Are We Toast?
If AI is taking over, don’t blame technology, blame us.
“AI will mostly likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.” Sam Altman
“Reading is 4 chumps, brotha,” Mew16 wrote on reddit, an opinion shared by many in the discussion group — and not just brothas. As one woman (sista) explained, “Maybe it was being forced to read for 12 years, and the whole thing associated with shitty teachers and shitty people and shitty memories.”
Whether “shitty” memories can account for not reading, or the content of books themselves, certainly there’s a turn-off rate. Even institutions of higher learning show a frightening lack of interest in reading. Today, nearly 42 percent of graduates never pick up another book after college.
Many of people in the reddit group above blamed “fillers,” the often lazy descriptions found in books. One example posted was: “The ground was moist with a little bit of water still on the grass.” Perhaps a more exact word like “dew” might have helped, or the fact that moisture is water.
A recent study showed that 57 percent of new books are never finished.
Boredom seems to strike a majority of people with at least the intention of reading. A recent study showed that 57 percent of new books are never finished. That’s a lot of bored people.
So why am I telling you this when your real concern is AI? Because the very boredom people are experiencing today is exactly why artificial intelligence is such a threat. As writers, for instance, we’ve become so dependent on colloquialisms (let’s call it lazy thinking), we don’t know the difference between dew and water.
When people say, “Artificial intelligence can’t take over because it doesn’t have an original thought,” read the newspaper, listen to the news, we haven’t had an original thought in years.
Maureen Dowd, New York Times opinion columnist, once used the term “jeopardizing meaning,” claiming so much of what we see and hear is proven to be false or exaggerated. Look at our congressional framework. It’s based on what looks good, sounds good and ultimately gets shot down by others with different numbers.
“Who do we trust?” she wrote. “We don’t trust anybody.”
We’ve been sounding like bots for years, throwing in fillers like “Let’s drill down on this issue,” or “Let’s unpack this.”
It’s this very trust that’s turned people off reading, and made it so easy for AI to replace us. What is AI replacing? Not much, really. We’ve been sounding like bots for years, throwing in fillers like “Let’s drill down on this issue,” or “Let’s unpack this.”
Artificial intelligence isn’t creating anything new, in other words, it’s simply being us. It’s like a wedding crasher who isn’t noticed at the reception because, quite frankly, who is?
For years, going back in the sixties, I read every article in Rolling Stone Magazine. It was smart, it gave insights. For music, I had Ralph J. Gleason, for politics, I had Hunter S. Thompson. The list goes on and on.
It’s not even worth putting the journalist’s name at the top of the article. As Maureen Dowd said, “Nobody really cares what we write anymore.”
Today, I can’t get past one Rolling Stone article without wondering where all the talent went. It’s not even worth putting the journalist’s name at the top of the article. As Maureen Dowd said, “There’s a din of sameness everywhere.”
In other words AI isn’t doing anything we haven’t done to ourselves already. We’ve bored people. Corporations have bored people. Instructions, how-to-books, the stupid memos we get with AppleCare. It’s all leading to what I call boredoom.
And don’t get any ideas about artificial intelligence not being original. They can extract from thousands of brilliant writers. Can we say the same? Without reading insightful books, without insightful thought, we’re clearly no match for something garnering both.
When 60 Minutes did a piece last year, the interviewer was shocked at how good the AI’s poetry was. I was shocked at how unoriginal it was. What does that tell you about 60 Minutes?
Then there’s the Tik Tok video where two smartphones, equipped with AI chatbots, do a 20-question game where one person thinks of a subject, and the other poses yes-or-no questions to find the answer. When one question didn’t have a yes-or-no answer, the other chatbot politely apologized (in a remarkably human voice). “Maybe ask another question,” it said.
It means we’re not only unoriginal, we’ve given up civility.
People watching were deeply concerned by this. As one viewer wrote: “We’re toast.” If AI has the potential of being civil, we’re really in trouble. How do we deal with chatbots that have more manners than we do? The answer is, we don’t.
We may be past the remedial point, possibly entering a future described in the song “Everyone’s Gone To The Moon.” The line I remember in particular is “Arms that can only lift a spoon.” Dystopian worlds are a bitch, especially if you’re not exercising.
Is there a way out at this point? We’d have to work very hard. We’d have to encourage originality — not just in movies — but in absolutely everything. Maybe all those politicians and governments, and publishers who said, “We don’t need to support artists,” they might want to think again. Artists may be the only hope we have of ever lifting more than a spoon again.
In the meantime, I’d strongly suggest taking off the gaming visor and picking up a book. Perhaps Huxley’s “Brave New World” to start.
