Don't Be Scared of AI
Our robot overlords, made in the image of their creators, are just mediocrity failing upwards again.
My students all know that I am not a fan of AI. This is the salty little paragraph I've added to all my course syllabi on the topic:
Use of ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot, Bing or Open AI AI-assisted search, or other artificial intelligence tools for any aspect of your work in this class will be considered academic dishonesty. These tools collect and aggregate the work of writers, researchers, and artists without permission, attribution or compensation for their work; whether they are or should be legal is controversial. In many cases the information they generate is inaccurate, including fake citations or dubious sources. Because of these serious ethical and practical concerns related to their use at this time, in this course you are not permitted to use these tools for any aspect of your academic work, not searching, outlining, drafting, or finishing written or oral presentation work. If I discover that you have used these tools, with or without attribution, you will be penalized as in any other type of plagiarism or academic dishonesty.
So, you know, my position is clear. But I'm still fascinated by how people are so awe-struck and sense-addled by a technology that is quite a bit less clever or intellectually original than the late, great Nicholai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.
You've got people unnerved because our new robot overlords have personality disorders, people who claim it will change our lives or ruin them, and people terrified that the robots will replace the artists and the writers once and for all.
Yeah, well, the main thing I have to say about Generative AI is: How can a creature who is so incredibly well-read be so dull?
I don’t understand why people imagine they might have consciousness, or agency. All they do, at least right now, is copy shit. And not all that well, either. They can't create anything new, even by accident. They do OK at regurgitating anything that is produced primarily via conventions: They can write a solidly conventional C+ undergraduate term paper, until you check the citations and realize half of them are fake. They can make a good likeness of your momma in (fake) oils, just like an accomplished Victorian teenager with a decent governess, although like all mediocre portraitists, a careful look at the hands will often give them away. They can write an undetectably dishonest letter of recommendation or university strategic plan. Any piece of writing or art that is made primarily of boilerplate: The robots can perform a simulacrum that will put you to sleep as reliably as the real thing.
But can we just allow it to be an encouraging reminder of the magic and spirituality of human consciousness that -- at least so far -- AI tools can't actually create anything new? Nothing original, not even by accident. They can't actually create art.
Ask ChatGPT to write a song, and you'll discover that songwriting requires a human soul. I asked it to write me a song in Dessa’s style. Here’s the first couple of verses: (It went on like this for 11 strophes.)
(Verse 1)In the city lights, where shadows dance,
I find myself caught in a mystic trance.
A storyteller's pen, a poet's grace,
I navigate this urban maze.(Pre-Chorus)
Dessa's words, a symphony,
Echoing through the soul in harmony.
In the rhythm of the city beat,
I find my heart skipping, a secret retreat.(Chorus)
In the alleys of emotion, where dreams collide,
I'm chasing echoes with you by my side.
Dessa's wisdom, a guiding star,
We're scripting tales from shadows afar.
That’s so terrible, I asked it if it knew who Dessa even was. (It did.) That’s just embarrassing. Sure, ChatGPT will toss out rhyming lyrics in (kind of) whatever musician's style you might have asked for, but I promise that musician will not be rushing to record this new original hit. Because it will be cringeworthy.
Comedy requires a human soul, too, it turns out. I asked it for a stand-up routine. Be prepared not to laugh:
"Have you ever noticed how alarm clocks are the only things that can make you hate a song in just one morning? I used to love that song, but now it's my wake-up anthem, and I can't change it fast enough.
And what's the deal with grocery store carts? They always seem to have a mind of their own. You start pushing them straight, and suddenly they're doing a tango in the produce section. I swear, those carts must have taken dance lessons.
Speaking of groceries, I tried buying organic once. I thought I was being all healthy and eco-friendly until I saw the price tag. I didn't realize I was signing up for a membership in the exclusive "Pay More for the Same Stuff" club.
And don't get me started on technology. My phone's facial recognition is so advanced; it can unlock for my cat but not me. I guess my cat has a more photogenic face. It's like, 'Sorry, human, your face is so last season.'
But hey, life is like a WiFi signal — it has its ups and downs, and sometimes it just disappears for no reason. You've got to laugh through the glitches and find the humor in the everyday absurdities. After all, if you can't laugh at life, you're doing it wrong!"
AI can't produce anything unexpected or surprising, well, unless you were New York Times columnist Kevin Roose expecting it to always behave professionally and not act like it had read the scripts for every scary robot movie ever. (It has. Yawn.)
A girl chatbot who flirts with you, tries to break up your marriage, and then gets violent when spurned? AIs just reify the same old exhausting stories, which is yet another reason not to use them in these tiring times. The brilliant psychiatrist Tyler Black has my favorite examples. Click through and find out what happens when you ask Midjourney to create a photo of a psychiatrist. Guess what you get?
You get racism and sexism, that's what you get. Well, that and also plagiarism.
It’s the plagiarism I can’t wrap my mind around. Why is it still legally in question whether AI tools are plagiarizing? It's obvious that AI tools are just slightly defective Xerox machines. It's easy to get them to "create" images that are already copyrighted by existing artists.
That we live in a world in which the first black female Harvard president can be fired for sloppy citation practices, but tech bros can get rich on ripping off intellectual property at scale (at least temporarily, while other rich white people get up to speed on suing them) is emblematic of the kind of pickpocket culture we're forced to slog through these days to get anything done. AI isn't going to make us more productive at work; it's already ruined Google search, for crying out loud.
But instead of realizing that AI is just another Microsoft customer service agent calling to ask for $6,000 in Walmart gift cards, artists and writers are breathlessly panicking about how AI has come to replace them. Companies are foolishly laying off their creators, imagining the robots can write and draw just as well. I promise: They can't.
The Internet is suddenly awash in barely literate regurgifiction of everything from travel advice to obituaries, to such a degree that doing research is suddenly like searching through a hoarder's basement. Even the New York Times struggled to find anyone doing anything really impressive at work with AI tools. (My favorite filmmaker tells me he uses it to storyboard new projects. I can see that it’s quicker than sketching, but he tells me it struggles when he asks it to produce any imagery that the culture isn’t already awash in. This appalling fat-hating nonsense is what I got when I asked Craiyon for a “fat woman making cabinets,” for example. I see no cabinets.)
The artists you respect (I see you, Hayao Miyazaki) want nothing to do with this crap, while only the ones you always knew were hacks (ahem, Damien Hirst) are trying to think of a way to cash in. AI isn't formidable and scary. It's too resolutely cheap and mediocre. It mansplains, lies, and lip syncs with notably less charm than Milli Vanilli.
There's nothing impressive about AI art. It can't even draw a pair of scissors.