In University, I took a few history courses. I wouldn’t say I was a keen or particularly imaginative student which may account for the ho-hum marks. However, this one time I decided to try something new; I decided that I would start early on an essay assignment and not leave it to the night before which was my wont. I worked hard on it - researching, writing, rewriting, hours spent in the library and at my desk. It paid off. I got an A which was very different from my usual C.
But then something unexpected happened. I was called into the professor’s office wherein he accused me of plagiarism. He reasoned that this essay was of exemplary quality whereas the previous few efforts were less than adequate. I had to defend my thesis, provide an alibi, and otherwise plead my case. He believed me and let the A stand. In the 80s I don’t know if there was a way to check “borrowed” work. I do know one could purchase an essay from some nefarious back alley grad student but, like cocaine, I wouldn’t have known where to look were I inclined to.
Nowadays, academic institutions purchase software which allows them to ferret out cheaters. I’m sure there are other means as well, I just don’t know what they are. But, here’s where I’m going with this - Chat GPT and its ilk. AI. Wherein one simply gives the algorithm a few key words and phrases and, voila!, instant essay! instant novel! instant photograph! instant poetry!
None of that pesky hard work of birthing a unique idea and seeing it through to completion. No need for pulling all-nighters, no having to peruse those boring old books or scroll the internet for primary sources. Nope, just wake up the day the paper is due, type the essay question into the algorithm and you’re done. No fuss, no muss.
Of course, this can apply to pretty much everything one does academically, professionally and even personally. Need a heartfelt Valentine card for your love interest? I mean, does it really matter that the words and sentiment don’t come from your heart?
How lazy and dull we have become. How very disengaged from the stuff of life that makes it all worthwhile. Are we abandoning our very humanness to a technology that has no built-in ethics, morals, nor standards? How about creativity? Critical thinking? Will future generations look back on this time in our evolution and wonder why we didn’t do anything to stop it? Will they lament the direction their lives have taken because we didn’t care enough to preserve own humanity?
If all anyone has to do is get the internet to do all their thinking for them (and, let’s face, we’re kind of already there), why would anyone bother to get an education? What will happen to schools? In high school, calculators were not allowed in math class. Those crazy teachers wanted us to use our brains. Nowadays, teachers have to compete with smartphones and social media in the palms of their students’ hands.
How about those of us with a creative bent? Already, our work is devalued: musicians, writers, painters, photographers. It’s all meant to be offered for free now. And if it’s free, it can’t have value, right? I don’t need to be paid for my writing, but I do need respect, I do need the connection between writer and reader to be honoured and honourable. But, as we speak, the internet is being scraped for other people’s content to be used freely and without consequence by some lazy-ass who couldn’t be bothered to do the work themselves.
I worry about these things. Will life even be worth living in 20 years? Fifty? What kind of a world are we leaving to our children and grandchildren? One where everyone cheats, where everyone takes shortcuts and knocks aside those who get in the way? Will despicable people like Doug Ford and Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith* be the ones we look to for ethical leadership? Will the phrase ethical leadership become an oxymoron?
Yes, I worry about these things.
*For those of you who don’t live in Canada, I’ve just mentioned three current-day politicians of the “populist” ilk who appear to take pride in ignorance, who treat their constituents like they are similarly dull-witted, and who have absolutely no agenda other than to win and fuck over every good and decent thing this country has built.
I won’t speak to the political side of your post, but because there are many ways of being other than political - like artistic- I will say I agree with your sentiments about AI. It is hard not to be demoralized by its creeping into so many aspects of our lives. I worry it is, besides diluting the quality of different forms of art, weakening our ability to judge what is good and original. The cases of out right error and deception, such as in tricky cases of racial errors of historical figures are on the rise. I have seen where a photo is meant to be taken of a site and is completely made up and false, as in fantasy - it does not exist. People who share such things should at least divulge it is AI created or assisted. Maybe it is fair to appreciate something on the merits of it being managed or ‘created’ by AI, but that is far different than passing it off as real.
I so agree with everything you’ve said, Dana, and it’s so freaking depressing. I just can’t believe what is happening to our world. (I can’t even look at Trump’s face or hear his voice without my blood pressure going up, just as an example. I used to be able to read and watch the news and find it interesting. Now it causes a near panic attack.)