My impression of AI is that it's a high-speed encyclopedia / synthesizer. Maybe I'm not impressed enough with it to consider it "demonic" in the sense of the severed head in C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength", but calling it "intelligence" is definitely a misnomer — it just parrots and regurgitates whatever is out there passing for human knowledge nowadays.
I've believed for some time that AI is a threat to woke liberal writers such as the Hollywood Writers' Guild because, having given up their free will (and possibly their ability to create due to that) to the satanic blob, they're mere parrots of the party line in the West nowadays... either that, or they simply recycle pornographic "romance novels" using the same formula that has been done to death already. There are so few true creators nowadays; if there were more, "AI" would be seen as an occasionally-amusing crutch, but that's about it.
I'm attempting to write a SF novel right now, and I've found Grok to be far more useful as an encyclopedia to quickly help me understand various concepts that I need to know about but are hazy for me, rather than as a writing enhancer. I simply don't see the appeal of imitating the style of someone else, even if it would make the prose more impressive.
On the upside, "AI" may end up killing Wikipedia and Google.
Great article. I made a rather scrambled comment under your last AI article.
I'll try to make a more thoughtful comment today:
Again, great article. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote.
For a while now, I've thought to myself, "Even if AI could create good art, I wouldn't want to consume it out of principle and out of solidarity with real men and women."
Even if AI could create a drawing or painting, which I could dishonestly put my name on, the thing would disgust me. If I sold it, I'd feel like a fraud.
With regard to writing, is it acceptable to use AI to do any part of your writing? I do not think so. I don't even need to come up with a rational reason. I just know it is not good.
Now, in my actual tech job, I do use AI as a glorified search engine. That is what it is for me. It's a true digital assistant, which can more quickly find the answers to technical questions. However, it is often wrong. Yep. Wrong. You need to verify the answers, because they are not deterministic. They are probabilistic. They are approximations, or guesses. It is literally insane to make critical infrastructure or systems dependent on AI. But that is happening. There will be big accidents and destruction. As an increasingly incompetent society desperately reaches out to AI to replace competence, you will see more and more systems failures, I believe. Only actual, creative, thoughtful, intelligent men can keep civilization going. It's gonna a fun ride.
Most people, evidently, don't care about the humanity of the system, the economy, the arts, or perhaps their own friends and family. But some of us do.
Nothing Good, Beautiful or True about A.I.
It does not create, it imitates. Sounds familiar.
My impression of AI is that it's a high-speed encyclopedia / synthesizer. Maybe I'm not impressed enough with it to consider it "demonic" in the sense of the severed head in C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength", but calling it "intelligence" is definitely a misnomer — it just parrots and regurgitates whatever is out there passing for human knowledge nowadays.
I've believed for some time that AI is a threat to woke liberal writers such as the Hollywood Writers' Guild because, having given up their free will (and possibly their ability to create due to that) to the satanic blob, they're mere parrots of the party line in the West nowadays... either that, or they simply recycle pornographic "romance novels" using the same formula that has been done to death already. There are so few true creators nowadays; if there were more, "AI" would be seen as an occasionally-amusing crutch, but that's about it.
I'm attempting to write a SF novel right now, and I've found Grok to be far more useful as an encyclopedia to quickly help me understand various concepts that I need to know about but are hazy for me, rather than as a writing enhancer. I simply don't see the appeal of imitating the style of someone else, even if it would make the prose more impressive.
On the upside, "AI" may end up killing Wikipedia and Google.
Great article. I made a rather scrambled comment under your last AI article.
I'll try to make a more thoughtful comment today:
Again, great article. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote.
For a while now, I've thought to myself, "Even if AI could create good art, I wouldn't want to consume it out of principle and out of solidarity with real men and women."
Even if AI could create a drawing or painting, which I could dishonestly put my name on, the thing would disgust me. If I sold it, I'd feel like a fraud.
With regard to writing, is it acceptable to use AI to do any part of your writing? I do not think so. I don't even need to come up with a rational reason. I just know it is not good.
Now, in my actual tech job, I do use AI as a glorified search engine. That is what it is for me. It's a true digital assistant, which can more quickly find the answers to technical questions. However, it is often wrong. Yep. Wrong. You need to verify the answers, because they are not deterministic. They are probabilistic. They are approximations, or guesses. It is literally insane to make critical infrastructure or systems dependent on AI. But that is happening. There will be big accidents and destruction. As an increasingly incompetent society desperately reaches out to AI to replace competence, you will see more and more systems failures, I believe. Only actual, creative, thoughtful, intelligent men can keep civilization going. It's gonna a fun ride.
Most people, evidently, don't care about the humanity of the system, the economy, the arts, or perhaps their own friends and family. But some of us do.