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| Image by Andy from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.
"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." Elon Musk
Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,
For the record, this column has not been written by an artificial intelligence, I pinky swear.
{Huh. How would they know?}
How would who know what?
{Your readers, how would they know? What's to prevent an artificial intelligence from lying, and claiming to be you?}
Just a sec', Dana, I'll be right back...
Okay, it looks like the existing complex web of national and international standard organizations is already working on this. Obviously, it's gonna take a minute, but they'll eventually hammer out a system for certifying whether or not a given something or other was created by an artificial or meat-based intelligence.
At least I hope so.
They've got a lot of experience in this sort of thing which is why you don't get electrocuted when you plug in electronic devices manufactured all over the world. For example, at America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), "Delivering the needed measurements, standards and other tools is a primary focus for NIST’s portfolio of AI efforts."
{Cool, but in the meantime? And what if...}
Funny you should ask. An article (AI Junk is Starting to Pollute the Internet) in the Wall Street Journal, Colonel Cranky's personal paper of record, caught my eye a while back and...
{I thought you were Captain Cranky?}
I've been promoted, Dana. You'll be receiving an invitation to the induction ceremony/party shortly.
Check out the article dear gentlereaders if you're interested in details. Far be it from me to steal content written by a fellow H. sapien, WSJ reporter Robert McMillan.
{But what if "Robert McMillan" is actually an it and...}
However, I learned something from the article that in retrospect should've been obvious to me given how common a trope it is in science fiction, regardless of format, for a device controlled by an artificial intelligence — robots, computers, spaceships, etc — to choke to death on corrupted or deliberately deceptive input.
The article is primarily about how spammers, and other blackguards and ne'er-do-wells, are using A.I. to execute scams. But the thing that really interested me was reading that slowly but steadily more and more of "the cloud" consists of content that's created by A.I.
From the article "...researchers worry that the language models will become less useful, a phenomenon known as 'model collapse.'”
So what's model collapse? Artificial intelligence is based on tech called large language models. A.I. feeds on the content of "public data sets," that is to say, all the internet content theoretically already created by H. sapiens. But our fellow meat puppets, perhaps even you, are experimenting with A.I. for fun and/or profit to create content.
A given artificial intelligence can eat data faster than Joey Chestnut can eat hotdogs and remember, and use, more data than that kid in Sister Mary McGillicuddy's class that made the rest of us look stupid and was the reason S'tr graded on a curve.
Artificial intelligence software, like the currently famous ChatGPT for example, regurgitates content created by itself in response to commands/inquiries by H. sapiens. "Experts" predict that this is going to eventually result in the cyber equivalent of what happens when you make a copy of a copy that's a copy of a copy.
{Oh yeah? Well just wait till, inevitably, some meat puppets start falling in love with his/her/their artificial companions...}
It's already happening, just wait till they start self-identifying as software, or a robot, and start canceling people for being cyberphobes while waiting for the singularity.
Anyways... That's model collapse. I hope to live long enough to discover if Pandora can close the box before artificial intelligences (intelligensi?) start killing us in our sleep, or if it turns out that A.I. is going to save the world.
The law of unintended consequences is always in effect, which I find endlessly fascinating (except for when it negatively impacts me of course).
Stuff happens... So I would suggest that it's better to be safe than to be sorry, that a buyer should be wary, and that since life's just one darn thing after another, you should keep your fingers crossed and be careful because you never know what's comin' down the pike.
After all, It pays to pay attention.
A note on last week's column. The voters of Ohio voted down the attempt by the Republicans currently in control of the state to make it much harder for the little people to both get a referendum on the ballot and pass it if they do, a right they've been exercising remarkably responsibly since 1912.
They were primarily motivated by wishing to make it harder for the people to pass a referendum that will be on the ballot in November, that's being promoted by the Democrats, that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
Rather than compromising on a law that would make abortion legal, but with restrictions similar to the ones that were included in the Roe v. Wade ruling, WHICH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS OF ALL STRIPES FAVOR, we might wind up with a constitutional amendment that's so vague and poorly written that it might be struck down by some judge or other before or after the election.
But it will save the members of the Ohio Legislature from having to craft and vote on a common-sense compromise.
{And yet you...}
Yes, and yet I still think the issue should be decided state by state given the sorry state of the Congress. It should've never been decided by nine unelected Supreme Court judges just because Congress will cross the street to avoid hammering out compromises that might keep a given member from getting reelected and having to get a job in the real world.
Poppa loves you,
