AI and Chatbots: Better Someone To Hate Than A Machine

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

AI and Chatbots are in the news as people want to use them for everything – well at least until reality sets in.  Now I don’t oppose Chatbots/AI or automated help with a humanized interface.  I think there’s potential for it that will make our lives better.  They really are spicy autocomplete and there’s a role for that, even if we all remember how we hated Clippy.

The problem is that there’s too many cases people want to use so-called AI just replace humans.  I think it will go wrong in many ways because we want people to connect to, even if only to hate them.

If you’ve ever screamed “operator” into a phone after navigating some impossible number-punch menu you have a good idea of how Chatbots could be received.

When we need help or assistance, we want to talk to a person.  Maybe it’s for empathy.  Maybe it’s to have someone to scream at.  Either way we want a moral agent to talk to someone we know has an inner life, and principles, even if we disagree with them.

There’s something antisocial about chatbots just replacing humans.  It breaks society and it breaks our need for contact (or blame).

Have you ever observed some horrible computer or mechanical failure?  Have you imagined or participated in the lawsuits?  Imagine how that will go with Chatbots.

Technology gives us the ability to do things on a huge level – but also create horrible disasters.  Imagine what Chatbots can automate – financial aid, scientific research, emergency advice.  Now imagine that going wrong on a massive, tech-enabled scale.  Technology let us turn simple things into horrible crises.

If you have people along the way in the process?  They can provide checks.  They can make the ethical or practical call.  But when it’s all bots doing bot things with bots and talking to a person?  There’s that chance of ending up in the news for weeks, in government hearings for months, and lawsuits for years. 

(Hell, removing Chatbots removes some poor schmuck to take the blame, and a few people with more money and sense might find they really want that.)

Have you ever read a book or commissioned art and enjoyed working with the artist?  Chatbots and AI can make art without that connection.  Big deal.

Recently I read a person grouse about the cost of hiring an artist to do something – when they could just go to a program.  The thing is for many of us, an artistic connection over literature or art or whatever is also about connecting with a person.

When we know a person is behind something we know there’s something there.  We enjoy finding the meaning in the book, the little references, the empathic bond we form with them.  An artist listens to us, understands us, brings humanity to the work we request.  It makes things real.

I read a Terry Pratchett book because it’s Terry Pratchett.  I watch the Drawfee crew as it’s Jacob, Nathian, Julia, and Karina who I like.

Chatbot-generated content may be interesting or inspiring, but it’s just math that we drape our feelings around.  AI generated content is just a very effective Rorschach blot.  There’s no one to admire, learn from, or connect with behind it.

Humanity brings understanding, security, checks, and meaning.

So however the Chatbot/AI non-Revolution goes?  I think it will be both overdone and underwhelming.  It will include big lawsuits and sad headshakes.  But ultimately if there’s an attempt to Chatbot/AI everything, it’ll be boring and inhuman.

Well, boring and inhuman if we know there’s chatbots there.  It’s the hidden ones that worry me, but that’s for another post . . .

Steven Savage

A Quick Update From Steve!

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Let’s get a quick overview of where I am!

  • The Agile Writing book is being edited. It’s in the middle of draft three, but it’ll need a fourth probably before it goes to editing. I still hope to get it to them EOM.
  • I have one more worldbuilding book I want to do this year. I may do a poll!
  • Remember I’m taking a break to just mess around middle of the year, so things may slow down.

I’ve got two giveaways for you!

Steven Savage

In Praise of Rabbit Holes

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

How many times have you heard someone critique people for niche interests?  Politicians and pundits will mock college students for supposed useless degrees.  Obsessive fans are targets of twisted humor.  If you haven’t experienced this kind of insult, you’re either lucky or boring.

I would like to defend this “going down a rabbit hole” intellectually, academically, and personally.  Instead of some highbrow argument, let’s talk my latest musical interest, and how it expanded my mind and made me a better person.

What kind of music?  Well those who know me would assume it’s either electronica, experimental metal, or parody.  Nope, my latest musical obsession is what’s popularly called “exotica” or “space age pop.”  Yes, I got into the kind of music you associate with 50’s and 60’s cocktail lounges and kitschy bars.

This is going to be a ride.

I never thought about this style of music until I heard of a show called The Retro Cocktail Hour at http://www.retrococktail.org/.  As I’m fascinated by musical oddness, I gave this show a listen and realized I liked this style.  It had a relaxing, moody quality that reminded me of another favorite – lo-fi Jazz.  Since I’ve been trying to broaden my musical horizons by trying new things regularly, I decided to dive into exotica – and got surprised.

Exotica is alive and well these days.  There are bands of older folks who’ve done it for ages, and young bands that have taken to the style.  These performers are all over the globe – the younger performers I found were in Europe.  Exotica, which I’d associate purely with America, was global – and sometimes being made by people who could be my kids.

Exotica also wasn’t just jazz infused with a serial-numbers-removed sound-fantasy of Oceana that I thought it was.  There was South American influence.  There was some African influences.  There were also attempts to add even more sounds from all over the globe.  Over the decades exotica was more of an attempt to integrate many influences – albeit one that could be ham-handed and appropriative (more on that later).

As I learned more about the global reach of this style, I found that exotica inspired or blended into other forms of music.  I discovered “space disco” or “cosmic disco” with it’s powerful, far-out sound.  “Acid Funk” and it’s trippy beats came to my attention.  Thanks to a friend, I found exotica intersects with the music from the Tropicália art movement – an influential and at-times attacked movement I’d never heard of and clearly need to learn more about.

Musical styles weren’t the only thing that exposed me to politics and sensitive issues.  Exotica is inevitably associated with Tiki bars and the cultural appropriation they embody.  As Tiki bars have gotten a revival, there are documentaries and articles noting how these bars, and some of the music, doesn’t acknowledge its use/misuse of Polynesian/Hawaiian/Oceanic culture.  Suddenly my newfound musical interest seemed less innocent.

(And I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier.  This musical rabbit hole required me to confront the insensitivity of me and people I know.)

Now I was listening to these documentaries and reading articles on Tiki bars and their history.  First, I learned about the influences and cultural appropriation, its own rabbit hole of wartime experiences, sexual repression, wild cocktails, and repurposed Asian food.  Then I learned about the revival of the culture in America (and apparently around the world).  These cheesy bars and the culture associated with them has a long and continuing history I’d never seen before.

These issues also included serious questions of cultural appropriation, insensitivity, and acknowledgement of history.

At this point, I began noticing how some exotica bands seemed to deal with these issues.  I noticed some removed “Tiki” influence from their later albums.  Others embraced the kitsch in the first place and probably didn’t care.  Some bands seemed to treat it as an aesthetic, a fantasy world like Middle-Earth, and didn’t worry either.  Finally, some used the midcentury modern art style on their album covers, and avoided (most) inappropriate imagery.

Now our story comes to a close with me listening to a style of music that led me to ask hard questions about history, culture, appropriation, and style integration.  I put more effort into evaluating the morals of my musical purchases and stylistic choices.  A single online recording of a radio show sent me down a rabbit hole that wasn’t just fun, wasn’t just history, but required me to think about ethics.

So that’s my story.  I discovered a musical style I’d rarely thought of, found out more about it, learned about new styles, and ended up facing painful issues of cultural appropriation.   I’m still in this rabbit hole, learning about history, food, style, and historical cycles.

All because I decided to go get obsessed for awhile.

Go embrace your rabbit hole.  You don’t know where it’s going to go, but that’s the point.  Take the journey, and if you keep on it, you’ll grow as a person.

Steven Savage