I want to preface this week’s article with an apology. Usually, I try to find what I consider to be a fitting graphic to go along with my article, but I couldn’t find something this time that I felt truly fits the context of this page. That being said, the content is still the same as I usually make.
My thoughts on Artificial Intelligence (AI) are quite simple: while it could be a good tool for the world to have, it could also be easily abused. The reason for this is simply because of how capable some of the free chatbot models [to me] are, but mostly, I don’t want to see people relying on what is essentially a dolled-up supercomputer with programming that “learns” how to be better humans than humans. To my mind, at least, this is the start of a pathway to the singularity. While, yes, computers and technology are a big hobby of mine, I still think that there are things that could be done better without the use of modern technology. Take Windows, for instance. The UI remained largely the same from Windows 95 (or NT 4.0, if you've had to deal with that), all the way up through to Windows 8.x, when it got a tablet overhaul and was, in a word, infuriating without a touch screen. We managed to get advertising in Windows 10 (I don't know if it’s still in Windows 11 because I’m using the Pro version for more than a few reasons which probably has most of that cut out) and good lord… Still, I don’t feel like an idiot for taking a laptop that was, extensively, 10/+ years older than I was (and even ran Windows 1 from a floppy disk for a time) to take notes in chemistry class in Grade 10, but that’s neither here nor there. It had a word processor and didn’t need the internet… though I guess that’s in part because the internet wasn’t even in its current form until five years after the software had come onto market. Still, it worked… loudly. No internet connection required.
Anyway, back to what I was originally going to talk about, and that was my personal opinions about AI. Sure, I’ll admit to using it, but primarily as a last resort (and even then, I make notes from it and have it fact-checked by people I trust) when using a standard search engine yields no [clear] results, trust me. Really, AI, in my personal tests, isn’t convincing enough to use if there are decent alternatives. For my first two books, yes, I used AI to create the cover, but at the time, the most affordable artist I could find was well out of my price range… I’m not exactly rich, but I’m not going to throw a pity party about having nothing because that’s not true either. At the time, AI was the best option I had for a single task to use in the end product of something I was working on. However (and this is a big however), when I ask AI for writing prompts (I don’t generally follow them beyond writing a few sentences, overanalyzing, and coming up with something so far into left-field… It’s great! [he said, sarcastically]), I do get some pretty interesting things, both from the computer program and my own creativity, when it starts firing on all cylinders again. For me, though, I see AI the same as what ISDN was designed as: an interim solution. ISDN wasn’t the end-all-be-all for high speed internet (barring things like satellite, but you factor that in if you want). Simply, ISDN was a stepping stone to DSL and other wired, broadband technologies, and AI is [at least part of] an interim solution for whatever is coming next. No, I don’t think that it’s capable of ending my writing career before it begins, it isn’t going to put every artist out of business in time (some even boast about not using the technology, actually), and it isn’t capable of being human. AI can be thought of as how some autistic people function: the observe, learn, and imitate. I have firsthand experience with that and I’m not ashamed of it. I just suck at public speaking. And singing in front of a crowd. And crowds in general.
Anyway, AI has a place, I’ll admit, but its place isn’t a substitute for the things we humans are capable of. Personally, I'd like to see it used as the tool that it is, not as a replacement for humanity. Call me old-fashioned in that regard, but to me (even though I can’t stand it and actively avoid it sometimes), there’s something about the human touch that AI just can’t replicate. At least not in the near future.
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