Rebuilding Rob

It seems like all we’re hearing about these days is AI artificial intelligence. What was once to stuff of science fiction has now become a reality for anyone who owns or uses a computer or smart phone.

AI is everywhere! What’s most amazing to me is how quickly AI has become a part of our everyday lives. This past spring, one of my coworkers had to write a letter, requesting for donations for school club. She didn’t have a lot of time, so she was using chat GPT to create her donation letter. All she had to do was change some of the proper nouns in it. AI did all the heavy lifting.

Even here on WordPress, users have the option to hit an AI button and have the system crank out a blog post for us. That is one line, however, that Your Favorite Blogger will not cross. If I’m going to have AI create a blog post for me, then what’s really the point?

Rather than let my nerd-mind go to it’s absolute worst-case scenario immediately, I decided to do a little research on AI. Bernard Marr explains in this article that there are 4 kinds of artificial intelligence:

• Reactive – think of Netflix, and its ability to make viewing recommendations.
• Limited Memory – these are the tools that autonomous cars used to “Read” road conditions to make the drive safer. As the name suggests, this information isnt saved to any long-term memory
• Theory of Mind – this type of AI will recognize and interpret emotional responses and adjust its behavior with humans accordingly. This is in the very early stages.
• Self-Aware – This is the big one. These are machines that have their own emotions and recognize emotions in others. These machines have achieved consciousness and have desires , just like humans.

Who knows where the technology will go in the years to come. We may see more types of AI, and this list may change as we learn more about it. But as a people, we have to be sure the technology doesn’t develop faster than rules

I heard a story recently about a teacher, who learned that there was an AI generated video of him posted to social media saying completely non-teacher-appropriate things. Evidently one of his students got video and sound recording of his voice in class, unbeknownst to the teacher. They were able to use that and create this AI generated video. As a teacher, this kind of thing could potentially ruin this man’s career.

Another area, where we’re hearing about the highly questionable useless AI is in the entertainment industry. As of now, both the Writer’s Guild and the Screen Actor’s Gulld are on strike. One of the things both unions are fighting against is the use of AI both in writing, and and acting performances.

Hollywood wants to be able to use artificial intelligence to generate scripts in screenplays; that’s eliminating the need for the writers room, or even writers for that matter. furthermore, one of the arguments being made by the screen actors Guild is that studios want to be able to hire an actors for a single day’s work. At that time, the studio would capture the actor’s likeness, and a recording of their voice through . In theory, studios would be able to use said actors and voice – with the helping artificial intelligence – any time they want in any project they ever make.

This may sound like paranoid ramblings to some people, but the fact of the matter is, this technology is already in place. Computers were used to DH, Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones, and the dial of Destiny. Likewise, they were used to re-create Carrie Fisher circa 1977 for the final scene of rogue one. Granted, both actors gave their blessings for those performances. But there are legal, ethical and moral obligations that we as a people need to think about when using AI technology. Although the technology is still in its relatively early stages, it’s never too early to start thinking about the implications of its use.

We haven’t even scraped the tip of the iceberg on this stuff…