SOME DAYS ONE JUST HAS TO COME RAGING OUT OF THE CLOSET
Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash
OK, I tried.
I didn’t want to embarrass my generation by opposing Progress. Or to expose my geezerhood by questioning the unqualified wonderfulness of Artificial Intelligence.
Even when “generative AI” started getting exuberantly talked about as the newest wonderful potential of this wonderful new thing — I smiled and listened to the limitless lists of tasks opening up. Even while knowing that “generative” is defined in my old-fashioned Merriam-Webster dictionary as “having the power or function of generating, originating, producing, or reproducing” something.
Such as writing a far better blog titled “On Getting Too Old for Artificial Intelligence” than the one you’re reading.
All these years I have kept — well, mostly — quiet about my reflexive antipathy to the whole AI business.
I have repeatedly told my grandchildren: I know how much great good AI is doing. Medical miracles. Scientific advances. Industrial shortcuts. The tool — which was, we try to remember, invented by human beings — is working wonders. Plus, it’s here to stay.
But this is about words. Once AI takes over the writing of PhD theses, college application essays, SATs, term papers and elementary school homework assignments — it’s happening — whose words are going to be used for it all?
Yours and mine and Tolstoy’s and everybody on the New York Times bestseller list. Tolstoy doesn’t care any more, but on his behalf I do.
I’m sorry to admit this, as I am generally pro-LinkedIn, but it was LinkedIn that did me in. LinkedIn sent me a note headlined “Data for Generative AI Improvement.” A headline guaranteed to get my attention, if not my enthusiasm. Beneath the headline was this question:
Can LinkedIn and its affiliates use your personal data and content you create on LinkedIn to train generative AI models that create content?
Excuse me?
I said no. But do you think the AI-generated bots that are already creating enough generative AI content to destroy six democratic nations tomorrow need my extraordinary “content” anyway?
I mean. They’ve already got Tolstoy.
There are very few things I do well. I don’t cook, I can’t sew (I have the fine motor skills of a baby seal), and I sure as heck can’t dance.
But I’d like to think that I can write. So when I get prompts, for example, on Alignable (a new networking program the need for which is hard to fathom) that read, “Would you like AI to generate your first message to this person?” I don’t just tap “no,” I POUND it.
Ah so. There should be a specially designed key for writers to pound when this stuff comes our way. I am still also prone to yell . . . which can confuse the neighbors. Maybe we need a Talking Cudgel. ❤️
I want a pen/pencil and an envelope and a stamp. Slow communication is fine for me. Want Quick? Then pick up the phone and call. Or go visit if you can.
Ah, those lovely pen-to-paper days. Glad I still have company in keeping them alive. AI will never grab my pen 💞