Tonight I read a message from my son's school, prompting me to start a "discussion" about AI. I didn't read further. I sat down - with pen and paper no less - and wrote the following. I will actually discuss the pros and cons with my clever son, but first, I wanted to share with the world, the rantings of a real life human "wordsmith".
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I am not interested in a discussion.
Much as I admire thoughtful, reasoned debate, and still believe firmly in the importance of intellectual enquiry, and therefore in all views being expressed, considered and appreciated...
I am also a grumpy old woman, and on some subjects, I will not be swayed.
AI is one of those subjects.
It is my sincere, informed, and passionate opinion, that AI is fucked.
I believe that the very existence of AI has made, and will continue to make, the world a worse place.
I am well aware of ludite-ism, and its many predecessors and ancestors, and that grumpy old people (and perhaps potentially menopausal ones especially) are inclined to hold a negative view of the "advancements" that occur in the latter years of their own life.
But I am convinced that AI is truly fucked.
I shouldn't have to mention that AI is: disastrously energy consumptive in an already insanely and suicidally over-burdened system; it is dangerously and just plain unlikably misleading; it is frighteningly available, lazy and "free"; it is inaccurate; it is invasive; and it is worrying popular.
To me it is so glaringly obvious that the few benefits of its existence (none of which I voluntarily make use of), are so massively outweighed by the costs to our environment, our intellect, and most hurtfully of all, our creativity; that it is, on balance, a purely evil force, that should be wiped out as decisively as Polio.
(Anti-vaxxers and pro-AI folk may equally decline to speak to me going forward - you won't be missed.)
Worst of all, AI has substantially reduced our ability to trust, even beyond the considerable problems created by the mind-fuck that is the internet. (Yes I am proper middle-aged - I pre-date the internet).
Humans have for all of history had to contend with whether we can trust one another; now we must additionally figure out whether or not it is even a human with whom (or which!) we are attempting to relate.
While I may not personally like spending extended periods of time with the majority of our species, I will fight to the death for their right to express themselves, to feel, to create, and to have their humanity clearly recognisable and acknowledged.
Whereas I would happily end tomorrow (or preferably earlier), all memory of "thinking" machinery.
