a better job on my own. But I think some people might be worried about the possibility that one day, they might discover a new book, read it from cover to cover, decide it was the best thing ever put to print, recommend it to all their friends, buy all the merch, watch the Netflix miniseries based on it, and then find out years later that the story was AI generated. It would be like taking someone home from the bar and having the night of your life and finding out in the morning that they are married or they only make $40,000 a year. 

So yes, I have used AI for memes, but I'm never going to use AI to write. I'm not going to put "No AI Used" on the cover of my book because that's like putting a "No Crack Sold Here" sign in front of my house. Trolls have accused me of being a bot in the past and I'm sure they will again. I'll just roll with it.

A common objection I hear about AI is that data centers consume a lot of water. A data center is being planned in my town, and it would use water from the same source as my house. If there was a drought and push came to shove, I would expect the city would cut off the water to the data center before letting people die from thirst. Because it takes three days to die from dehydration, that would be two days more than it would take a mob of thirsty people to rip open the water main that leads to the data center. I think my own town will have it figured out when it comes to water, so I think we're good on that front and I hope other communities with data centers have it figured out as well. Other countries could build more desalinization plants to increase the world's supply of potable water. So I don't think the water conservation argument is very compelling.

Another objection is that AI uses other people's art to generated prose and images. If you believe your work is being used without your permission, then you are welcome to file a lawsuit for damages. But AI firms could get around this ethical and legal issue by using public domain works to train AI. They could also pay artists for the use of their portfolios. I can see some artists cashing that check if the rent was due and they were low on options. But they are never going to admit that to their friends. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing that fair use might be a defense if you see an AI image that looks way too much like your IP.

But even if the problems of water usage and plagiarism were solved, what it really boils down to is that lots of people just hate AI. Personally, I don't want to talk to a machine like it's a person. I don't want to talk to Alexa or Siri. Machines don't need personalities or moods. They need to function exactly they did when I first started using them and continue to do so until I don't need them anymore. And I'm not a fan of all the uncanny valley images of Jesus walking around in the present day. To be sure there were lots of humorous images that I found funny, but there is so much absolute crap that gets cranked out.

A company might have paid someone to design a new logo in the past, but now they can just enter a prompt and find options that would serve the same purpose. Companies are now using AI to make ads, training videos, and even wall decorations. Some are using AI to make critical financial decisions. Does it make it better or worse if you get laid off by an app instead of a person? A lot of this is just outsourcing responsibility. "I didn't want to lay you off, Bob. The app said we had to!"

So while my own feelings are nuanced, I get why people hate it deeply, and they have a right to try to avoid AI content. Just saying that you hate it is unlikely to result in a ban. If the President is using it openly and corporations are pushing it, then it would appear that generative AI will be around as long as COVID in one form or another. It's a issue that you might be able to mitigate with great effort, but never fully solve.

I do thing there should be a social media platform that does not allow AI content or bots. It would have to be moderated by humans, and those humans would have to be paid. So it would likely have to be a subscription based model. Like if you wanted to sign up for the platform and break its rules, you still have to pay for the privilege of getting permabanned. If you want to create a new account from scratch, you got to pay again. It might be a bare-bones, 90's bulletin board experience, but I think it could work.