Is AI Here to Help or Hunt Us? Artists, Take Note.

After checking out the latest robot from Boston Dynamics, I'm getting scared. Click Here to watch on YouTube. Now, one could say, 'Sure, but that doesn't have a lot of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in it yet.' Well, we're months away, not years, like some folks would like to comfort others and say. Just look at Disney's ACTUAL Droids they've got running with AI in them. Click Here to watch on YouTube.

The Before Times

Before I go on to give my two cents, after years of research and consulting, on how the future of AI will shape up, let's ask ourselves where all this began. It started in a science lab, yes, but do you know who trained AI? You did. And scientists, but technically, we all did. Companies used social media platforms, the internet, software, and more to train AI systems into what they are today. Every time you tagged a friend in a photo on Facebook, you were training an AI somewhere how to better recognize faces. During this time, and we're not out of the woods yet, some scary AI's were unwittingly being created as well. Click Here to read about how Twitter taught Microsoft's AI to be racist—it took less than a day for the racism to start. And that was pre-Elon Musk. So believe it or not, all of our online use, our social media activity, all of it has been training AI for years. We're partly responsible. I know many will say, 'I didn't know,' and it's true, we really didn’t. However, we’re getting to a point in the social media and online landscape where personal responsibility is starting to emerge. I'm both joking and am serious. The difference between personal responsibility online versus in the real world is, on a day-to-day basis, my actions may affect a few dozen people. In the online world, it can be global. I could go down the rabbit hole on this, but I'll stay on target and say the new version of personal global responsibility is a topic for another time. Let’s get back to Terminators and HAL 9000.

Current AI Myths

1. It will be a long time before we have true artificial intelligence at the speed of human thought.​​​

• ​Definitely not. We're advancing faster than ever predicted. I think by 2030 we'll be there, if not sooner.

2. Creative jobs are going to be safe, and more blue-collar jobs will be eliminated first.

• Actually, we're seeing the opposite for the moment. Many blue-collar jobs require not just reliable AI, but also advanced robotics, and few companies mange both well-Tesla being the exception.

3. We have years before AI becomes a real issue.

• The initial investment in creating something like ChatGPT is now seeming like small change compared to the funds now being poured into AI development. Initially, the challenge was figuring out the "how" of creating AI. Now that we've got the basics down, enhancing and upgrading AI systems has become relatively easier, especially with virtually unlimited funds and resources at their disposal. I haven't checked this out yet, but I'd venture to say that AI is one of the top funded technologies in the world.

4. Companies will resist using AI in their businesses for ethical reasons.

• I'll try not to laugh and will take this myth seriously. Some might resist, but only temporarily. AI integration in businesses is inevitable. Sinead Bovell once likened the shift to AI to how schools in the 1980s moved from pencils to calculators. I think it's more like jumping from paper to The Borg in Star Trek, but the essence is the same. Remember, most businesses prioritize profits over personnel; if something can be done faster and with fewer people, they’ll do it. Especially if their competitors are already doing it. I mean, last I checked, Walmart didn't have a heartbeat...right?

Where Are We Headed?

There are two major schools of thought when it comes to how AI will serve the world:

1. It will assist workers and employers, making lives easier and more efficient so we can have more free time. 
2. It will replace more workers than it will help and the only people whose jobs are safe are those that will maintain and advance AI in the modern job world.

Here's why #1 is so wrong it's crazy. It's already happened before and it will happen again. It was called computers, then it was called the Internet. In both cases, companies said these will make our lives easier, give people more free time etc...Well neither did. Employers found out that they could double, triple, quadruple the workload an individual does in a day, therefore increase their profits thanks to this new thing called "computer." Same with the internet. Employers won't choose to say, "We have AI now so everyone can stop working eight hour days, but I'll still pay you your full-time wage." Should they, yes of course. Will they, no. If a business isn't growing, it's dying. That's modern business philosophy. I could go on, but you get my point. 
My big however to all this is, governments need to step up immediately. Not with banning AI. The cat is out and you actually can't stop it now without hurting smaller businesses, but that's another topic for another time. What governments can do is start instituting new concepts that are being proven, economically, to work in everyone's best interests. For example, Universal Basic Income or UBI! I believe, don't quote me here, it was Bill Gates who suggested over a decade ago that for every job a human loses to an AI, we "tax" the company that position and the money goes towards UBI for everyone. Click Here for an interesting article about it all. Economists have even done the math. Here in Canada many economists say UBI would actually save the government money because we wouldn't need as expansive social services that we currently utilize that has extreme overhead. So in theory we could be doing UBI now Canada-wide without even getting assistance from AI.

The Final Frontier​

One of my favourite TV shows is The Orville. In that show, they tackled the 'What if money didn’t exist in the future?' question. Money was replaced with social value. It wasn't some sort of rating system or anything; you just had to do your best in whatever career path you were passionate about. If you didn't, you were fine. You still had everything, but socially it would be seen as a bit of a wasted life. You weren't shamed either. It's simply that the new social norm was following your passions. Your home, food, clothing, toys—everything would be provided. They used this magical technological tool called a Matter Synthesizer that could create food, objects, anything, really, using atoms from the air around them. Think Star Trek's replicators, but without the copyright issues. However, UBI could, until AI creates its own version of this Matter Synthesizer device, be a starting point for all of that.

In Conclusion

We can't stop it, so we might as well join it. If you don't want to, no problem. I'm sure there were many who, when personal computers were introduced, swore they'd never touch one in their lives. Years later, however, they found themselves increasingly out of sync with the world. It's up to you. For me, I use it all the time now. Have an acting audition? I use ChatGPT to give me a list of action verbs specific to the character and the dialogue. I also ask it to break down the scene, highlighting key emotional points for my character and more. Do I obey everything it suggests? No. I've been acting for twenty years so I know when it doesn't 'hit the mark' so-to-speak or if I know there's a better action verb out there. If I have a loose idea for a movie, I'll discuss it with ChatGPT. I'll feed it articles about movies in the genre and brainstorm some ideas. Now do any of my scripts have ChatGPT ideas in them? No. It's hard to explain, but I use it like I used to use Google for screenwriting. What's the difference between asking ChatGPT for five disasters that could happen on a roadtrip for a comedy movie idea I have versus looking up a blog that has that. Example Click Here . Well for one thing, time. It saves me a ton of time. There's more, but I'll do a separate blog about the specifics at another time. It also helps me think of avenues and creative directions I normally wouldn't consider. In fact, it's improved me as a writer. I'm not relying on it as much as it is teaching me how to think more macro when my brain is micro and more micro when I'm all macro. Can I write without it? Yes. The 32 awards in screenwriting I've won have proven it. But unlike others, I use it as an assistant, a sounding board, not as a writer. I can't afford a writer's room right now, but when I can, humans will replace my ChatGPT. That said, would I ask other writers in my future writer's room not to use ChatGPT as an assistant? Nope. It's going to be such a big part of our lives that policing it will be impossible. In fact, AI will pose such a legal challenge that, in a year or two—not decades—we'll need AI lawyers to help write AI laws because they'll be evolving daily. Now, this is all scary. New stuff always is. We've failed to use technology in the past to truly improve our lives because those afraid of it decided to ignore it or claimed we were years away from it. This allowed companies to do whatever they wanted with it, as not enough people were sounding the alarms. What ended up happening was our culture mindlessly changed to suit the technology. See the documentary 'The Social Dilemma' for more on that. Will the technology arrive? Yes. Is it here now. Duh. Can we, as global consumers, actively decide how it is used and regulated? Absolutely. Let's break the cycle of new technology meaning fewer jobs and less financial stability for people around the world. Let's use it to help create programs like UBI and truly advance the health and well-being of humanity. Otherwise... I mean, Terminators are coming, so...