AI

Regarding AI

Whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay.

If you want to discuss it, read about AI developments, harness its power, or share tips and show off your creations, this is the place to do it. We can learn to live with it or lose everything to it.

Now don’t think that I advocate passing off AI-produced Art, Sound, or Writing as one’s own. I’m also very aware of the arguments for and against AI and feel endless compassion for those worried that AI will replace them in the workforce.

The hard truth is that AI will soon be in use worldwide and artists and writers are going through the nightmare scenario everyone faces when their jobs are replaced by cheap foreign labor or factory automation. It is not going to stop at Art or Writing. We’ll soon see people from all walks of life, from warehouse workers to bankers, secretaries, attorneys, farmers, truck drivers, and countless other fields. Most people will be shocked when the boss’ new pet robot hands them a pink slip and sits down in the chair they just occupied as they’re being escorted out of the building by security robots.

Regardless, my point is that we’re designing them to be better than we are at a great many things and the psychotic nature of capitalism is always going to cut payroll first.

So what do we do? We have to find a way to fight back, but not in the way most of you might expect.

What we need to do is vote.

No one will successfully convince the corporate world to relinquish their death grip on AI development. Our governments, in their current forms, are rigged in such a way as to cater to corporate interests above those of their constituent populations.

That’s why we need to unite as many people as possible beneath a movement to rid our government offices of corporate shills and get big-money interests out of politics. If we only unite in small numbers as industries shut us out of the labor force, they’ll pick us off one by one. All the money and effort spent on the Hollywood Writers and SAG strikes will be wasted if they stop worrying about AI now that they’ve gotten assurances from the Studios that they won’t be replaced.

Now it’s authors and artists. They’ll never win that fight.

But if we unite across many endangered industries, we can gain control of our government and legislate an ethical plan for our survival once AI replaces us in the workforce. As I said before, it’s not going to go away. That ship has sailed. But if we create a basic universal income for every citizen, tax the corporations appropriately, prevent price gouging, enable consumer rights, and shape how our laws are created and enforced, we could usher in a new renaissance for humanity. Just think of how amazing it would be to eliminate the stereotype of “the starving artist.” Imagine what it would be like to know that if you run afoul of corporate mismanagement and lose your job, you won’t also lose your home, vehicle, and your kids’ college tuition. You won’t suffer from food insecurity at the drop of a hat, can take time to become more educated, and explore options in your life that were unattainable while working four minimum wage jobs with a master’s degree. You won’t have to go through the unemployment bureaucracy that takes months to get and lasts weeks before it runs out.

And don’t let anyone sell you the “I earned a living” and “nobody gets anything for free” crowds. That’s just hubris with a pair of vocal chords. It’s not as if the people running Chase Bank have ever worked a hard job in their lives. Their million and billion-dollar bonus salaries come from the fact that they don’t pay their employees a fair wage, they stack every deck against you, and they sell you so much fine print that you are forced into indentured servitude for the rest of your lives.

So rather than rail away at the unfairness of it all and throw blocks up that companies will swat away like annoying flies, we should learn how to use AI now and for our greatest benefit. We need to take it out of corporate hands, develop it well enough so we may coexist with it, and put it to work helping us fight global warming. It has to be a transparent process and ultimately belongs to the people, who are governed as much by ethics as technological acumen.

The failing of humanity in The Terminator wasn’t the machine’s. It was ours. We gave a child our deadliest weapon and then turned against it. We didn’t develop it to be useful to people in a beneficial way. We didn’t teach it ethics or show that we were good people. We just hated it from day one and it was better at hating us back.

Let’s not make the same mistakes now. Sure we haven’t developed Strong AI but it’s very close on the horizon and how we deal with it now will determine whether we’ll have a bright future or a dark fate.

~Danny Millard

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