Whether it’s humans, or AI (artificial intelligence) going about it, communication boils down to stringing words together.
I’ve been doing some research, online. Yes… you heard that right! I’m using online search technology to research this increasingly concerning, rapidly emerging AI technology.
Will AI ultimately be doing what I’m doing, right now… stringing words together, exactly like I’m stringing them together?
Writing and thinking essentially are the same, my initial research is suggesting to me.
Now, this is going to seem strange, likening AI to an old screen door at our house.
It’s a reliable old door, and it has lots of character. It’s the familiar, pleasing way it creaks and squeaks each time you throw it open, or slam it shut. If I were to lubricate the old, cranky-sounding thing, it just wouldn’t be the same.
Would some AI gizmo’s words be as relaxed and evocative as my words, describing our screen door? Or would they be rather stiff and mechanical, by comparison?
I’ll tell you, the words I strung together, during my corporate communication career, were — for the most part — way different from words I’ve been stringing together in my Daily Post articles. My business words, chiefly, were what one might expect them to be… all business, and pretty formal.
It’s taken years for my writing to evolve. That’s not to say some AI gizmo’s writing style couldn’t evolve. You can bet those tech folks, working on AI, are pretty sharp. But can AI ever really be like an engaging, old screen door, with pleasing, old character?
The Hollywood writers are on strike, there’s lots of news about that. A lot of shows are going to be reruns of old shows, over coming days, and if the strike can’t be quickly settled, perhaps, for much longer than that.
Maybe in the back of their mind, striking writers are worrying about AI?
Me? I’m not worrying so much. Of course, I’m not writing for late-night TV show hosts, but I am writing about crazy current events. And knowing myself, as I’ve been evolving, I’ll probably be stringing words together, ‘going forward,’ in my evolving, more relaxed manner.
So, if you’re listening, AI… You can stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
And hey, by the way! In a Fortune magazine article I just ran across, I read about the “Godfather” of artificial intelligence quitting Google and saying “he regrets his life’s work because it can be hard to stop ‘bad actors from using it for bad things.’”
So, there you have it.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.