Prevalence of AI tech may stunt creativity
OpenAI, the tech startup founded in 2015, has created controversy with their text and image generative programs such as ChatGPT and DALL-E.
With simple or elaborate text prompts, these AI modelers can replicate or generate any combination images or words imaginable. Taking from the swath of art and creative works available online, this “data” is the mill from which they draw.
Without giving permission or receiving financial compensation, many artists are angry about their work being plagiarized to fuel this new “revolution.” On Feb. 18, OpenAI unveiled its newest tech to video modeler called Sora. Making a dramatic leap in capability, this program can generate ultra-realistic, 60-second videos of virtually anything. Although the motions and details can still be clunky, it’s a frightening difference from where we stood in 2023.
All the sample videos produced from Sora aim to tug at our heartstrings with some flavor of emotion. Cute puppies rolling in a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Action camera footage of bicyclists flying down a mountain trail at high speeds. Nana blowing out her birthday candles at a family party. So what if she smiles with no feeling behind her eyes while her fake grandkids clap their weird tentacle hands together? It got done so fast!
When we’re not clubbing baby seals or cutting off each other in traffic, our creative works are one of the few beacons of light we produce as a species. Why is it folks working in these fields, people who have “real” jobs, will be among the first to become obsolete?
It begs the question: Where does humanity obtain its value from? Is it our capacity to feel empathy and compassion? Our ability to raise a family? Our ability to create works of art? Or is it purely in our ability to produce and earn no matter the cost? In our bloodless, corporate-driven society, it appears to be the latter.
The idea of craftsmanship and devoting one’s life to perfecting a discipline is becoming obsolete in our culture. Beyond becoming a tool in the craftsman’s arsenal, AI could replace the human element entirely. Why do we want this? To sim
ply turn a profit? To satiate some kind of gluttonous appetite to fill the void?
George Carlin, one of my favorite stand-up philosophers, succinctly captured the dual nature of humanity. He famously summarized the duality of our beauty and brutality in his 2005 special, “Life Is Worth Losing.”
“Our DNA hasn’t changed substantially in a hundred thousand years,” he said in the special. “We’re still operating out of the lower brain. The reptilian brain. Fight or flight. Kill or be killed. We like to think we’ve evolved and advanced because we can build a computer, fly an airplane, travel underwater, we can write a sonnet, paint a painting, compose an opera. But you know something? We’re barely out of the jungle on this planet. What we are is semi-civilized beasts, with baseball caps and automatic weapons.”
Recently, AI was used to generate a “new” hour of Carlin material, using his voice and language patterns, on the Dudesy podcast. Although described as a parody, it was universally excoriated by the public, including Kelly Carlin, George’s daughter, who took legal action to remove it from YouTube.
Arguably, Carlin’s best, most popular work occurred in his last two specials just before his death in 2008. After a lifetime of studious work ethic, coupled with a life filled with joy and painful experience, he delivered his finest work. The audience who loved him could recognize the value of his devotion. But devotion can’t be ordered in one click.
The juxtaposition between our technological capability and our compassion for one another is vast. It is the equivalent of putting an arrogant teenager behind the wheel of a high-performance sports car. We don’t consider the consequences of our actions, as long as we can get there faster.
Somewhere along the way, our primitive survival instincts became intertwined with the release of the newest smartphone. The drive to procreate is equal with purchasing the latest and greatest. It is one step toward to the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and away from being homeless. Kill or be killed.
Any protest leads to the typical conditioned insults, lambasting the luddites the way kids in grade school roast their classmate who still believes in Santa. Without mindfulness as individuals, we will simply assimilate into the rat race 2.0 until it ruins us.
Until it develops a consciousness, our human outcries of love, anger, sadness, frustration and happiness are the one thing AI can’t truly replicate, that little spark of universe we can see in each other’s eyes. Despite what our cash-andcarry, next-day-delivery world will value, this is what it means to be alive.