Some people want everything automated for them. I am not going to use the term “Artificial Intelligence” because I believe it undermines the abstract idea of intellect. I do not deem intellect to be an algorithmic system of pure code. I despise excess anthropomorphism and reliance on machinery. It’s the more advanced, generative type that I’m talking about, not machine learning in general.
Machines aren’t evil, they’re just tools that talented people have designed for use. Like money and a position of power, it depends on how you use them. One argument for the investment in these machines is their potential to possibly help solve our world’s problems. According to an article from unep.org, “The big benefit of AI is that it can detect patterns in data, such as anomalies and similarities, and use historic knowledge to accurately predict future outcomes.” Using algorithms to detect how to tackle something like climate change is great. However, it has to actually get done. We can’t just sit around waiting to invest into pure possibilities, humans chase emotions more than anything and tend to dream too much. On the topic of climate change, we’ve known about it since the late 19th century, and it is becoming an even greater concern. If our species has been capable of causing the problem in the first place, shouldn’t it have been solved after so much time? Don’t we already have the means to solve this problem? I believe we do, and instead of putting effort into using them, people are hoarding them. Let me make it clear: according to stash.com, as of July of 2024, the top companies investing in generative algorithmic machines are Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet Inc. These companies are designed entirely to make products and bring in money, the CEOs of which are billionaires. I believe billionaires are pigs and deem their position to be an insult to society. They even sat together for convicted felon Donald Trump’s inauguration, a man only helping out the rich who I actively speak against. I do not trust any corporation or organization which takes part in the fabrication of wealth hoarders, and this is why I have a huge distrust for the world-saving abilities our algorithms may possess. They’re not being used well. Instead of trusting the hands behind such power to do good, I assume they’ll use it to do useless things like further empowering themselves, wasting materials on throwing a group onto an inhabitable planet, instantly generating freakish advertisements and replacing real humans wherever they can. Even the article I mentioned was largely about the ways machine learning is contributing to climate change, with a lot of energy being poured into it.
A more personal offense to me is what people call “A.I. Art.” Any reader should know by now that the way videos, images and music are generated by algorithms is a mere system of regurgitating existing material, something that could be considered plagiarism. It becomes obscene when someone tries to replace a real artist with an unfeeling shadow of human work, and I have no understanding of what fulfillment it brings. It can make money, it might save time for an executive. They’re selling out to greed and laziness. Why would anybody want such a thing to exist if it doesn’t come from an emotional mind? Art stems from perspective, emotion, and ideas. Art is not a nonsensical passage of code which stimulates an observer, as opposed to captivating them. Art does not have inherent roots to capitalism, which is further destroying our world.
Hayao Miyazaki has directed and animated on some of the most wonderful films ever produced. He was once shown a demo of an auto-generated animation by a group of designers and animators, and he commented “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” I suggest finding the video yourself for more context.
This issue goes further. My biggest concern for those around me is their association with the types of machines that are used to write and create for you, things like Grammarly and ChatGPT. It’s the rich who own most of these programs, the kinds of people who do little for themselves, inherit finance, and point fingers at those without opportunity while calling them lazy. If one is to use such programs, they should first understand why it is that they’re trying to generate something in the first place. One usage I accept is occasionally messing with them, having a bit of fun, but not replacing your own mind. But an email for a business? A plan or schedule for an event? New ideas or creations in general? It’s brushing off one’s competence and one’s independence. Anybody can manipulate a prompt that has such depth and simple presentation. “People are losing faith in themselves” as Miyazaki has also stated. When one creates something formal and coherent, and when one receives that, it is a two-sided process. When something lifeless does all the work, there is someone that has sacrificed an experience and skill for the sake of “productivity.” The manipulator of the machine might as well not even be there. Don’t people feel useless when everything is automated? And it’s not just abandonment of skill which upsets me, everyone has some unique way of creating. Machine learning can only perform tasks based on previously made material, it’s spitting out what a human has already said or done. I have several related questions on the matter. Do we as a species really want to let go of our spontaneous and creative nature in order to be free of struggle and complex thought? What kind of meaning is there if all of our saved time goes to looking for more and more careless ways to do things? What kind of meaning would there be if our world started using machines as both the output and the observer? That’s when we either brush off acknowledgement, or become nihilists. Humans are interesting creators and foolish gods.
I’ve seen a few cases at this school where we were allowed to let a machine generate something for us in an assignment, one of the most blatant contradictions I have witnessed in my macrosystem. And I will call out last year’s STLP competition, where I saw a category for some sort of “A.I. Generated Media.” I see advertisements for the new smartphone, which can fabricate reality and turn your photographs into something entirely fake, manipulating whoever sees it. I hear that people in their own jobs have been automating their own work for them.
Another question I have is why humanity uses machine learning over their own minds. There are cases of course where efficiency truly does not mean the sacrifice of quality, where algorithms are truly needed. The idea is behind all our rearrangements of the Earth. To try and automate that phenomenon without use of emotion or independence is absurd in a terrible way. What this issue reminds me of the most is that we forget society is made up, that life is amazing and our world makes little sense to us. Our own perspective is itself an invention.
