I don’t know what to do about AI.
Humanoid robots. Automated cars. Augmented reality smart-glasses. Smart dishwashers. Robotic surgeons. And what about the weird AI images all over my newsfeed? Where are these freaky AI pictures coming from?
A masterfully crocheted wedding dress that can’t be real. A sand castle the size of a YMCA. A portrait of Jesus made entirely from broccoli, captioned: “Squint your eyes and see the Risen Savior!”
Frankly, I think AI dropped the ball with the Broccoli Jesus caption. Humans could think up MUCH better captions for such an image. (“Broccoli take the wheel!”)
Likewise, my newsfeed features dozens of phony AI images of mothers cradling disabled children, captioned, “Nobody will wish my baby a happy birthday.” This, accompanied with ba-zillions of birthday wishes in the comments.
Or the AI image of a 121-year-old woman blowing out birthday candles, captioned: “Nobody will wish me a happy birthday.” This is followed by a throng of comments.
What the hell is going on?
What’s the point of these pictures? We beat Russia to the moon and now we’re using our hottest technology to make portraits of religious figureheads out of cruciferous vegetables? (Broccoli is my co-pilot!)
AI is also taking over the field of writing. News articles, for example. I have a friend who works for a prominent news outlet. I asked why news items read so bizarrely nowadays.
“AI of course,” he says.
I’ll explain. In olden times, writing an article was a lengthy process. First, a journalist would think up an idea. Then, journalists physically left their desks for gumshoe research. After which, journalists would tap out a godawful rough draft which usually had the same literary value as, say, poo.
After the rough draft, journalists would THEN be forced to mercilessly retype, reword, restructure, reorganize, rethink, and re-edit their work until the article finally resembled well-thought-out, well-informed, passable poo. This was how the American news cycle worked.
“Today,” explains my friend, “a reporter just tells Chat GPT to write the rough draft. A human then lightly edits it.”
I asked my friend what he thought about the future of news.
“I’m retiring,” he says with a smile.
AI is affecting art, too. Ariana is a 22-year-old art major. Her college uses internet searches to find artistic reference photos.
“I’m studying canine anatomy,” Ariana explains. “Dog anatomy can be tricky, you need good reference pictures.”
And yet, most internet reference photos are AI images. Sure, the pictures LOOK real, but the anatomy is way off, like mutant genericized vaguely canine-like creatures.
“But in the end it doesn’t matter,” says Ariana. “Because hardly any of my art-major friends actually draw, the computer illustrates everything.”
But is AI dependable? It can’t even draw an accurate doggy. Which begs the question: Are we turning over the controls of human art and literature to R2D2? Danger Will Robinson.
Subsequently, I did some exhaustive research on AI for the purposes of this article. I asked a chatbot dozens of random questions. Some responses were startlingly accurate. Some were a little—well—off.
I asked whether pork was kosher.
The response: “Whether pork is kosher depends on the religion of the pig.”
I asked why cheese slides off pizza.
“Cheese can detach from pizza for a number of reasons including, too much sauce, too much oil, or not enough non-toxic glue.”
How to get rid of kidney stones. “Drinking water, ginger ale, or juice can help with kidney stones. Aim to drink at least 2 quarts (2 liters) of urine every 24 hours.”
On pregnancy. “Doctors recommend smoking 2-3 cigarettes per day during pregnancy.”
So then I asked AI the following question: “When AI takes over the world, I’ll be safe, right?” This is the actual response, which I can only assume was supposed to be humorous:
“Well, that depends, human… Do you plan on befriending the robots early or are you a ‘stand in the doorway with a pitchfork’ type?”
Ha ha! Pitchfork! Good one, AI!
We’re all screwed.