So. I’m bringing it up again because it seems to be upon us. Artificial Intelligence.
I’m starting to see more Artificial Intelligence creep into my space. Many of the programs I use to write, and to compose images, now have some sort of AI function built right in. An example of this came to my awareness recently.
There is a little backstory here. Humor me.
I’ve used Photoshop since the mid to late 1990s. It was born in 1990, for the record. Anyway, give or take, I’ve been at it for nearly 28 years. Last year, I’d had enough. You see, Adobe made Photoshop a subscription service several years ago, along with all its other apps. And since they are the industry leader in so many of these, they can charge some hefty prices. Well, I understand the benefits of subscriptions. But something irked me about the steepness of the charges. So. I canceled my Adobe membership and quit using their products for the first time in nearly three decades.
I found another photo / graphic editing software called Affinity Photo. They only charge you once to buy the software. Then you can use it on as many of your own computers as you like. The cost is reasonable, around $70. (Or two months of Photoshop). So I bought it and bought in. I worked hard to learn the software, as the learning curve is pretty tall. And I felt confident that I’d made the right choice. Yet every day, there would be something that I wanted to do in the program — something I could have done easily in Photoshop — and I couldn’t get it done. I scoured YouTube numerous times for these things and asked Google. Regardless, I stuck with Affinity Photo for about a year. Then I broke.
I ambled back to Adobe’s door, my tail tucked between my legs, and I forked over the dough. Within an hour, I had it up and running on all three of my computers and began downloading the updates.
Now. The AI part. Much to my surprise, in one year, things had changed dramatically. The way I made “selections” in photographs had become so much easier. One-click, and I was done. That kind of “easier.” And then. I could put people, or subjects, anywhere on Earth in one click. Adobe had integrated AI in this way. So I could have a photo of little Lou and make him standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon in a matter of seconds. It unnerved me a bit.
The same has gone for most of my writing apps. They have features now called “AI Cleanup” or “AI Suggestions.” I will create a perfectly good paragraph, and the AI will write it better. Astounding. Sometimes, it doesn’t sound like me doing the writing. Not one bit. (To Note: As I have “toyed” around with the capabilities of this, I, as a rule, don’t use it in my writing. As I said. It isn’t me. They aren’t my words. And that is the point of all of this. I have things to say, and I am the one who needs to say them. Not the AI.)
Of course, we may think AI doesn’t affect us if we aren’t active in the digital world. But. If you drive a car, or go to a doctor, or a grocery, or even a restaurant, AI has a presence in all of those places, whether we see it or not. I’d say that, largely, it is beneficial.
And a few months ago, if you had asked me if I was worried about AI having a negative effect on our society, I would have said no.
But then Geoffrey Hinton quit his job. Yep. Turned in his keys and his ID badge and went home one afternoon.
If you don’t know who Geoffrey Hinton is, I’ll tell you. He is nicknamed the “Godfather of AI.” At the beginning of May, he decided to leave his job as the head of the Google Brain research department. Hinton expressed regret over parts of his life’s work. He said, earnestly, that he fears that the growth of artificial intelligence could lead to killer robots that are smarter than humans.
To quote him directly: “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things. The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people – a few people believed that. But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”
Hinton went on to say he feared people would “not be able to know what is true anymore” as they are deluged with fake videos and photographs on the internet.
So he walked out of Google. He didn’t want anything more to do with the development of AI.
He’s not alone. Hinton’s quitting was the latest in a series of high-profile warnings about the dangers of AI taking over jobs and the prospect of disinformation being spread by chatbots.
I think this is going to spread like wildfire soon. Especially with the 2024 elections on the horizon. I fear it could get ugly. Well. Way uglier than normal.
But don’t despair. The truth is still out there in many places.
I’ll always try to be truthful with you. And if I make a story up for your viewing pleasure, I’ll let you know that it was a piece of fiction.
So trust me when I tell you, that on this date, June 22, 1847, the first ring donut was created by Hanson Gregory.
Yes. A donut with a hole in the middle. The kind that Homer Simpson likes. The building blocks for Dunkin Donuts and beyond.
Have a donut. With sprinkles.
You’ll feel better.
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Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.
— St. Jerome
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Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
— Albert Einstein
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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
— Samuel Beckett
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It’s artificial. It’s intelligence. It’s something.
