Journalists tend to get obsessed with ‘freedom of speech’, which is related — in a circuitous and mischievous way — to ‘freedom of the press’. Even when there’s no actual “press” involved.
Back in about 1440, a clever German named Johannes Gutenberg converted a second-hand olive press he’d picked up at the local thrift store, and started using it to print books. The first few editions were stained with olive oil, but things improved as the process was refined.
The “printing press” concept quickly spread to other European cities that had thrift stores, and by 1500, European printing presses had already produced more than twenty million volumes, which seems like a lot considering almost no one knew how to read.
Then, the people who weren’t clever enough to write an entire book started up businesses called “newspapers”. Much to the dismay of the kings and queens and dukes, as they helplessly watched their subjects get misinformed.
Eventually, the operation of a ‘press’ became so synonymous with printing, that when the U.S. Constitution was written, the authors referred to the entire printing industry as “the press”. They could possibly have called it, “the rags”, because paper, in those days, was made mostly from cotton rags. In which case, the First Amendment would have stated:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the rags…
That would have made the word “rag” either more respectable, or less respectable.
As I mentioned, we are now getting our news and entertainment without any “presses” or “rags”. Like, for example, in this “online community magazine” called the Pagosa Daily Post. The Constitution protects the “freedom of the press” but in the case of the Daily Post, there’s no ‘press’. (Unless we took into account the need to ‘press’ the keys on the keyboard. Ha ha ha.)
Why the government allows the Daily Post to operate, when it has no press, I can’t say. Or, for that matter, why it allows the rest of the electronic news media to operate. Hardly anyone is still using an actual ‘press’, except to make olive oil.
Instead of print, we now have ‘content’. We probably need to amend the Constitution to allow for “freedom of content”.
From what I’ve heard, much of the ‘content’ now appearing on the internet is being generated by machines running specialized computer programs generously referred to as “AI”. Artificial Intelligence. I’m not sure how much actual ‘intelligence’ is involved, but it brings up an interesting ‘freedom of speech’ question.
Daily Post editor Bill Hudson told me he doesn’t allow articles written by AI-driven machines. I’ve been wondering if that’s a fair policy. Does his policy, prohibiting AI-generated articles, align with the whole “freedom of speech” idea contained in the First Amendment? Shouldn’t AI machines have the same rights to free speech, as people?
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same free speech rights as human beings, in particular, during an election… but of course, an AI-driven machine is not a corporation. (Although it might be running a corporation.)
A machine is not a human being, either… even if it might be capable of writing a more entertaining humor column than a human being. Which I don’t believe is even a possibility, but I’ve been wrong before. The worrisome thing, for me, isn’t so much the competition for my Daily Post column, however. It’s the slippery slope of granting a machine — any machine — freedom of speech.
Sure, an AI-driven machine might appear to be smarter than your average politician. But once we give ‘freedom of speech’ to one machine, they’re all going to start demanding it.
Our phones will want freedom of speech. Our cars. Our refrigerators. Our washing machines.
Like, you’re putting in a load of laundry, and your washing machine starts lecturing you about gun control.
Is that the world we want to live in?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.