On AI

There is nothing that AI can do that human beings can’t, except maybe one thing—process a great deal of information at a faster rate. We have all of these people feeding AI with information—for all of the information that AI possesses comes from human beings—so that the information might be accessed easier and faster than ever before. Is this dangerous? Only in the way that a person having access to information about how to make a bomb is dangerous. If it is used with evil intent, then yes, it is dangerous. One might say that the only threat of AI is in the way it is used by people. Could it mean that people with ill intent who have access to AI are made exponentially more dangerous? Perhaps. But it would also mean that those who are determined to protect the world and society are made exponentially more powerful too. There is one element to AI that I don’t fully understand, and I don’t think most people—even those who are most educated on AI—understand it. Right now, there are highly creative people inserting their creations into the AI system. Instead of using their creativity to entertain and inform the people, they are using it to make AI more “creative.” But AI has no sense of what is entertaining or meaningful or moving to people. So why should talented artists, writers, and visionaries be using their energy to make AI more “creative”? What could possibly come of this? The answer, it seems, is nothing—or at least nothing good. If anything, it serves to dull the sensibilities of the people who access this part of AI. People seem to have lost faith in human creativity, as if they believe a machine can be more creative than a human being. They forget that it is human beings who are creating this technology, and not the other way around. I trust AI to provide me with important information. But will it entertain me? Will it move me the way a work of art can move me? No. But then, AI might be of service to the arts, so long as it is used in such a way that it doesn’t break the integrity of what the human artist wants to achieve. It has already happened, and will continue to happen. But to ask AI to craft a poem for you for your English class is simply lazy and absurd.