Can AI Do That?
Last year, one of my best friends sent me a link to Artflow.ai, an artificial intelligence site where you can enter short descriptions to create a face avatar.
The results were nothing short of amazing. Beautiful, in fact. I’ve since used the app to create renderings of the characters from my books, and portraits of long lost ancestors in my family tree.
But now, the world of AI isn’t too fun for me. Especially now that I have some competition.
Enter the AI writing platforms—machine learning language models that can generate anything from essays to poems in minutes based on what you type into the generator.
Most of these AI assistants use GPT-3 – the revolutionary AI algorithm created by OpenAI, and whether we like them or not, they are here to stay. (emakina.com)
AI writing tools are not new, however their rise in popularity and usage are skyrocketing at this very moment. Another best friend of mine recently wrote a 199-page book using AI just this past week.
Based on this revolutionary linguistic moment—perhaps the Gutenberg printing press arrival our time—my best friend and I kicked off a week-long debate. What does it mean to be human?
If AI develops the ability to write nuanced novels and screenplays—and it most certainly will—what is the job of the creative writer?
The common thread in our discussions has been transparency. Should writers and content creators disclose how much, if any of their work was created by artificial intelligence?
My answer to this is yes. My reason: because people are both vulnerable and gullible. We will believe (almost) anything we read. I recall half of this country’s individual bullshit detectors failed them in the last two Presidential election cycles.
What’s not to stop a nefarious political campaign, wicked government, or an evil dictator from using this technology to further deploy their propaganda?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing is stopping them.
Just like nothing is stopping content creators and writers from making some pretty cool stuff right now. But, it all comes with an ethical price tag.
Plus, it begs the question: how much are we willing to surrender to an algorithm without disposing of some of our humanity?
What it means to be human is to be genuine and connect one-to-one with our fellow humans. To be human is to connect back to source and give back to others with good intent. Can AI do that?
With the genie out of the bottle for good, we have to learn how to live with it, and in my opinion, we must remind our readers when it’s just smoke and mirrors, when it’s just a fairy tale and not honest-to-goodness human interaction.
*This article was written by me, a human man.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Unsplash