AI and Chatbots: Better Someone To Hate Than A Machine

(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

The Love Of The Game Doesn’t Always End Well

(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)

Doing your best can be the worst thing you can do for the world.

I was pondering how I market my books – and I have a hatred of marketing.  The soulless statistics, the cold calculations, the degradation of inspired writing into pandering prose.  There’s something about marketing that is meaningless, just moving units to consumers without any purpose but money.

I also love marketing.  The thrill of working the calculations out!  The joy of optimizing to get it just right!  Picking the perfect keywords!  There’s a thrill of the game to get it right – not even to win but to do it the best you can!

That experience jarred loose some other theories, and I want to discuss the fact that a lot of evil in the world can come from people who just enjoy playing the game.  Oh they may do evil as well, they should be aware of the repercussions of what they do, but sometimes they’re just playing their game because its fun.

Think of all the people optimizing social media for hits and engagement and creating chaos.  Yes there are people seeking profits and covering their backsides, but I’m sure many a person is just enjoying optimizing.  The thrill of doing something right can miss that it’s also very wrong.

My fellow writers and I often complain about pandering authors, but aren’t some formulaic authors just into getting the formula right?  Pandering and making money is a challenge, a challenge that must appeal to many.  So sure, they may churn out books many would decry, but how many are also just enjoy working out the best way to pander?

As this thought ping-ponged around my head before it emerged in this post, I realized how much of my behavior is the joy of getting it right.  My job is Project and Program Management and Process Improvement, and it’s just goddamn fun to figure how to make stuff work.  Recoding Seventh Sanctum, frustrating (and oft interrupted the last year) was still amazing to figure how to get it all right.  My Way With Worlds series has a formula to it that I had fun figuring out so I can deliver what my audience wants.

I’m a person who enjoys the game, but I’m just less evil and more inclined to moral insight than some people (thanks to a long interest in theology and psychology).

So I’m not up for saying people who “play their game” have to be forgiven for the wrongs they do.  There are many dangerous things in this world we need to stop or regulate for our survival, and motivations don’t change that.  But it may help us prevent evil by understanding how innocent drives can lead to great dangers.

It may also let us notice before we do something wrong.  Because I’m sure there’s a game we all love playing, and that love might keep us from noticing the repercussions of our choices . . .

Doing things right can go very wrong.

Steven Savage

Way With Worlds: Ethics

Bible Book Church

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

I love worldbuilding.  You can kind of tell by how I wrote and now rewrite a huge series of columns on the subject.  A lot of this is how-to, or advice, or exploration, but I’d like to talk ethics.

Not making ethics in your world.  The ethics of good worldbuilding and what you should do as a world builder and author/creator.

This may sound a bit corny.  There’s ethical issues to doing good worldbuilding?  However, stick with me – there’s a reason.  Let’s talk commitment and promises.

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