My smart watch doesn't know I'm poopin

[6]

Look around. Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence with an air of doom & gloom these days. But me? I’m not worried in the slightest.

Technology will always inherently be flawed (more on this later). Because technology is operating within a set of man-made parameters, the flaws are automatically baked in. It’s why my smart watch is always encouraging me to move at the worst times. Hey Apple, toilet time ≠ standing time.

But I’m not poopin right now, so let’s get into today’s newsletter⁰ :

Flaws aside, technology is always evolving. And that’s not a bad thing.

We are clearly more advanced than our ancient ancestors who used to sit by the FM radio like a drone, waiting to record their favorite songs onto cassette tapes¹ .

But as we narrow our prompts and develop better tools, AI begins to resemble something less like an uncoordinated machine and something more like Bender. Something… vaguely “human”. But I’m not worried.

Reasons why I’m not afraid of Chat GPT:

• I am a Y2K survivor.

• The unfiltered internet circa 2006-2010 was much much scarier.

  • 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🥤

  • 🔵🧇

• If we never open Chat GPT, humanity is neither safe nor threatened. #Schrodinger’sChat

• I have more important things to worry about, like trying to thoroughly cook chicken without checking it 20 times. Or wondering if anyone saw me accidentally turn my blinker on when I was entering a roundabout.

Ultimately, it’s not artificial intelligence that scares me… it’s you guys.

AI doesn’t scare me. Humans do.

Us humans are the ones setting the parameters for what AI is generating in the first place. And we are the ones providing the landscape of behavioral data for AI to consume and regurgitate back to us in the form of an ‘algorithm’.

Open your mouths, baby birdies. It’s finally time to have your cake² and eat it, too.

We wanted to constantly be entertained every second of every day. So now, AI is generating an endlessly engaging algorithm based on our every move. But what’s holding our attention?

We know if you interact with a topic, you’ll see more of that topic. If you linger on a video, you’ll get more like-minded videos. It’s the AI version of Nick Miller’s “gave me cookie, got you cookie.”

But AI is just the scape-goat in this scenario. We’re the ones to blame.

“The things that people consume are the things that get created.”

@hankgreen1

Posted by @paytmitch

Fear mongering and ‘hot taeks’ become valuable currency in a world built off of clicks, comments, and watch metrics.

And AI is only selling what we’re buying.

Reasons I’m not afraid of ChatGPT - Part 2

Don’t tell the robots I said this, but AI is a watered down version of what we think it means to be human. Sure, it’s extremely efficient, but that’s part of the problem.

To increase efficiency, you have got to cut corners somewhere. And the best we’ll ever get is an approximation.

If you were a robot, I’d program you to read this article:

Our brains are not computers.

Your brain is not a computer, and that’s a really good thing.

We can make sense of the world around us infinitely better than a computer can, because we aren’t bound by algorithms.

We’ve been fed a false narrative that computers are better, quicker, & smarter. But our minds can do things that computers can’t³ .

It’s why AI has failed in many ways over the years.

Smart cars have run over pedestrians because they were jay-walking. Job application software has promoted resumes for dudes named Jared that played lacrosse, just because it recognized that a lot of CEOs were dudes named Jared that played lacrosse.

The flaws are baked in. Baked and burnt.

AI is missing a critical component: Critical Thinking⁴.

If you were a robot, I’d program you to watch the video below:

It’s fine if you think change is scary, but we will inevitably evolve right along with technology. We always do.

And remember, no amount of computer generated images could ever replace those beautiful photos you took of your dinner and posted to Instagram 2 years ago.

^{0 . This newsletter’s content drastically changes. Thanks for putting up with it.
1 . If anyone asks, I’m not old enough to remember doing this.
2 . This is a callback to the ‘baked’ in flaws. Keep up.
3 . Like keeping me up at night, re-living the time when I blamed a fart on Aimee from 2nd grade.
4 . Some humans are lacking in this department, too. But that’s a different newsletter.}

Thoroughly cook your chicken and own up to your farts.
until next time. - cd