Recently there was a brouhaha in the writing community when Sephera Giron wrote an unpopular editorial and faced backlash – here’s File 770’s write-up.
I’ve written before that the only permissible opinion about AI in this community is that it’s all-bad and shouldn’t exist.
My own opinion runs more to “it’s good for quite a few applications, such as medicine” and “latest permutation on punk collage art like Robert Mapplethorpe used to do” but my feeble room-reading skills are adequate enough to not allow me to go around accusing detractors of being ignorant Luddites. And yeah, I did do a book cover in AI, and the essay starts out by informing everyone that people who do that are not the enemy.
Then I basically gave up on that last book, and speculative fiction apparently. I spent the next year or so unable to get any writing done until I decided to ditch SF entirely and write something based in the real world.
Meanwhile, I have discovered people who actually prefer AI writing.
One of my social media women’s groups has been plagued with AI slop essays, usually along the theme of “inspiring moments when women rose above sexism.” A couple months ago, one of them complained that she saw a movie about an inspiring female hero and it didn’t contain any of these inspiring moments – and that was the whole reason she had watched it, hoping it would be a fertile source of inspiring moments.
I’m pretty sure the future will have plenty of streamable AI-written movies of AI-rendered people enjoying a steady stream of inspiring moments. And this is supposed to make me feel enraged, according to a lot of the other people I follow, who ceaselessly post essays about how AI and data centers will destroy humanity.
But I try to avoid outrage. I mean, c’mon, I work with trial lawyers, that “inflame the jury” type arguing doesn’t really work that well on me. I have a pretty substantial resistance score in relation to bullshit arguments in general.
Right now I consider myself more of a futurist than a science fictional type person. A futurist looks around and says “based on the evidence, I think this probably is going to happen.” Science fiction these days seems more about replacing that “probably is going to” with “should.”
Other than a general blanket hope for minimal harm, I don’t really have any opinions about what we should or shouldn’t do. I have opinions about what I personally should not do, and the obligatory sharing of mass produced political opinions is right there on top.
So with that in mind, I have No Opinion about AI, or data centers, from a “should” perspective. Mostly because if I did have opinions, expressing them wouldn’t really sway anyone capable of making changes. From a probability perspective, they’re a huge trend right now and will proliferate; learning about them is advantageous.
Last time I had an emphatic opinion, it was about climate change, and it happened in the ‘80s, when I gave up my Cadillac, moved to a walkable city, and learned to embrace recycling. All my peers thought I was ridiculous as they moved to minimansions in Outer Burbaria and invested in gigantic SUVs.
It wasn’t a moral opinion though. It was more like a probability, like data science – trying to figure out what’s going to happen anyway, and where to stand to avoid the worst of it. And I’ve been living in my walkable city, where the average temperature is in the sixties, going “yep, getting pretty warm out there.” And lately, “sure are a lot of robot cars and AI billboards around here.”
Besides AI, there are a whole slew of things I have no “should” type opinions about. Religions, and people who follow them. Countries, and people who live in them. Orientations and genders and pronouns. Musical styles that I don’t follow. Sports. Whatever today’s ragebait is about. Things I can’t talk about due to my NDA. Things I won’t talk about because I am uninformed.
Now I’ve been known to have an aesthetic opinion every so often, and I haven’t seen anything AI-produced that fits my definition of art. My sole involvement with AI “creativity” had to do with the desire to create a face that only existed in digital reality rather than trying to find a model to take a picture that I could digitally manipulate. Oh well, that certainly backfired. Still, I have no quarrel with those who object to AI attempts at visual and prose art. I tend to block it when I see it … but I also tend to block long bossy essays telling me why I should hate it more. For aesthetic reasons.
At the end of the day, we’re going to be sharing our planet with some lying robots for the indefinite future. It’s a good idea to learn about them, since the window for “let’s just not invent them” appears to have passed.
We can choose when to involve them, however. I refuse to use AIs in my fiction. Or my music.
Or in my fabric art, now that I think about it. Fabric art groups have been plagued with splendid photos of projects that can’t really be completed in the real world. Having to repeatedly explain that’s AI, if you bought a kit you got ripped off, you can’t make it, not possible.
And that’s pretty much my opinion on AI. It doesn’t belong in my art the same way sardines do not belong on my pizza or sugar does not belong in my coffee.
As far as the packaging … I tried it. Unsuccessful. Won’t try that again.
As far as stern, sweeping opinions … fresh out. Try asking me something important, like which member of Ween is my favorite.
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