I don't ascribe to this doomsday thinnking. Writers translate life to words, AI researches and mimics
In the dirty-thirties, when John Steinbeck witnessed orange grove owners bulldozing tons of fresh oranges into a pit and covering them with lye to keep the price of oranges high, and they did it in front of starving migrant children. He saw a story that had to be written.
He bought an old WWI ambulance, tossed a mattress and coffee pot in the back and traveled from migrant camp to migrant camp listening to the stories told by the Okies. He absorbed not only their stories but their existence as well and won a Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath.
I recall one detail he wrote of that stuck with me; on a cold morning he approached a woman in a camp who was cooking breakfast for her husband and grown son. He asked if he could warm himself by her fire. She welcomed him to. He described stepping forward and reaching out, and when he felt the heat on his hands he shivered, his body acknowledging how cold he really was. An AI could only copy that, never create it with 'personal' experience.
I think the true danger of AI is the further dumbing down of future generations as they rely on AI to think for them. This past week I've heard two young reporters on NPR pronounce the word 'important' as 'impor-unt', telling me they've only heard the word spoken amongst their peers and have never read it.
The United States has led the way in anti-intellectualism for two hundred years, with each generation becoming more ignorant than the last, and look at the shit-show their country has become. Image these borderline cretins relying on AI for thought, and when that happens how a generation can be steered to any nonsensical mindset if a government weaponizes a central AI;
Oh, how they will love Big Brother.
No comments:
Post a Comment