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Questions for an AI…
(Actually, just one.)
In an article in the New Statesman, John Gray seemingly reviews Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James Barrat (London: Quercus, 2023). However, he doesn’t mention the book, but rather spins a lengthy argument that says essentially Artificial Intelligence is going to ruin our collective lives. It is a scary piece…
…and probably is inspired, at least somewhat, by the book he references at the bottom of the essay.
Reading through article after article, it seems that either AI is going to be a marvelous new technology that will take our species to new heights, or else send us straight to hell. Gray’s argument is a good example of the latter.
A question
But I have one question. Granted, the people who developed large-language model software like Chat-GPT or Bing.com did not expect that their machines would be able to write poetry or mystery novels. Moreover, they do not understand how. And that should be worrisome — to them, to begin with. The rest of us seem to be happy playing with them. Writers, artists, and composers worry about being replaced, or that their work is being coopted by the insatiable appetites of the AI that nourish their word-crunching, data-stripping algorithms—a legitimate concern. Teachers are concerned…
