A Goblin Ramble
In todays edition of 'goblin rambles for a thousand words' My brain is tired. My last ramble got away from me a bit, which I think is maybe the point so we'll aim for that again I guess.
I was considering today, thinking about the AI issue, which isn't generally something I enjoy thinking about. Mostly because 'AI' is such a gross misnomer it actually offends me every time I hear it. It's not intelligence in any sense of the word. It's automation. An advanced word calculator that has uses, or it could have uses if we developed it and learned it ethically and responsibly but we can't because we live in a capitalistic hellscape bent on our own destruction due to short sighted greed.
I digress.
I was thinking about it today and the concern of AI writing and AI stories. I've run into it of course. Who hasn't. But it's hard to put into words immediately how to know that something wasn't really written by a human. I've seen all the posts about sentence structure and patterns, overuse of simile's and em-dashes.
But that's an oversimplification that misses the point entirely. It's not about the structure of the sentences or the cadence of the chapters. It's about the substance.
There is something so uniquely human in storytelling. It's one of the oldest traditions in the world, the act of constructing and telling a story. It's not something a machine could ever replicate. Even so-called 'good' ai stories, or ai stories well-disguised or what-have-you...there's just a feeling about it. Like I'll start reading and my eyes will glaze over and I find myself halfway through and nothing has stuck because there's nothing too stick.
There's nothing there. No sense of place or character. Of pesonhood throughout the story.
It feels like plastic food. Vaguely food-shaped, the right color and it looks shiny and nice. But it's hollow. There's no weight. There's no sustenance. And in the context of our current literacy crisis this is truly frightening. When students aren't being taught to read but to guess what words are based on their general shape. When students aren't being taught to interpret words for deeper meaning, to analyze and wonder and digest a story.
And it all becomes surface level. A thin veneer. A vascimile of what a story should be. Vaguely story-shaped, in rhythm and cadence, all shiny and nice. Hollow, weightless and without substance.
I think too about the reaction to ai usage, this mob-like mentality. I understand it, the fear and the revulsion and the bone-deep offense. How dare you? The uncanny-valley of seeing something that should be something, but isn't.
It's not useful though. It's not even pointed in the right direction. It's not about the technology. Technology can't be evil or good. It just is. A wheel is a wheel, no matter how it's used. But the loss of literacy also means the loss of understanding of what ethics is. What it's for. Why it's so important to understand ethical use of technology as it develops.
This happens over and over, all throughout history. Technology is made and pushed out before it's ready, before it's ethically sound. Harm comes as a result and in reaction the technology itself is demonized instead of how it was used, how it was implemented and developed.
The technology never goes away. Access does though. And understanding.
It's not really about AI. It's about literacy. Our ability to understand one another. Our ability to relate. Without it inevitably we descend on baser instincts of fear and mistrust, blame and anger, paranoia and violence.
Is that too deep? Is it not deep enough? I worry so much. And at the same time I have so much hope, so much faith in people. I've noticed lately that, perhaps as a result of the oversaturation of the 'hollywood face', the plastic surgery celebrity 'pretty' standard of beauty - people have started reaching for more authentic examples of humanity. The standards of beauty are shifting, slightly.
People want. It's one of the most basic truths of humanity, our desire to relate, to know one another. Our desire for authenticity in our life experiences. More and more I'm seeing people reject overly polished, sanitized, plastic depictions of 'art' and instead reach for the mess. The imperfect draft, the regular wrinkled person. Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder it inherently cannot be manufactured.
I'm trying to be more hopeful. To despair less. It's hard because capitalism is pressing down on us like a jackboot as a handful of billionairs continues to rip through our resources like a forest fire.
Perhaps that's what will save us, in the end. Our own imperfection.
