Over the past few years a number of people have asked me about artificially intelligent systems and how close they are to eradicating all of our jobs and creative efforts. My general response has been along the lines of "If you're really good at something, you will always have a job or an audience". A perfect example of this would be the handful of shoe repair shops that continue to exist despite the relative disposability of our footwear. As shoes and boots became mass produced, selling prices dropped1, and now a person can replace a pair of decent shoes for a few dollars more than they might pay to have them resoled. This same pattern will likely be seen going forward as automation continues to reduce the number of people employed by any organisation. What's unfortunate is that the vast majority of us are not really good at something; at best we're merely proficient and the managers who judge our work would not see any real difference between something created by a human and something generated by a machine.
When I picked up a used camera this past summer, I was asked why the phone wasn't good enough. A fair question, and there are several reasons ranging from the lens flares that the phone creates in low light situations and the excessive processing that takes place with each photo. Sure, I could install a different photo application and use manual settings and really fiddle with the details, all of which might disappear with the next update of either the app or the operating system, but why?
The question that stuck out most after picking up the camera, though, was this:
Why drive around the country and take photos when you can just ask an AI to make the perfect picture?
Why, indeed.
There is no denying that we have some remarkable tools capable of completing in seconds a task that used to take people months or years to do. Need a photo showing a colony of penguins jumping into the Antarctic waters like lemmings? AI can do that. Need a video showing a politician playing Sweet Child of Mine on an electric guitar? AI can do that, too. Need to reduce headcount by half at a call centre? AI can certainly help you there, and it will cost less than outsourcing to India!
There's just one big problem with all of this: it's fake.
A lot of people around the globe are waking up to the reality that so much of what we read, what we hear, and what we see is a lie. Not just "incorrect". Not just "embellished". But an outright lie. This is especially true when there are glowing screens involved.
What I am beginning to see with people who are in their late 30s and older is a rejection of the false realities that we're being sold. People want honesty. People want to know that if they see something, it is real. Slight touch-ups are often allowed, such as casual photos that use HDR to capture clear images of people in various light conditions, but honesty is what people crave right now.
Who wants to watch something on YouTube that had a script written by an AI, read by a text-to-speech engine, and shows random video segments that have nothing to do with the content of the message2? Who wants to read about something in the news only to see it wedged into a particular "narrative", whether it belongs there or not? Who wants to buy a book online only to discover that the thing was generated by an AI and only the first chapter, which was part of the sample, had human involvement? Who wants to call an insurance company to report a change of address only to wait on hold for 25+ minutes for a human while an AI continually asks if they can help instead3?
Every one of these examples are things that I've personally dealt with in the past 30 days and there is no doubt that you've seen these things, too. When I talk to people about the future we are building, the overarching concern is not "What job will I do?" or "What will my children do?" It's "How do I know what's real?"
This is a valid question. An important question. And, sadly, I don't think we are dedicating enough thought to it.
Unless you are paying for a brand name, of course.
Looking at the "Views" number for some of these videos, there is obviously a market in the millions for this. I do not understand why, though, because the text-to-speech engines always have such poor pronunciation of words with multiple readings.
The AI will ask. So you reply and say you want to update your address. Then the AI will say "Oh, you need a human to do that! One moment!". Then … not 60 seconds later, the AI comes back and asks if you'd like to speak to it instead.