AI, AI everywhere, Nor any drop of Humanity
The last couple of weeks have had even more than usual amounts of AI news, events, and announcements. There have been announcements from OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft(above) with AI as the main focus. AI now reads our resumes before a human sees them, if ever. AI writes our email replies and creates our articles for us. AI creates our images and videos. AI will summarize class notes and lectures, and answer questions about the topic. AI talks to us and answers our questions. There is a new AI tool or platform almost every day.
The AI founders and industry leaders assure us that they are looking out for us and are ethical. Yet, OpenAI copied Scarlett Johansson’s voice in ChatGPT so that it could sound like her voice from the AI character, Samantha, she played in the movie “Her.” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, had asked her to use her voice, and she declined. He found another voice actress to sound eerily like her mannerisms and voice.
Side note, The European Union created an AI Act, the first of its kind, that will set the global standard for safeguards on artificial intelligence this week.
AI companies seem used to taking what is not theirs and then sell it back to us—our writing, our art, our videos, and our speech. The irony about OpenAI trying to emulate Samantha in the movie “Her” is that Spike Jonze’s film is about humanity and what it means to be human.
All of this reminded me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” At one point, the narrator says:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
The ancient mariner told the tale of sailors stranded at sea, surrounded by water, but they could not drink it because it would be deadly.
Ok, technically my cartoon is a seagull that I saw on Lake Eerie, but it will serve as a stand in for the albatross.
AI is surrounding us. It may be harmful. It is too early to tell. We should proceed with kindness and humanity.
Be kind to yourself on your creative journey.
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