Artificial Intelligence Came for My Job

But it couldn't compete

Everyone seems sure that this new age of artificial intelligence will bring massive change. What we don’t agree on is what that change will look like. Is AI just the latest in a series of technological upgrades to human life and interaction? Are we facing the end of the economy as we know it? Or, even more dramatic: does the implementation of AI herald a fundamental change in what it means to be human?

Leaving aside the economic question for the time being, let’s explore the human element. Looking at best and worst case scenarios, can we peg a likely outcome for how AI might change humanity?

The Death of Content?

I’ve seen a lot of people freaking out because they believe that AI will take away their jobs. Content creators are especially scared, it seems. After all, if ChatGPT and other AI text curators can write anything from a limerick to an exhaustive essay in seconds, who’s going to pay writers to string words together? Likewise, with the advancements in AI solutions for audio, video, and visual art, what niche can a creator expect to cleave to in the new economy?

I don’t want to downplay this concern. There are many types of content that, even in its infancy, AI can manage much quicker and more efficiently than a human. And at the rate the tech is advancing, it’s reasonable to expect the quality gap between content created by human expertise and by AI curation to shrink.

But I don’t believe that AI spells the death of content. Here’s why.

After playing around with it myself, I can spot a ChatGPT essay from a cursory glance. At this early stage, it’s not much of a challenge. Blog posts and social media posts are popping up every day written in the same robotic, colorless tone.

To give you an idea of what I mean, when asked to write an essay, ChatGPT always sticks too hard to the old rule of "introduction, point 1, point 2, point 3, conclusion." Each new point is prefaced with a style-less "furthermore" or "on the other hand". Sentences are rephrased and repeated multiple times throughout. Concluding paragraphs usually begin "In conclusion," and of course, there are no spelling or grammatical errors (which is a HUGE RED FLAG for some of y'all.) The rhythm is terrible and the phrasing lacks expressiveness.

Its internal logic isn’t quite all there. You have to watch it carefully to make sure it doesn’t contradict itself, or put superfluous stuff in the text. For example, I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post in the form of a list of Do’s and Don’ts. Many of the “Do’s” were repeated in the negative form under the “Don’ts” heading. A halfway decent human blogger would not do that.

Poems written by ChatGPT are poorly metered, with rhymes that don’t quite work. Of course, many humans write bad poetry, as well. If you’re setting out to write a bad poem, you should probably just let AI do it for you. It’ll save you some time.

In essence, ChatGPT writes exactly the way you would expect: like a robot. Once I spot it, I don't bother to read it.

If I just want to know the facts about a simple question, or want to cut through my own brain fog and have the bot produce a comprehensive summary or a list of prompts that I can use as a springboard for further creation, this robotic style is effective and serviceable. But it gets super boring in a longer form piece, so it’s not great for anything intended to entertain, inspire, evoke emotion, or keep people reading.

From an ethical standpoint

I’m firmly in the no-victim-no-crime camp. So to be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong or unethical in using AI-generated text in and of itself.

I admit, I do get a little annoyed when people use ChatGPT to write what they think are thoughtful, insightful Facebook posts and don’t even bother to say that they used it. But that’s just a personal preference, not a matter of ethics.

Of course, maybe it’s only my own ability to spot AI-generated text that creates the issue for me. Many people—those who aren’t much interested in voice, style, originality, rhythm and poetry in the use of language—probably can’t tell, and would have a hard time training themselves to discern the difference. For those folks, does it really matter if the text was generated by a human or by an AI? Probably not.

But suppose it transpires that, with further iterations of the code, ChatGPT and similar projects gain the ability to fool someone like me. Then, will it truly matter whether the content I read was produced by AI? That’s an uncomfortable potentiality for me to explore, but I’ll give it a go.

In that case, I suppose that for me, the end consumer of the content, it truly would not matter whether the content was produced by AI. As long as it delivers what I’m seeking: knowledge, entertainment, emotional comfort, or whatever it is, in the way I want it delivered, the source makes no difference.

It would matter though, for the human creators whose novels never get read, whose paintings never get viewed, whose music never gets heard, or who never receive compensation for their work because AI can do it faster and cheaper.

This is all purely hypothetical, however. Remember, at this stage AI produces content that is robotic in tone. When it produces something satisfying to our deeper human desires, it’s a fluke. There is not any fail-proof AI formula for hitting all the right spots and doing it in an innovative way that keeps the audience interested, and since there’s also no fail-proof human formula for doing that, there’s no reason to think AI will ever crack the code.

The End of Search?

So, is it really even possible for AI to become so good at content creation that no one will seek human-created content, or care whether it was produced by AI or humans? I don’t think so.

We’re probably looking at the elimination of humans from the creation of content written for purely informational purposes, where the technology saves a ton of time and the audience doesn’t care who wrote it anyway. I anticipate we’ll see a lot of AI-written articles and blog posts on how to program your TV remote or how to get the best mortgage rate. Eventually, these types of posts will fall to the wayside because you can simply go to ChatGPT and get the same regurgitated curation of facts or steps.

Similarly, for copywriting and other marketing content, AI can already do a pretty good job. But that doesn’t mean a human with expertise can’t do better.

An acquaintance of mine, a successful content marketer, claims that soon people won’t use search engines anymore at all, opting instead for AI solutions that can pull from all the relevant articles on the internet and give you a comprehensive answer to your search in seconds. The speed and effectiveness with which AI can curate these responses, he proposes, means that content itself will soon be rendered irrelevant.

I disagree.

I have a hard time imagining myself abandoning search in favor of AI. As it stands, ChatGPT gives boring, sometimes incorrect, and often contradictory answers if asked for anything beyond the basic level of detail and analysis. But even if this problem were to be solved, the thing that’s missing from ChatGPT when compared with internet search is that you only get the one answer. You only get what ChatGPT—or its algorithm programmers—want you to know.

The same can certainly be said of Google and other search engines, except not quite. Google famously censors and restricts its search results, so that sites and creators that are known to engage in wrongthink are not recommended. Even so, alternative viewpoints often slip through. After all, not every approved creator or site is in total lockstep with the acceptable opinions on everything. And if you’re interested in learning about multiple viewpoints on any topic, you can find it on the Internet with a little extra effort, even if Google is no help. There are alternative search engines. There are YouTube and competitive, censorship-free video platforms. And how many of us have gone down a research rabbit hole triggered by one social media post that later got deleted? Where there’s a will, there’s a way. That will remain true for as long as the Internet allows people to set up their own websites and put what content they want onto them.

The bottom line here is that for any scenario in which you need to think things through and consider information from multiple sources before forming an opinion or making a decision, ChatGPT simply doesn’t meet the mark for information procurement. You can ask it for different perspectives, but it will always gate-keep which perspectives to offer, and the perspectives will always be filtered through that one source.

Plenty of people will be unquestioningly satisfied with that arrangement, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, there was a push to ban or suppress the old method of internet searching because it’s too dangerous for people to think for themselves. But I don’t think such an effort can succeed.

Real Demand, Artificial Supply

There are things people have always wanted and always will want that AI can't give them: connection, artistry, mastery of a skillset or field of knowledge, emotional fulfillment.

Basically, everything AI can do beyond mere curation is an illusion: it doesn't think, it only appears to think. Since it doesn’t think, it can’t meaningfully assess the quality of human thinking and creativity. This means that even as an editor of the written word, it lacks a critical asset that a good human editor has in abundance.

It curates, but doesn’t innovate. It can calculate, but it cannot relate. It informs, but doesn’t inspire.

It can't care about you (as in the case of an AI girlfriend); it only appears to do so. It can't cooperate with the user in a mutually fulfilling endeavor, because it is incapable of being fulfilled itself.

It doesn't create art, it only maintains the illusion of artistry. Because art isn’t just aesthetic. It’s feeling and experience and perspective. It’s human-ness, distilled into an aesthetic piece. The artist uses his skill to give us a window through which to see a piece of the world in a new way. Even if AI can impressively imitate real art, it will never replace real art. Because there will always be things humans can think of—ways of seeing reality—that AI doesn’t.

And that’s only talking about visual art. What about all other forms of artistic expression? I highly doubt AI will ever fully grok humor, for instance.

So no, as a writer and content creator, I’m not worried that AI is here to take my job. The reason people read my work is because it’s written by me. My perspective, my voice, the intellectual connections and emotional discoveries I’ve made through my own unique life experience. AI can’t compete with that.

If some content creators are fearful that AI will outcompete them, I suspect that what they are really afraid of, deep down, is their own inadequacy, their inability to distill their humanity into an expression meaningful enough that people will prefer it over digital imitations.

The Evolution

It seems to me that this wondrous technological development is nudging humanity toward some sort of evolution, unprecedented in our history. But not necessarily a scary, dehumanizing one.

The Powers That Shouldn’t Be are obsessed with the idea of hybridizing human and machine. This is…fascinating. And terrifying, when you consider that those same Powers envisions itself in absolute control of everyone’s pacemakers, insulin pumps, and brain interfaces.

To me, the scariest thing about AI is not that it could become equal to humans at creative pursuits—it can’t. The scariest thing is that it can surpass humans in soulless tasks like resource management, law enforcement, and bureaucracy. The thought of a world run entirely by automatons sends a shiver down my spine. But even that outcome isn’t a given.

Maybe the evolution we should anticipate is one in which we become more human, not less.

The very existence of AI invites us to explore and integrate our humanity in service of humanity. AI practically begs us to define ourselves. What is it that makes us human? What is it about us that is unique in all the world, that can’t be faithfully replicated? We are called upon, in the face of this world-changing technology, to be more genuine. More compassionate. More creative. More, and deeper, and realer, of all the things that AI can’t out-intelligence us in.

Perhaps this technology is an opportunity to change our human story. Maybe this is the point where humanity liberates itself from all forms of mechanical thinking, being, and doing. Maybe this is the part of the epic where we finally learn to distinguish between reality and illusion.

If so, I'm here for it.

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Oh, hey!

I’m holding an online workshop on April 2nd. It’s about how to develop inner freedom, no matter what the dystopia be doing. It all starts with a little anarcho-discipline.

All the details and registration are here.