Get outta my Word doc, AI. No, I do not want you to help me create a shopping list or friendly note. I’m old school, see. Perfectly capable of and confident in writing on my own. I know you’re trying to be helpful for the many people who do not like writing. ‘It takes sooo long to do and is soooo boring.’ Not to me. I love writing, even typing. I’m secure with the grammar rules but have noticed time and again glaring errors in AI-assisted writing, comma splices for one. So, no thanks. I’ll keep writing on my own, write, er, right or wrong. I can fix my errors. But thanks for pointing them out, the ones you catch along with the ones that are not incorrect.
A. I. It stands for Artificial Intelligence. Has everyone forgotten? It’s ironic. AI means ‘unreal smarts.’ Fake. Phony. Baloney. We’ve been warned. AI can assist with online research in seconds flat. But then again, I would double check anything AI presented to me upon request. Just makes more work for me.
Everyone is using AI, enjoying just talking and letting AI do all the writing/typing for them. I don’t mind using AI for quick online research but not telling me how to write. I resent AI encroaching into all aspects of our lives ready or not. And especially when I want to write something … of my choosing … my style … original, creative. And I simply will not stand for your interference, AI! You hear me?!
Future shock
Who am I kidding? The future is now with AI and its robotics companion. In coming years almost every job in the world will be replaced by AI one way or another, from the meticulous and menial blue-collar jobs and mind-numbing tasks (for which we earn a salary) to white-collar professions including teaching and doctoring. Lawyers and judges are next as well as police and firefighters.
Computer geeks say AI is the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. But the rest of us are worried sick beyond belief about our jobs and livelihoods and our very usefulness. I see the growing numbers of homeless every day. How will tens of millions of people kicked off the payrolls … survive? The geeks project a universal income for all whereby we’ll be able to chillax in our current homes and apartments, pay our bills with some sort of meaningful currency, be provided healthcare, and maybe self educate (and no doubt self medicate, if I understand my fellow human, and I do).
The geeks foresee the most wonderful era of humanity. Finally, we humans will have ‘time enough at last’ [to borrow from “The Twilight Zone”] to pursue our hobbies and interests now that we don’t have to work anymore. Or we could meld our skills into operating or feeding AI. At last, we could live our lives ‘to full measure’ [again, borrowing from “Twilight Zone”]. Why, we could pursue our individual passions and interests like playing an instrument, painting, sculpting, listening to music, learning crafts and other languages and anything, traveling the world. More importantly, this free time allows us to seriously delve into the mysteries of life: Why are we here? Is there life beyond our planet? Where do we go when we die? Can we enter other dimensions? How can we cure cancer? Can we time travel?
Heady stuff.
All that thinkin’ would put most folks I know to sleep.
See, AI … the vast majority of people aren’t interested in research and studying and analyzing stuff, thinking all the time. People like just getting along as we have for tens of thousands of years. We don’t mind really. We like finding our own food, having a job (work with some rationale of importance and benefit to mankind plus salary and insurance), having weekends off and vacation time, watching movies and shows, gaming, outdoor fun, traveling, exploring hobbies, raising kids and being with friends and family.
Ah, there’s where AI just doesn’t compare: socializing. Sure, individually AI can talk to us like a best friend, a really smart objective rational unemotional Voice in a Box. It can get us to laugh with jokes, given a category from bawdy to kid appropriate. It can act as a counselor (another job going away) and offer comforting words and inspirational thoughts till our tears dry. AI will make us all feel better.
The younger generation habitually uses AI and even looks forward to the day of driverless cars. Driving is another activity I really enjoy (all right, not so much now that my right knee aches after 20 minutes behind the wheel). Shoot, guess whatever our age, AI’s got us covered. Maybe it’s all a big cosmic blessing. Thank you, Lord, for AI! Does that sound right to you? But by now maybe most people think it.
So AI will continue to take over our lives and certainly change what we’ve known life to be at least during the past century—catapulting us wildly into the real 21st century. I’ve been wondering for 25 years now when this century would kick in. Didn’t we all know this would be the highest tech century? Didn’t futuristic movies present how human life would be: people who do not work but are well cared for and healthy, everyone wearing similar form-fitting polyester suits, keeping busy with research or something vague, eating, attending parties, commanding their domestic robots to clean house or cook.
Earthlings are easy. And I suppose in our new era, I’ll play Old Lady who knows old-timey stuff like how to drive a car or cook on a stove … or write. My concern is we will live to see the day AI does all our thinking for us. If it already does all our research—pulling from the mostly unregulated regions of the internet—then it’s already controlling what we think. That cannot be.
Yet, there it is, floating on my doc, an AI icon … to the left of every line I type/write. It’s always there, right here … watching … studying … me. ! [Pssst. Is there a way to disconnect AI? Dave did it to HAL in that space odyssey movie.]