AI rant, all you traditional writers will hate me.
Since I left school 1982, a large slice of my working history has been in electronic subcontract manufacturing. We always thought our jobs were safe, I mean, how is a machine going to bend and solder resistors into a printed circuit board.
First, it was modularised (sounds like a start of a song ☺). Component bending machines, designed and installed, made our work so much quicker.
Then came a wave solder machine, a pot of solder that a printed circuit board drives over the top, and all components get soldered.
Now we have machines that just do it all, completely automated, printed circuit boards are placed in a rack, automatically taken, solder applied, a robotic machine places the components, board conveyed through an oven, is AI inspected all on a single conveyor belt system.
Operated by just one person!
I have also had a lot of experience with photography and armed with a canon AE1, the rubbish images the first digital camera produced, very grainy, I thought no worries the quality sucks, a year later it was just as good as film, but, with the advent of software, it was like they were cheating.
No longer getting it right in camera was a necessity. Now, everyone has a phone with filters and the ability to change an image to suit their needs. I mean, how many of you writers, here, have taken pictures that once upon a time a photographer would have been employed, ask your parents or grandparents how they got pictures of their families.
Too many people are attached to what they think is right, not what will be.
All the strikes in Hollywood against the advent of CGI, and, the effect on their jobs. With Sora now waiting in the background.
I was introduced to Chatgpt in December 2023, now I am creating python programs for work, where I still can’t copy and paste code snippets because the idents don’t go in the right place, so I keep asking for Chatgpt to write out the whole code.
When I show our programmers at work, they ask questions like how have I optimized it?
My reply is a weird look and say I don’t care, it works.
They also use ChatGpt, but now ask me to help them with their codes, because, they don’t think in the same way as me and not, ask Gpt the right questions.
Now forward to 2024, Japanese author Rie Kudan won one of the country’s most prestigious literary awards, she, was the winner of the 170th Akutagawa Prize, with the help of Chatgpt.
I will point that out again, she, used Chatgpt. But Japan is more accepting of change.
Now, at the beginning, I said a modularised approach happened, and already I am being requested to use Grammarly and spell checkers to check my work before being released to a publication.
This is the start, I mean, surely, if writing is your thing, then spelling and grammar should form the basis.
Now, I admit I use AI, in general I use Leonardo.ai for images. I write my text out in my own words, but have Chatgpt to convert it into a humorous version. For this I get penalized by publications, but, I want to bring a bit of joy into the world, and not going to change for them. Is this any different from me having it spell checked and Grammarly sorting it out for me? both of which I don’t use, although, as this blog, I am writing on LibreOffice and occasionally, I get a red underline, that I get it to correct.
In conclusion, Do you think the general public will care if you use AI or not, has CGI stopped you watching a film, do you not think that ChatGpt already has the ability to make up and read your young kids a bedtime story on the fly.
Its time to wake up and smell the roses, the next AI generation, probably this year, will be able to have enough tokens/memory to produce novels, and no doubt the following year, they will have enough tokens/memory for full books. AI won’t replace everyone, but everyone who can use AI in conjunction with whatever skill or work they do, will replace those who can’t.
I joined Medium, not to write, but because it was supplying me a lot of information on AI. Since I have joined, I have started to find a great community and my reading is no longer restricted to just AI subjects. I also know that I am coming across quite a lot of AI generated stories, and as I say, I am not against this, and if I get value, I clap, follow, and highlight.
I started to write, because as I read, occasionally I felt I needed a little humor break, but this seemed to be missing, or I just haven’t found much yet, and just wanted to bring a some lightheartedness.
Think of me as the little cartoon sketch in an old newspaper.
In conclusion, I wanted to keep this relatively short, to spark conversation and may expand on sections later if there is interest, I do hope that writers will get on board, that Medium can see the future.
This had been waiting for publication, but I see Medium can not see the future and sent an email to stop AI, so this is now probably a goodbye blog.
To all my followers and subscribers, I shall be looking to go over to Substack. If you would like to continue and see my blogs, I will leave a link on this site as soon as my new platform is created.
None of this text has been adjusted, influenced or had fairy dust sprinkled not even Grammarly, so what you are reading is in its raw form, I was going to try and release this to a publication, but I don’t want it adjusted as it will go against its meaning.
For all you HA followers, the humour will be back to lighten your day, just on another platform.
Rant over
