Several years back I worked with a guy whose wife was at the forefront of developing AI-type (artificial intelligence) writing programs. It sounded scary for my field as a journalist/reporter/writer.
He described AI’s abilities (five years ago) in terms of writing simple stories and press releases. Input the data, set it loose. Then it turned out the product.
Given the death knell for print journalists the past 30-40 years, as magazines evaporated and newspapers merged and slashed, AI sounded like another bell gonging to put our profession into the graveyard. That appears to have accelerated in recent months with AI grabbing headlines and investment gurus touting the abilities and life-changing effects of the technology.
Technology has pretty much always leapfrogged with unintended consequences. Stuff happens that we can’t predict. Jobs go away. New ones are created. Some people decry the change. Others embrace it. AI will cover all those bases, and possibly more.
What AI won’t do (most likely) is generate something new and original. It has to work from the inputs that it is given – the data programmed into it. It will imitate things that came before it. Humans have a different role.
What we have to figure out, it seems to me, and the big question given the more repetitive actions AI can take over (even in intellectual and white collar work, like writing), is this: “What does this means humans should be DOING?” Where is our time valuably invested?
If AI automation takes over, it pushes humans into another role. What’s it gonna be?
We all need to work. We all also need to make money in our increasingly monetized world where wealth is incredibly centralized in smaller and smaller percentages of the population. The recent merging of the LIV-PGA golf tour is but one more example of how money rules and how those with wealth (and often dubious backgrounds) bankroll events and jobs. Will that become the model for humans in an AI-generation world? It will depend on those holding the wealth. Do those individuals care about the planet and the livelihoods of people in general or are they out to hoard their bucks and make sure they line the pockets of their other uber-wealthy buddies?
There is a lot of anger and hurt in the world today trying to preserve things the way they were. That’s not the path as AI assaults us. Instead, using intelligence to grow the human species in terms of our roles as guardians (until some other species takes the top of the ladder) necessitates we look forward. What’s next? Where can AI help us and the world ecosphere develop in ways that utilize our skills and ENHANCE (not just preserve) the environment we rely on that allows us to exist physically? Those are the questions.
Who answers them, and how they answer will determine our future. Who holds those reins? How much input will the little person have? I don’t know. But we’re going to find out. And, there’s gonna be a lot of chaos. Hopefully our curiosity and intellect and push to build and innovate – things that makes us human and different from other species – wins out. AI cannot duplicate that.
He described AI’s abilities (five years ago) in terms of writing simple stories and press releases. Input the data, set it loose. Then it turned out the product.
Given the death knell for print journalists the past 30-40 years, as magazines evaporated and newspapers merged and slashed, AI sounded like another bell gonging to put our profession into the graveyard. That appears to have accelerated in recent months with AI grabbing headlines and investment gurus touting the abilities and life-changing effects of the technology.
Technology has pretty much always leapfrogged with unintended consequences. Stuff happens that we can’t predict. Jobs go away. New ones are created. Some people decry the change. Others embrace it. AI will cover all those bases, and possibly more.
What AI won’t do (most likely) is generate something new and original. It has to work from the inputs that it is given – the data programmed into it. It will imitate things that came before it. Humans have a different role.
What we have to figure out, it seems to me, and the big question given the more repetitive actions AI can take over (even in intellectual and white collar work, like writing), is this: “What does this means humans should be DOING?” Where is our time valuably invested?
If AI automation takes over, it pushes humans into another role. What’s it gonna be?
We all need to work. We all also need to make money in our increasingly monetized world where wealth is incredibly centralized in smaller and smaller percentages of the population. The recent merging of the LIV-PGA golf tour is but one more example of how money rules and how those with wealth (and often dubious backgrounds) bankroll events and jobs. Will that become the model for humans in an AI-generation world? It will depend on those holding the wealth. Do those individuals care about the planet and the livelihoods of people in general or are they out to hoard their bucks and make sure they line the pockets of their other uber-wealthy buddies?
There is a lot of anger and hurt in the world today trying to preserve things the way they were. That’s not the path as AI assaults us. Instead, using intelligence to grow the human species in terms of our roles as guardians (until some other species takes the top of the ladder) necessitates we look forward. What’s next? Where can AI help us and the world ecosphere develop in ways that utilize our skills and ENHANCE (not just preserve) the environment we rely on that allows us to exist physically? Those are the questions.
Who answers them, and how they answer will determine our future. Who holds those reins? How much input will the little person have? I don’t know. But we’re going to find out. And, there’s gonna be a lot of chaos. Hopefully our curiosity and intellect and push to build and innovate – things that makes us human and different from other species – wins out. AI cannot duplicate that.