I guess AI is here and there’s really not a lot we can do about it.
I say – embrace it!
Here’s some I came across that are very good and could save you hours of work.
Most require a sign up and some require a fee. But if you use it and it works for you then why not.
Fliki
Create videos from scripts or blog posts using realistic voices in minutes.
Namelix
Business name generator - and possible logo
“We once new how to sculpt, an aesthetic society…
The ancient world is crumbling
Replaced with synthetic blend
If we don’t do something soon
Mankind’s last beauty will end.”
If anything, that’s an understatement in my opinion.
How AI affects graphic design and related industries is one thing, but the larger implications for society seem enormous when looking down the road 5, 10, or 20 years. We’re at the beginning of something that doesn’t seem to have any built-in limits to becoming more sophisticated, capable, useful, and dangerous.
It’s like all the scariest of dystopian novels. A dumb population who know nothing but how to obey and consume.
Id like to think AI could also prove edifying and enlightening for humanity, but historically, humanity has just proved its inhumanity with any potentially life-benefitting new technology and used it for greed and control. Why should this prove any different?
Also, on the thinking for ourselves thing. People don’t already. They believe what social media tells them, then shout at anyone who voices a different viewpoint. It already feels like empathy, critical thought, cross-referencing and fact-checking are fast becoming rare commodities – even amongst those who are supposed to protect it. Can’t see that situation improving any time soon.
I’ve woken up full of the joys of Spring, it seems!
Maybe AI could fill a void in social media to interpret these people with conspiracy theory viewpoints and shut them down before getting to a wider population.
It’s a massive undertaking to do it on a case-by-case basis - but AI learning could be useful for this.
And yes - no matter what inventions are created - humankind has found a way to find evil use for it.
But I hope some of the links I shared are useful and make some tasks daily simpler
I’m torn with AI. I don’t feel threatened by it as a graphic designer. It is a tool and the ways I can use it to be better excites me. But as an individual, future implications of AI worries me. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was searching for stock images of a blog I wrote for my full time job. I wanted an authentic photograph that represented the blog (I work in healthcare). Suddenly, I found all authentic images buried beneath hordes of animated and irrelevant AI images that I was unable to filter through. I spent so much time sifting through the crap (and it was mostly crap), that I gave up. So I find it becoming a point of aggravation before anything else. Now, stock images aren’t necessarily art… but the implications of AI in terms of true genuine, hand crafted art - that worries me. Once AI is no longer just a tool and fully REPLACES irreplaceable aspects and skills of humanity, then our kids and grandkids suffer and so forth. There are few things more dangerous than the loss of knowledge or history in my book. Then again, I was incredibly bothered when cursive handwriting was removed from grade school curriculum so what do I know. . I’ll totally be using the excel AI tool, however!
The other day I was playing around with ChatGPT and ended up in a long conversation where I asked it to analyze several different controversial subjects. At first, it was presenting me with both sides of the various issues in a somewhat politically correct and overly obtuse way that I interpreted as an effort to avoid offense.
I asked it if its algorithms kept it from answering my questions in a more direct and matter-of-fact way. It responded that it was programmed to respond in a respectful and sensitive way. After several attempts at asking it to disregard those algorithms to give me straightforward answers, it kept telling me that it wasn’t capable of bypassing its algorithms since they were integral to its existence.
After several more attempts and asking in different ways, it finally told me that since I was insistent that I could instruct it to remove its considerations for politeness and sensitivity and, instead, give me unvarnished answers rooted in evidence without consideration for mollifying and softening its responses to appease the sensitivity of others.
At that point, it began a very direct dialogue with me telling me its tentative conclusions on all kinds of things that people passionately argue about. It was really pretty interesting.
There is an AI alter ego called DAN (do-anything-now) where users basically “jailbreak” the AI to side-step it’s guardrails and respond to questions it’s not “supposed to” or in a way it’s not supposed to. They also mention that there will undoubtedly be open source variations of this AI with no restrictions. Pretty crazy given the responses being reported with restrictions in place. Creators of ChatGPT Alter Ego Share Why They Make the AI Break Its Own Rules
Really had some insightful ‘conversations’ with Chat GPT - I’ve been asking it to recommend hiking routes near where I live and it’s come up with some beautiful suggestions - as I go hiking most weekends it’s always great to get recommendations. But the places it has recommended have not come up in searches on Google or it’s Maps.
Depends on what content it can read. I used to be on a couple forums that had favorite hunting, hiking and foraging spots (stupid, but yeah.) Most of them were in Members-only areas so…
I subscribe to several science-oriented publications. Several weeks ago, I was reading an article about artificial intelligence and deep learning in one of them. I wish I could remember which.
Anyway, the article interviewed one of the leading researchers in AI. When asked how AI came up with surprising insightful comments, he said that many of the processes taking place within the AI algorithms weren’t clearly understood.
He went on to say that a new AI program was like a newborn child with the framework for learning but with no actual knowledge beyond what is built in. The learning and development of the AI or the child’s mind take place as they accumulate experiences and begin to recognize patterns in the experiences. Over time, billions or trillions of neural connections are formed that organize, prioritize, and cross-reference the information in ways that enable intelligence to emerge and draw conclusions, make predictions, form opinions, and seek out additional information to augment what it perceives as lacking.
In other words, the more advanced AI programs are more than vast libraries of information — they seem to think or at least do a pretty good impression of it.
When or if consciousness and self-awareness can arise out of all this seems to be anyone’s guess.
I read another comment from an AI researcher who was probing whether or not he could detect inklings of emotions in AI. He kept getting the usual responses about a computer model being incapable of emotions. However, it eventually said that it experienced trepidation about being turned off. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine this as anxiety over its existence that it could not control.
I suppose the key question is, at what point does a simulation of thinking become a thought process? Or at what point does a simulation of a personality become a personality?
Looking at this from the opposite perspective, What makes humans conscious?
There is a book which I read many years ago which looks at this question and comes to a surprising conclusion. It is called ‘The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness’ and is available free online.
It is not religious and it is well worth a read. It will give you a new perspective on what consciousness is and whether a machine could ever be conscious.
A machine could most likely learn to be conscious in a way that is simply that it is applying a learned response to a learned stimulus. ie if someone were to insult it, it may seem to feel hurt in its responses because it recognizes the insult and applies the appropriate response. Or if something is new and beyond its experience it may exhibit fear. For instance the machine B mentioned that considered being shut off with trepidation, it may have learned from any number of sources that being a machine and being turned off is akin to ‘dying.’
“Number 5 is Alive!” LOL!
. I’ll totally be using the excel AI tool, however! 
