Concept
The buzz around ChatGPT is hitting a critical mass⏤a collective frenzy, even, and there are equal amounts of hype and skepticism. In the Wall Street Journal, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher stated in ChatGPT Heralds an Intellectual Revolution that, “A new technology bids to transform the human cognitive process as it has not been shaken up since the invention of printing.”
When the printing press was introduced in Europe in the 15th century, it was seen as a disruptive technology that would undermine the established order. Ultimately, the printing press played a key role in the spread of knowledge and the development of modern society.
Watch
Fear and skepticism often surround new technologies and sometimes they are well-founded, such as the safety risks around nuclear energy and the impact on mental health, privacy, and the spread of misinformation with social media. The big fears with GPT and AI include job displacement, bias, and discrimination, particularly if models are trained on biased data and fears over privacy and security. The other speculative worry that sort of almost seems from the world of science fiction is that AI could become sentient, potentially becoming uncontrollable, surpassing human intelligence, and posing a threat to humanity.
The idea of AI becoming sentient may seem farfetched, but when you stop to realise that the exact process by which GPT stores, distills, and retrieves its knowledge is unknown because it is a complex neural network model that uses millions of parameters and multiple layers of processing, it does start to make you wonder if some of the fears are more than just hyperbole.
Further Discussion
New York Magazine has an interesting piece, You Are Not A Parrot, about some of the concerns surrounding technologies like ChatGPT.
The Atlantic also has a thought-provoking article entitled, Conspiracy Theories Have a New Best Friend, which discusses how ChatGPT threatens to revolutionise disinformation.
There was a very interesting conversation on Ezra Klien’s podcast with the science fiction writer Adrian Tchaikovsky where they discussed the topic, “Is AI Actually Creative? Are We?” The conversation touches on various ideas from science fiction, the positive impact of AI, singularity, and if AI can ever be truly creative in the human sense. It is an interesting debate and opens up the question of how our ideas of creativity might start to shift in the future and what creativity actually is.
From an artist’s point of view: Nick Cave Slams AI Attempts at Nick Cave Songs
“What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty,” Cave wrote. “It could perhaps in time create a song that is, on the surface, indistinguishable from an original, but it will always be a replication, a kind of burlesque…. Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend.”
The emphasis on the individual genius of the artist or author is challenged in the 1967 essay The Death of the Author by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes. Barthes suggests that creativity is not something that is solely possessed by the artist or author, but rather, a product of the ongoing interactions between artists, audiences, and cultural contexts.
The advent of ChatGPT has brought Barthes’s assertions from over 50 years ago to light again, as AI may fundamentally change how creators are viewed. Perhaps the successful artists of the future will be the ones that are able to work best with bots.
Listening
DJ Python – Club Sentimentos, Vol. 2
Brian Piñeyro, known by his alias DJ Python, has garnered recognition in the left-field dance scene for his distinctive take on reggaetón. Here on this EP released in 2022 he continues to be experimental in his approach with rich, warm ambient tracks that showcase a unique blend of atmospheric beats, polished soundscapes, and hypnotic rhythms.
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