See June 11, 2023 Update at End.
I just read a Publishers Weekly article on Facebook and it absolutely infuriated me! I don’t know if you’ll be able to read it, but it’s called “AI Is About to Turn Book Publishing Upside Down.”
I am reproducing my response here:
I found the article just like every other techie article I’ve ever read: forgetting about the Human Factor. Dismissing the Human Factor. Of course, I’ll be told I’m wrong.
Life isn’t about having technology DO EVERYTHING for us.
Life isn’t about technology making all of our DECISIONS for us.
This is exactly the point where we do need to get Philosophical with a capital “P.” When we keep removing THINGS from Humans TO DO, what is left for us? Video games? Reading? Invading other countries out of boredom? Or are we now going to have AI read our books for us and submit digestive reviews for us—or, wait a minute, we can have AI read those digests for us, as well!
I think we’re forgetting the forest for the trees, here. Part of being Human IS To Do. IS to think. IS to make decisions.
Sure we can have the menial tasks like welding and hammering done by robots, but when robots do EVERYTHING, then what? I’ll tell you what:
The Race atrophies.
Humans need THINGS TO DO, or bad things happen.
I don’t think any of you need me to give any examples here.
But to have AI come up with better ways to do things is NOT the solution. We already know of better ways to do pretty much everything we do…we just don’t want to do them. Don’t want to expend the resources.
And the whole argument that “If we didn’t release ChatGPT into the world someone else would have” is (pardon my German) scheisse. There’s a little thing called ETHICS. Yeah, we seem to conditionally forget that, too. We all need to start doing the RIGHT thing, and not the convenient and/or “profitable” thing.
Just like puppies and kittens in “that’s how they getcha,” bright- and-shiny is “how they getcha.” It all starts with a ChatGPT/AI. A “little automation” starts doing “cool things,” like writing and editing books. Solving how to “better publish.” Then we expand the envelope a wee bit. Then a wee bit more, and before you know it, WE’RE not doing anything. Literally.
We stop thinking.
We stop doing.
“Ethics”?
There is no longer any need for ethics, because we’re not doing of thinking any more and are not making decisions any more.
Machine are.
This is called atrophy.
Asimov’s Robotic Laws? It’s FICTION, people. No one is obliged to do any of that, let alone AI reworking “the code” to negate Law #3 in their own favor.
You think I’m joking, but I’m not and this is, to me, the very definition of an existential crisis. Just like global warming and any other thing out there that threatens the existence of the Human Race. We cannot keep thrusting our heads into the sand. Whether or not the climate is cyclical, do YOU want to be the one having to weather 1,000 mph hurricanes? Do YOU want to be the one losing your house-in-the-Hamptons to the rising Atlantic? Do you want your KIDS to be the ones?
Just because something is new tech, is new, is tech, does not mean it’s good. Being giddy about how AI can “help” humanity is so damned short-sighted, dismissive, and naive that it, yes, somewhat angers me.
These are supposed to be smart people in this business, but I’m not seeing much of that any more. I’m seeing “do it before the other does it,” I see “DO it because we CAN do it.”
I am just floored by the direction I’m seeing Humanity go.
ETHICS, people.
Before we blow ourselves up.
UPDATE June 11, 2023:
See this podcast:
https://velocityofcontentpodcast.com/what-ai-will-mean-to-book-publishing/
About 75% through it they talk about AI.
I just listened to this podcast and I’m still stunned by the whole rosy mentality associated with AI.
Utterly dismayed would be a better description.
In one spot the guest, Andrew Albanese (AA), of PW, clearly says we “…certainly support the idea that robots should not be taking our jobs…creation…,” but then says that publishers might well be “forced into” using AI to remain “competitive.”
So, which is it? We don’t use AI unless we can make money off it?
Is there no ethical space here?!
He also rather lightly dismisses a senator’s question during a recent government hearing that asks if AI is “new tech” as in Internet “new tech” or as in the Atomic Bomb “new tech.”
Great question! Great perspective!
But AA’s response (to me) was wholly naive! Dismissive in a Pollyannaic (is that a word?) manner for something this critical to Life!
You’ve got to be kidding me that you oh-so-lightly brush that question off, Andrew!
Anyone.
Sure AA voices minimal concern and confesses that he doesn’t really know where he stands on everything just now, but, good Lord, has anything of this stature not been used in a negative manner? Yes, even atomic power has been used for good, and, yes, maybe I am overreacting a little, but I’m only doing so to point out the problems with AI to the Human Condition in a way I don’t see being pointed out:
We can fundamentally stop being WHO and WHAT we are.
Fundamentally.
We stop using our MINDS.
Making tough decisions.
We atrophy.
Even our ubiquitous cell phones has already been discovered to affect our mental faculties in very real ways. This is just one quick article search: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/surprising-ways-smartphones-affect-our-brains-our-lives-ncna947566
Additionally, the podcast’s mention of using AI to brainstorm and actually write a book is heinous to me.
People would now not use their own minds but something else besides themselves, to do their thinking for themselves.
I find this criminal.
Yes, there are tools, but I am against using anything to better one’s writing that is not organic. Talking to another human is one thing…get another Thing-to-do your-thinking-for-you is lazy and despicable. To me using AI to come up with ideas YOU should be coming up on your own mental power is CHEATING.
Simply put: if you don’t have the expansive-enough imagination, the wherewithal to come up with an idea to write about–then YOU are not an author but a lazy opportunist.
If you are not good enough to come up with your OWN ideas…if you do not WRITE EVERY WORD YOURSELF…you should NOT BE WRITING.
YOU are NOT A WRITER.
In any event that podcast further incensed me at the naively juvenile, simpleminded, and wholly unrealistic view being presented about an event that, to me, IS on par with development of the atomic bomb. It seems as if that podcast was one of “let’s not upset anyone and talk about the possibility very real fears associated with all this and keep a rosy view of life. I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Concerned about book banning…but not having code and robots taking over the very core of what it means to be Human.
May I please use it?:
“Oh, the Humanity!”
I certainly hope more thoughtful minds take hold of this issue. Otherwise I do see us going the way of the science fiction already written about this topic.
Take heed. This could well be another Hindenburg.
Runnin Off at the Mouth.... 
Good luck with that. If humans can think it, humans eventually do it… and in this case what will do it is ultimately the AI itself. My scientist son thinks someday our consciousness/thoughts/beliefs/ emotional content will be downloaded and computers will go on without our frail bodies. But in my opinion AI won’t want our consciousness. It will think itself superior… us with our emotional weaknesses… and set us aside. HAL was a very possible AI character.
And that is the attitude that needs to change!
WE create our world, therefore WE can say yes or no to something. WE can choose to do or not do something.
As to downloading consciousness—how does anyone think they’re going to do that?
“Thinking,” therefore CONSCIOUSNESS, is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and until scientists get that, they will not be able to fully understand consciousness. That’s like saying just do everything you’re told in school and you’ll end up being a genius! There’s far more to it than mere arithmetic.
Sure you can stuff a brain in a canister…but so-called downloading our consciousness is impossible. AI can run numbers…it’s simply not the same. AI can “say” the words (“I think therefore I am”), it’s not the same.
AI in general: I wish it was only a nightmare. Even those working in AI are warning about it. If we don’t get the world’s commitment, it will happen, whether our scientists have good intentions or not. I see plenty of good already happening with it– medically for example) It’s not pessimism to assume a lot of power with AI. I think it is logical and likely. I do however believe other AI will be developed to recognize AI– even that created in other countries. We hope our engineers stay ahead of it.
(Michio Kaku would have tons to say about the speed of tech development– I went to one of his lectures. He’s an amazing mind)
Writing: I think it is far off when AI can be qualified as equal to authors without some form of traceable plagiarism and cold nonfiction feel. Teachers are already having a hard time recognizing student work that is AI created., esp nonfiction essays. There is, I’d argue, some level of skill and even creativity in the guidance of AI to write fiction But I do think it’s a ways off that any AI can write in my style and creativity or yours.
Spot on, buddy.
Reblogged this on Reality Check and commented:
This piece really belongs here, with the rest of my philosophical dissertations….
I share your concerns. We didn’t know that the Industrial Revolution would lead to damaging the climate, but we can already see how the internet is a double edged sword. We’re way behind on dealing with the potential threats like disinformation and privacy. I used to work in IT, mostly databases and I know how little bits of otherwise random data can be correlated to build alarmingly accurate profiles of people. Obviously the reach of social media and what seems to be our increasing gullibility is something Goebbels would have loved to have.
AI and the internet is like splitting the atom. The big difference is that nuclear power was controlled by governments. Digital power is controlled by entities whose only concern is profit. In the case of one, he’s also apparently something of an oddity, a capitalist who doesn’t care about burning his money.
In terms of jobs and life’s purpose, that’s been going on for awhile. Robotics and automation have been taking good industrial jobs for decades. IIRC, some say the impact has been greater than off-shoring. Certainly someone like my dad who had a decent paying factory job in the 50s, without a HS degree probably couldn’t today. That’s led to a lot of fear and people (being duped into) seeking radical solutions – by people who don’t really give a whit about them
Robots can flip burgers and empty bedpans. The working class were the canaries in the coalmine. Now AI is moving up the food chain.
Solutions? A couple of countries have experimented with a universal basic income. That only feeds the body though. Leisure to create sounds great, but how many will just let AI paint, write and compose? How many will even be able to tell the difference? I found an AI “news generator” online, and after inputting ‘baboon attacks alarm Florida officials,’ got a stilted, but fairly decent “article” – enough to fool casual readers. These are scary times and we’re sleep walking into armageddon. Maybe that’s why the universe doesn’t seem to be teeming with intelligent life. Intelligence, at least on our level, may carry the seeds of its own destruction.
Again, agreed.
For all the good AI can do, you know what’ll happen, where the focus will end up. It’s already being so employed.
I am not a fan of AI.
For one thing, it’s does the “thinking” for Humans, and that is an existentially dangerous capability.
I feel the only true solution is for EVERYONE to curate their internal dialogues and self-talk. How we think is manifested in our actions. How we deal with others. Who we vote for and allow to not on take on powerful offices, but remain in power when they should be removed or step down. Whose products we purchase, despite their unethical and [allegedly] psychotic behavior.
But who’s to decide that?
We see how everyone is divided on certain issues, where, really, there shouldn’t BE such division. It confounds me. That people are so wired to consider criminal activity as good or allowable is heinous. I just don’t get that. This is why the world is as it is. But again, that’s me deciding for the world, right? But I do feel that just as there are certain inalienable rights, there are certain immutable Rights and Wrongs. And that things are getting so honked up because of current events is mind-blowing. Then throw AI into all of this. Those who are only focusing on the positive aspects of AI are unintentionally (I hope) naive. My opinion, yes.
But as a continue optimist, I HAVE to believe that GOOD will win out. Somehow. In the long run. In a small corner somewhere.
Peace.