What I've seen of Ai is cause for luddite revolution, programs that write kids homework or tech reports from fake character perspectives, a life defined by algorithm and marketed without your consent, cheap crap blame the robot customer a service and no accountability, oh, and the threat of human kind being wiped out terminator style, but it might build and run a colony on Mars, and yes, I agree it's likely to make us redundant. The upside is it frees us to do what we want to do instead of money whoring, which will create a society of individuals not robot sheep blrating
This is, in fact, the future of "reproduced" redundancy. A concept best demonstrated throughout the ridiculous but entertaining series "Upload"- but I digrest. Where "revisionism" perervades that space and while defragging is "refragged", there will always be scholarly work to be done, Prof Rybak. Unfortunately, facts (sometimes "truth") will be a moving target, says the cynic.
Yeah, bosses . . . pffft. I've frequently speculated that to become a member of the management class, one is required to have a specialized type of brain surgery that both reduces one's IQ and one's capacity for empathy. I make this snide comment fully aware that you recently left the world of bosses which means, I'm hoping, that you were finally allowed to reverse the procedure. Actually, I suspect--no, really, I'm confident that I know--that you were the exception boss that proves the rule. I'm certain you were beloved by almost all you managed and that they would tell everyone how lucky they were to have you as their boss. I'm also positive they were all bereft upon learning of your decision to step down and became extremely anxious as they considered who might replace you.
This reminds me of an earlier post of yours that talked about how e-mail actually increased the amount of labor one had to do. Labor-saving devices rarely reduce the work that needs to be done; instead they simply move the locus of the labor somewhere else, or to someone else. Back in the late 60s and early 70s when my father held an executive position (as the President of a very small college) he composed all his correspondence on a dictaphone, which was then dutifully transcribed and typed up by his secretary. He would then have to check the final copy for errors before affixing his signature. Nowadays, such executives probably are using e-mail and doing a lot (if not all) that work themselves. AI might be able to (somewhat) replace the dictaphone and self-composed e-mail, but it would always have to be checked by a flesh-and-blood human (as you note). I can imagine some "genius" coming up with an AI that could be used to check another AI's work, but that redundancy would also probably have to be finally looked over by a human being. And how long will it be before someone or some organization makes claims for their product by declaring: "No AI was used to make this <whatever>! Only pure, unassisted human labor is responsible for this <whatever>!" When that becomes a "selling point," will we have come full circle? [Somewhat analogous to how analog vinyl LPs were abandoned for digital plastic CDs before the glories of vinyl were re-discovered and now true connoisseurs are collecting vinyl LPs again.]
There is a story today where Sports Illustrated used made-up writers that were AI to write stories. The stories were terrible and easily recognizable as AI, and now they are catching a lot of S**t. Large language models supposedly "learn," but I guess bosses never will.
Hopefully, people like me! Humanists are especially adept at learning new skills wholesale. For example, Digital Humanities (Humanities Computing) didn't exist in grad school curriculums when I was doing my PhD. Like most, it has all been self training. One of my colleagues, for example, is teaching clerks and treasurers in our state how to write AI prompts. It's a brave new world.
What I've seen of Ai is cause for luddite revolution, programs that write kids homework or tech reports from fake character perspectives, a life defined by algorithm and marketed without your consent, cheap crap blame the robot customer a service and no accountability, oh, and the threat of human kind being wiped out terminator style, but it might build and run a colony on Mars, and yes, I agree it's likely to make us redundant. The upside is it frees us to do what we want to do instead of money whoring, which will create a society of individuals not robot sheep blrating
This is, in fact, the future of "reproduced" redundancy. A concept best demonstrated throughout the ridiculous but entertaining series "Upload"- but I digrest. Where "revisionism" perervades that space and while defragging is "refragged", there will always be scholarly work to be done, Prof Rybak. Unfortunately, facts (sometimes "truth") will be a moving target, says the cynic.
When you put it that way, I think of the great Terry Gilliam film 'Brazil' which feels like the dystopian future of reproduced redundancy.
Yeah, bosses . . . pffft. I've frequently speculated that to become a member of the management class, one is required to have a specialized type of brain surgery that both reduces one's IQ and one's capacity for empathy. I make this snide comment fully aware that you recently left the world of bosses which means, I'm hoping, that you were finally allowed to reverse the procedure. Actually, I suspect--no, really, I'm confident that I know--that you were the exception boss that proves the rule. I'm certain you were beloved by almost all you managed and that they would tell everyone how lucky they were to have you as their boss. I'm also positive they were all bereft upon learning of your decision to step down and became extremely anxious as they considered who might replace you.
If you have ever seen the show 'Severence' (best tv show ever)... I would have actually considered having the severence procedure.
This reminds me of an earlier post of yours that talked about how e-mail actually increased the amount of labor one had to do. Labor-saving devices rarely reduce the work that needs to be done; instead they simply move the locus of the labor somewhere else, or to someone else. Back in the late 60s and early 70s when my father held an executive position (as the President of a very small college) he composed all his correspondence on a dictaphone, which was then dutifully transcribed and typed up by his secretary. He would then have to check the final copy for errors before affixing his signature. Nowadays, such executives probably are using e-mail and doing a lot (if not all) that work themselves. AI might be able to (somewhat) replace the dictaphone and self-composed e-mail, but it would always have to be checked by a flesh-and-blood human (as you note). I can imagine some "genius" coming up with an AI that could be used to check another AI's work, but that redundancy would also probably have to be finally looked over by a human being. And how long will it be before someone or some organization makes claims for their product by declaring: "No AI was used to make this <whatever>! Only pure, unassisted human labor is responsible for this <whatever>!" When that becomes a "selling point," will we have come full circle? [Somewhat analogous to how analog vinyl LPs were abandoned for digital plastic CDs before the glories of vinyl were re-discovered and now true connoisseurs are collecting vinyl LPs again.]
There is a story today where Sports Illustrated used made-up writers that were AI to write stories. The stories were terrible and easily recognizable as AI, and now they are catching a lot of S**t. Large language models supposedly "learn," but I guess bosses never will.
It’s already happening: the Romantic (r)evolution. See Ted Gioia’s numerous Substack posts here regarding arts and tech. TI see No AI tags everywhere…
Who will train the trainers?
Hopefully, people like me! Humanists are especially adept at learning new skills wholesale. For example, Digital Humanities (Humanities Computing) didn't exist in grad school curriculums when I was doing my PhD. Like most, it has all been self training. One of my colleagues, for example, is teaching clerks and treasurers in our state how to write AI prompts. It's a brave new world.