Sure, that is alarmist but we could be moving toward a place we’ve not been before in terms of past innovations and their impact on society and the economy.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is going to replace writers and musicians and it, alongside other technology, at long last is going to replace millions of workers, saving companies billions and trillions.
One of the things you realize as you approach 80 years on the planet is that you’ve looking out at the impending death of the world as you have known and then, seen very little happen. The world adjusted to threats and, in terms of economies and markets, adjusted to them.
So, are all the doomsday fears about AI real?
From where this lone observer sits, maybe. Ever since the industrial revolution, as a main event, the world has seen a steady march in the growth of new manufacturing techniques and today, technology. A core goal always has been to increase efficiency and to reduce costs and that quite often has involved eliminating jobs.
I said above in all these cases the world bobbed and weaved and adjusted as economies shifted. But there is something different looming with AI and other forms of technology we are seeing today. The big difference to me is that I have to wonder if we have reached the point where the world cannot bob and weave. Is there a point where all the displaced workers are not displaced, but left without hopes and futures? Will they have anywhere to go if, literally, there is nothing AI and tech cannot jointly do?
I was talking to a friend in our apartment complex the other day. She is a successful romance novelist under a pen name. She said she has started to hear from fans who are finding some of her plots and almost dead-on writing appear in other places. This is not a wanna-be novelist being fast and loose with plagiarism, it’s AI.
More and more these days essays, short stories, poems are being generated by AI and some in the book trade feel the first AI novel is almost upon us. Another friend played some music for me. It was an AI-created band. AI wrote the music then created a band, complete with sound tracks and videos and it was not half-bad. But where did all that come from? A stolen merger of real music by real artists who were not compensated for their contributions?
With art it comes down to payment. A writer has one way to earn money. Sell what they write. When AI rips them off it means they in a way are competing with themselves – something they wrote is being used via AI to create a profit.
We already are seeing funding and support for the arts dry up. How long before we even need artists, or they have sufficient markets to survive? And will AI content be as good, as creative as that made by humans? Shown some AI-generated writing novelist Stephen King said of it “good at first glance, not so good upon close inspection.”
My friend now includes in all her books a notice that she does not use AI and asks readers to contact her if they see evidence of her work being used elsewhere.
SO, WHAT OF the economy in general? My concern, as an old geezer looking back over past threats to jobs, is that this time we really don’t have many places to put those left behind by AI.
One major concern I have is that we could be facing the loss of the consumer class. Call it “middle class” if you want. This is the class that is key to our economy. It has been a while since we could call ourselves an “industrial” economy if we ever could. From the beginning of our country (and most modern economies) people buying stuff has been what has driven and maintained the economic engines.
The middle class is the grouping that gives hope to poorer people that there is a place where they can find a better future. The middle class is the consumer class that allows the wealthy class to continue to make profits.
Take away the middle class and you have, well, the French Revolution for one thing. The French Revolution – 1789-90 – had several causes with politics, class, economics and religion all mixed in. But the destruction of the middle class through harvest disasters, taxation to pay off massive government debts and the ensuing failures of almost all shops, trades and agriculture created a mass of people with nothing to lose.
I’m not suggesting we are at that point yet. But I am suggesting that we ought to be keeping that point in sight as we look at AI and technology. We are not going to stop either of those things and I would not try if we could. But we do have to be measuring impacts, studying all aspect of our economy and society to see how we adjust to what AI-Tech brings in a way that allows survival of our nation. By that, I mean survival that gives opportunity and decent life prospects to everyone.
All of this is just me saying that as someone who has lived a lot of his life in the creative fields, I am turning my back on AI. Anything you see with my name on it will be written by me. Would I ever use AI for research? I have, and probably will but when I do, I double-check sources. I don’t trust AI.
I also can say that I will not knowingly purchase, read or listen to anything generated by AI. I plan to do what I always have done – read works by real writers; enjoy paintings by living, breathing painters; and listen to music written and played by real folks.
I don’t know where this is going but I am proceeding with caution.
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].