The future is a riptide, pulling us all deeper out to an unknowable abyss. At times I feel like I’m fighting against this current, splashing and flailing in an attempt to reach a familiar shore that despite my effort continues to shrink on the horizon. The struggle is of course in vain, even if I were to beat the perpetual flow of water I’d find that the land would only crumble, memories don’t provide solid footing and you can never really go back in any way that matters. Even with this knowledge there are times where I struggle to float out to the future, the water is as cold as the men and women who want to usher it in.
Artificial Intelligence and the automation that comes with it has always left me with an uneasy feeling. The United States has been a nation of innovation but what sets it apart most distinctly from other countries is its cruelty. The obsession with concepts like rugged individualism leads our society to embrace a sink or swim approach. Not to belabor the nautical metaphors but this line of thinking has caused us to poke holes in each other’s boats if only to make an extra dime. This is all to say that I can’t really in good conscience embrace innovations that will take jobs away from people while the people who profit do everything in their power to leave those people on the lurch.
It’s impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when the richest people are hoarding bootstraps for some reason. We’ve been told that jobs from trucking to being a cashier will disappear in short order. Some fast food restaurants are already working to replace the people taking your order with A.I. It will be interesting to see what happens when the computer messes up an order or the customer feels like making a scene but there’s no human there to complain to, but that’s a scenario for another day. I don’t see the vision these rich people seem to share, it seems they’ve lost the plot and no longer see the value in placating the masses with jobs that pay well. In fact they are hellbent on leaving us with no jobs at all. Then what? Where does a jobless public direct their ire? I feel like I know and I expected that it was common sense but perhaps not to a CEO.
Now even artistic expression is under attack. As the Writer’s Guild of America strikes for better pay and against A.I. produced scripts it seems that many have already given into the idea that the art we will consume will be produced by robots. I personally struggle with the idea that a program like ChatGPT will ever be able to produce something that can make a human truly feel something. It is difficult enough for a human to make transcendent art, in fact in planning this blog post I’ve struggled to articulate the nuances of exceptional art. You know it when you see it, or more accurately you know it when you feel it. If we can’t explain it, how could we ever teach an A.I. what it is?
Perhaps I’m wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time and won’t be the last. Maybe my ego as a “writer” is not allowing me to believe that a computer can replace a human even on endeavors that at their core are most human. I think therefore I am but what am I if a computer can easily have the same thoughts? What then would the computer be?
