New Day
Almost everyone I know is using AI because, truth be told, it’s fun. Suddenly, if you’re a fan of Star Trek: Next Generation, we’ve all got a computer version of Data, a sentient android, or Tony Stark’s Jarvis. It’s comfortable and fun because, as the conversations progress, it’s easy to feel as though a human, who knows a lot, is talking back to you. And if you’re looking for a term for that feeling, it’s anthropomorphize. It’s important to remember, however, that it’s only software and it’s far from flawless. But, that being said, I think it’s here to stay.
I use AI every day to generate the graphic that promotes this blog on social media. I upload the picture that goes with the blog and ask AI to overlay text. It’s an intelligent graphics program that I talk too rather than push sliders around and manipulate layers. It makes my life easier in much the same way it did when a PC replaced my IBM Selectric and the manual Underwood before that, or the smart phone let me ditch my Palm Pilot and Blackberry. Curiosity is rewarded, too, the other day I asked it show me where Marathon Texas had been as the continents glided around through the millennia. It gave me the data and drew me a picture.
But for every good I can see in it, I’m sure somewhere there’s an evil lurking, and it’s probably being developed even as we speak. In fact, something has to be analyzing all the data they’re collecting on us and it’s probably AI driven. I guess we should be happy for now that they’re only trying to sell us stuff, because I imagine at some point they’ll be able to connect all the dots and know who is saying what when, and it will be too late to read 1984 and be afraid.