Why does everything feel like an existential crisis?
It is easy to get caught up in and confused by the conflicting views in the discourse around AI and what it means for us as humans. I grew up on the Terminator movies which have an apocalyptic view of AI. Scary Smart by Mo Gawdat, in my view, gives a more balanced view (if that is possible), in particular, exploring what our approach to AI should be. Mo Gawdat on AI Ethics: How To Ensure Artificial Intelligence Benefits Humanity
I am nowhere near as knowledgeable about AI as I could be because it is such a ‘big’ discussion. My personal approach continues to be how to use AI to complement how I work and show up in the world keeping in mind Rick Rubin’s thoughts on ‘point of view’.
Having experimented with AI, I have settled primarily on Perplexity because it provides sources for everything that it pulls up. When writing, it is important for me to be able to verify, as much as I can, what AI serves up. It has become second nature. I can’t remember the last time I googled something. It is great for when I am too lazy to take the time to, for example, go back through a podcast episode to figure out what would make a good description for YouTube or Apple Podcasts or Spotify or a caption for the artwork.
My producer put together a prompt - I still haven’t taken the time to figure out the whole prompts thing - for podcast episodes that pulls everything together. I still end up editing it, perhaps as consolation or to assert my relevance.
I won’t lie. I have my moments when discussing AI becomes tiring. It feels like it is changing every day while we still talk on the surface - it’s going to take our jobs. My work is fluid so I can’t figure out what part of it AI will be taking. I’m just trying to do the best that I can on a day to day basis to ensure that I can live and I can look after my family.
Plus, over the last couple of years, I have been drifting away from the digital world, or at least reducing the amount of time I spend on, for example, social media. It does feel like the main platforms are dying a slow death. And increasingly there are people harkening back to the days of analogue or shifting towards it even though they didn’t live through it.
I embraced streaming years ago but got myself a small desktop CD player; I do still need to get my collection of about 200 CDs out of storage. I also bought a new DVD player but still have to take it out of the box and start to explore my collection of DVDs. I collect stuff and struggle to let go.
I started writing this and the algorithmic gods decided to bombard me with video clips and memes around the evil of AI, the good behind AI, how AI is being used positively, and everything in between. It all seems to urgent. It all feels like something we need to solve yesterday. But, do we really need to?
Sometimes, I feel like I think about all of this too much, and other times, I reckon it is too little. There is so much going on in the world and these things all have an impact because of who sets up the systems and how they setup them up. But it can get tiring trying to figure it all out, while trying to live.
In some ways, I am looking for a sign.
Easy
Kojo
I felt the raw dread and fatigue of how much AI talk and doing is demanding of us in this. It’s all exhausting and admitting this feels a little shameful too, because it’s not like being exhausted or deciding not to care about it will slow down the pace of things changing.