“Where there is hope, there is life!”
These words were spoken to me by my mother’s friend about 10 years ago. They’ve stuck with because of their truth. For all the doom and gloom out there, hope remains.
The latest of my glooms is of course, the use of artificial intelligence to create in place of a human being.
Something that often comes to mind when I consider this is the legend of the oracle. Oracles were seen as a vessel through which people could communicate with the divine. A wise woman prophet who lived beside or was somehow a part of the very water itself. Oracles brought healing and wisdom. When the water dried up, the oracle moved on.
We are attempting to create our own oracle using artificial intelligence. The irony is not lost on me that AI data centres use such massive amounts of water. What then will we do when we run all the waters dry with our own greed?
What then will we say when we’ve forsaken ourselves and the oracles of life have disappeared?
The truth is that no matter how perfectly an AI bot generates a painting or a song or a text, it is artificial. Anyone who has made anything with their own hands or mind knows this. A human being can tell when art has no heartbeat.
Universities are cracking down on the use of generative AI to write essays. People argue about it, hiding behind keyboards as has become typical in recent years. I hold the truth of these crackdowns in my left hand, but I hold another reality in my right.
Every time I look at my phone or walk around town, I see an AI generated poster or advertisement. No soul or effort is put into these, and they all look the same. I watch alongside everyone else as we experience a mass gentrification of our minds.
I often wonder if we are witnessing an extinction of our species creativity. Maybe art that is generated and not created isn’t really art at all.
“AI is the future,” people say. No one wants to be left behind as society races forward toward the next great thing.
Even in this early age of AI, studies have proven that using AI to create for you has negative effects on the brain. I can only imagine what the future holds for this sort of damage long term.
I see people using excessive AI to create for them. I also see people who continue to create with their own hands and mind.
Perhaps the bravest thing we can do in this societal climate is to continue to create in this way.
We do not have to dry up the waters; we do not have to comply to the ideology that maintaining human creations and connection will somehow cause us to be left behind.
After all, AI creations are a dime a dozen. Real, human made art is rarer and more valuable to those who treasure authenticity.
It’s not too late to water the oracle.
We still have hope; we have the gift of life.
Sara Driedger