Eight Short Thoughts on AI

This is not another article with earnest advice about the coming AI revolution.

Those articles are a decade out of date.

This is an article about today.

ONE: Don’t fight AI.

I am a writer. There is a writers’ strike ongoing in Hollywood. Obviously I sympathize. But while I agree that streaming entertainment needs a new compensation model, I’m less sure about their battle against AI. I don’t think you can block efficiency technology. I think it’s more useful to figure out how to use it for yourself. Be mad about it, be happy about it, but get ahead of it. Or at the very least, don’t hide from it.

TWO: Develop a new personal strategy. 

I don’t think anyone’s irreplaceable in any one job. I do think the human mind is irreplaceable. As artist Scott Sava said, when photography was invented, artists were told they were obsolete; now, photography is an artistic medium. Tech doesn’t just replace; it creates new creative avenues. (In the words of our lord and savior Jeff Goldblum: life finds a way.)

THREE: Worry about hubris, in both directions.

It’s dangerous when folks assume AI tools will *never* replace humans. They will in many ways. It’s also dangerous when folks assume AI tools are ready to take on bigger problems than they are. As Stat has said, empathy and logical reasoning don’t work well yet in AI. And delegating to the unprepared never goes well. Nuance is unpopular in complicated, heated conversations, but “sometimes” and “not yet” are the right answers here (as they often are).

FOUR: Worry about comprehending a new time scale.

Moore’s law does not apply to AI. As an example: when ChatGPT was released in May 2020, it was built on GPT-3, which had 175 *billion* parameters. It was updated in March 2023 to GPT-4, which has 170 *trillion* parameters. This vastness is hard for us to wrap our heads around, but we can’t underestimate what’s happening.

FIVE: Get adept at using AI. 

I did a lot of social-media training and educating and teaching in the aughts, and the advice I gave most was: play. You have to flounder around with any new tool (analog or digital). You can’t determine if or how it’ll fit into your life without that phase. It feels like wasted time, but it’s absolutely vital.

SIX: Stay adept at NOT using AI. 

Twenty years ago, my mental map of locations was better than it is now when I’m accustomed to GPS. So sometimes I test myself, for no reason other than the fun of it. It’s good to adapt, but try not to entirely lose your old skills. Keep your tools sharp and add new ones.

SEVEN: Don’t assume that “AI” obsolesces “I” – “I” meaning intelligence.

Generative AI jump-starts research so you can go more rapidly into iterating. But as industry friend Mike Driehorst said, being able to do it more easily doesn’t mean you’ll now do it well. The world already had plenty of shitty content, and now we’ll get more, faster.

(By the way, have you noticed? I’ve written an entire article about AI without one hacky cut-and-paste sample response from ChatGPT. It’s possible!)

Data algorithms are good at collecting, synthesizing, and predicting. They’re less good at blue-sky innovating, or at fact-checking, or at mimicking feeling. Flexibility of thought – the joyful surprise of creativity – still remains distinctly human.

EIGHT: Don’t assume that “AI” obsolesces “I” – “I” meaning the individual.

Marshall McLuhan said “all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed.” Tech makes humans more human, really. So it follows that the problem with any technology is always the same. It’s us. We’re the ones creating it and using it. What we have to fear is each other.

But, at the same time, with loneliness an official epidemic, and technology blamed for that in great measure, we also have to fear losing each other.

We’re causing the problem, but we’re also what we’re losing with the problem.

Perhaps creativity and connection are two sides of the same coin. Perhaps, the more technologies we create to make us faster and more powerful, the more important it is for us to remember that.