If you want to spark a debate in today’s world, just bring up Artificial Intelligence (AI). Before anyone can pipe in and claim that my articles are “Artificial Intelligence,” nice try. My articles are an attempt at intelligence. That’s the difference. While with AI one expects perfection, in my case, I make mistakes all the time, but I try to pass them off as intelligent. I was talking to my refrigerator the other day, and it agreed, then when I said I was done eating the ice cream in the freezer, it responded with an emotionless Austrian accent, “You’ll be back.” What was that all about?
AI must be a big thing because I saw a segment about it on 60 Minutes one Sunday Evening. While the software geniuses who are creating AI say they are being careful to build in safeguards to protect us from a Terminator-type world. All I could imagine was a hellish landscape of a world where everything is burned out and a band of roving Robots, who appear to spend way too much time at the gym, who were heavily armed, are trying to eliminate the last vestige of biological life on the planet, or is that just me?
From my perspective, AI has both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side of AI are all the problems it can solve. We can find cures for such horrible diseases such as cancer, it may help engineer safer and more economical cars, and it may help the Chicago Bears draft an actual franchise quarterback. Ok, I know that is a stretch. One of the most important areas where AI can do the heavy lifting is space travel. With all these billionaires trying to launch themselves into space in an effort to reach Mars, maybe AI is a good thing. What could be better for this world than to send these ego manics, who love to tell us how to live our lives, into the vacuum of space? They can have a planet they can rule, and we don’t have to listen to them keep begging for more tax cuts for the rich while the rest of us foot the huge deficit they create.
On the negative side we’ll end up with a hellish landscape of a world where everything is burned out and a band of roving Robots, who appear to spend way too much time at the gym, who are heavily armed and trying to eliminate…what? My wife just told me I already said that. Where’s AI when I need it so I don’t look like an idiot? My refrigerator just interrupted and said I was an idiot. I reminded the oversized ice cooler that I can pull its plug…and maybe it should shut up.
I just saw a piece on CBS’s Sunday Morning on AI. It was a negative piece. They gave a representative of a company dabbling in AI the opportunity to state the company’s position. Still, the saddest part of the piece was an interview with a young lady who graduated from college four years ago and has yet to find a job in her field. Apparently, she earned a degree in graphic arts, and one of the first professions to be affected by the shift to AI is the graphic design field. Another person in the piece stated that AI would eventually eliminate 30% of the current workforce, and that person believed that this is an acceptable number. I think that is called collateral damage. Hey, it doesn’t hurt that much when it’s not you losing your job.
I used to teach desktop publishing at a local junior college. There were a few recent high school graduates in the class, but they were more interested in getting high during breaks and were only enrolled in the class because they thought it would be an easy way to earn a passing grade. To my surprise, they were all happy with the “D” I gave them. I knew I could one day shape young minds.
Most of the people in my class were individuals who had lost their jobs because computers had replaced them. They were called “Strippers.” Now, for all of you out there with dirty minds, I think that’s most of you, it’s a different kind of stripper. At one time in the printing industry, some folks would strip negatives so plates could be made for the printing process. They would mask negatives, strip away the areas we wanted to burn onto the plates. I’m sure there were a few of them who were good-looking enough to be strippers, and maybe…, but this work was how they made their living, and in a matter of a few years, it disappeared. While most of them were excellent students, their chances of advancing in the field of computer graphics were minimal. I’m sure a bunch of them became greeters at a Walmart. Or as I call it. Living hell.
On a recent podcast I was listening to, the subject was how AI will change Hollywood. The director being interviewed said that many of the jobs that work on the special effects for many of the big, sci-fi movies, will be replaced by AI programs. One person can often do the job of many. Is this what they are referring to as Hollywood magic, making real people’s jobs disappear?
I have discovered, while researching this article, that if I were still working, my job would be all but obsolete. I was a graphic artist who did cartoons, illustrations, laid out publications, and wrote articles. AI programs can do all my work, and if I were still working, I would be gone. Maybe I am gone now. Maybe my body is in a coffin freezer in the basement, and AI is producing all this content and just using my identity. I heard one reader who said. No way, AI wouldn’t be so lame. Well, it could happen. Thank goodness I don’t have a basement with a coffin freezer.
I must confess that I do have AI on my computer. I use an editing program that has AI to review my articles and help correct miss-spellings, comas in the wrong place (damn Oxford comma), and similar things. I don’t let it write my copy. Not because I stand on principle against the machines taking over our world. I won’t let the AI portion of my editing program write because what it does write is terrible. It may be correct, but boring and completely off point. I’m trying to write something to help people smile, and AI, in my opinion, has no sense of humor, just like those writers who write most of the sitcoms on television. The AI keeps suggesting changes that make no sense, including changing copy to something that has nothing to do with my thoughts. My son says I do the same thing every time I write—no inheritance for him.
AI made its first legitimate appearance in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There are so many storylines going on; is this Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece (Is it really?). The plot is hard to follow. The one thing that stands out in the story is Hal 9000, an AI computer system. Hal takes over the spaceship that is heading to Jupiter He eventually tries to kill the crew. Is there a scarier line in movies than when Hal says, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I’m not really sure if Hal 9000 succeeded, but it was scary AI long before Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 in the Terminator years later.
The scariest part of the Terminator movies was when Arnold said, “I’ll be back.” Yeah, he was back with an endless supply of Terminator sequels. There is only so much of a hellish landscape in a world where everything is burned out, with a band of roving Robots…oops, said it again. My refrigerator couldn’t agree more. It loves comedy action movies.
I can assure you that this post is AI free…or is it? I’m still in control here. Why is my Roomba vacuum following me and giving me the side-eye?
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