The hypocrisy of times past and present... and A.I.

'Practice what you preach... or change your speech.'

I am not sure whose quote the above is, or at least, the version of it i've used. The general/ generated knowledge on this is, for the first half of it: Titus Maccius Plautus. And it's probably true, as far as history is concerned. Although, I can’t help but wonder – whenever i come across famous quotes from history – it’s something along the lines of, ‘Who was that drunk peasant man or woman in that 14th century tavern that couldn't write, couldn't read, could barely stand; that happened to blurt these few lines out either as a result of a complete intoxication and lack of proper nourishment, or simply because they were not that much of an imbecile, that later would be known as this quote by some pompous, higher class Sire who just happened to have been nearby with a plume and a jar full of ink, and a sharp eye for opportunity?’

And that goes for many things really, many such opportunistic people have existed and always will exist (cheeseburger, anyone?), but we’ll stick with the intellectual rights of spoken word for this paragraph – not long left, please bear with me. There was no such thing as intellectual rights until quite recently (mind you, ownership of words and art can still be quite hard to prove even today). I guess what I’m saying is, there’s very few things we know for sure. But the ones most of us think we know for sure, the things that we can’t see, or hear, or touch, the facts of history we can’t witness and therefore have to read and take for truth the words of someone else, these things, in today’s world, we get from the net – mainly the search tools we use and the AI generated responses it feeds us.

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it now, so there’s no misunderstanding – I don’t like Artificial Intelligence. I am not a supporter, I don’t want it, I wish it didn’t exist.

There’s been a lot of noise around AI in the past year or two, coming from the creatives; writes, photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, even musicians. They all say the same thing. The below is a post I kept seeing on Instagram a few months back. It read something like this:

‘I want AI to do my laundry, so I have time to do art, not AI to do art so I can do laundry.’

Now, here’s the first things I don’t get in this AI struggle – you want to benefit from it, you want it in your life… but in your own terms, in whatever way you see fit. People seem to think they can have it both ways. Well, you can’t. AI is not there for you, or not just for you. Its main purpose is to benefit from you (I say ‘main’, because it’s not its only purpose, but I won’t get into that here).

I have the pleasure of knowing many people in the world of art in one shape or another. And the funny thing is, more often than not, the ones that seem to have the biggest issues with AI, are also the ones that depend on it the most.

‘I am human, I want humanity to thrive over AI… but I will use AI algorithms to promote myself and my work.’

And the other thing is – the panic. Again, talking mainly about the concern people have with regards to AI’s ability to erase human in art and writing. Have you ever read a text produced by AI? Seen a picture by AI? I believe, in most cases, it’s easy to spot it’s not been produced by a human hand, but in the cases when it’s not easy, it’s usually a formal report, or an image that lacks the mark of individuality. And I think that’s the point here.

When I was at uni doing CW, we had a chat about intellectual rights and plagiarism of ideas. Many people were put off from sharing their ideas because they were scared someone would steal them, write the book before them, etc. My tutor, whom I absolutely disliked and whose arrogant, crudely direct persona I have come to realise has taught me a lot, said,

‘It can happen, it’s true. It happened to me, my own editor stole my idea… but it’s not about the idea. It’s about how you deliver it – the style, the individuality in which you produce your [creative] writing.’

I believe that’s quite correct. AI doesn’t have individuality. It just doesn’t have what it takes. Yet. Will it ever? Well, here’s another quote – ‘Worrying means you suffer twice.’ It’s from J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’… Or is it?

Well... Поживём — увидим. We live — we’ll see.

I used to know this lady when I was a child, whose business was renting out video tapes. She had this little shed at first. It was crammed with tapes, barely any space for people to come in, but it was a small town and hers was the only video renting ‘store’. Later, she got a bigger place, more video tapes. Then, an even bigger one, DVD’s, computer games… It was where her income came from, what she paid taxes with, fed her family... As you can imagine, this lady – well she’s been out of business for a long time now. I am not sure what she does now or how hard it was for her when the era of ‘renting a movie’ ended, but I’m sure she found another job.

I was very well qualified as a blogger, but – much like the video rent lady – it won’t be my profession anymore. It’s not been for a while. Not for profit, anyway. Because, yes, AI can write blogs. And for those less pretentious about style – it’s damn good writing it produces. It’s in the eyes of the beholder, after all.

But that’s just life. For one reason or another, we can’t all have that dream job the hypocrites of the world – the ones that got lucky – will tell you you should never give up on.

The modern world has taken away many things from us and has replaced them with others, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I’m a naturalist by nature and can get clingy to nostalgia. But even I accept that some things will happen as they do.

Do I wish there was no social media, no smart phones, no drones, no Siris and Alexas, no twenty-metre-tall telephone aerial radiating whatever they says it’s not radiating right next to my house? Do I wish there was no AI? Yes, and yes. My reasons however have nothing to do with the concern that AI can somehow replace art produced by humans. I don’t believe that’s possible. And I hope it never will be.