I know a poet who (years ago) created
a software program that could write poems.
As an experiment, he brought those poems
to a workshop and pretended they were his.
People were pissed at him. They invested
their time and their critical acumen to help
this writer with his poetry and they felt
hoodwinked and were not at all charitable
to this guy after the big reveal. For his part,
he just wanted to see if a software program
could write a good poem.
I know a musician who just this year
released an album of his songs generated
almost entirely by an artificial intelligence
engine called Suno. Against his own better
judgement, and against sage advice from folks
who knew better, he nevertheless tried to
promote this album. Some distribution services
refused to carry it and his release party was
canceled when the record store learned of the
music’s questionable origins.
I have received countless solicitations from
folks trying to sell me promotional services
for my novella, all of them using AI generated
text to describe to me the book I have written
so that it appears as though they’ve read it.
Once or twice I have engaged with these fools
and decided almost immediately that they
were frauds. It is easy now to detect AI generated
text by using AI detectors that are also AI.
I have received AI tech support to identify AI
visitors to this blog site, bots detecting bots.
It has become rather easy to detect fake
graphic art and video. It’s everywhere. Instead
of hiring an artist, or instead of making their own,
people use AI art to promote their
stuff, their business, their music, or simply
to entertain themselves and others. I know
I have been amused by it, laughed out loud
at the satirical ones, at the videos of dogs
doing a podcast, or Jesus swooping down
to toss Trump dressed as Jesus into Hell.
I have seen AI summaries and analyses of
my fiction, but I don’t think I have ever read
a poem or a story or a novel written by bots.
I wasn’t in that poet’s workshop and I have
not listened to that musician’s AI album.
Any music that I know was produced that way
I avoid altogether on principle. I’m against it.
I wonder if my ears or my reading brain could
discern the difference. Would I be able to tell,
blind, that I was listening to or reading fake art?
This, I think, is the scariest part, not that
somehow Artificial Intelligence takes over the
military and puts the human species out of
business, out of existence, but that it surrounds
us and we don’t recognize it. Especially in art,
in the activity that makes humans redeemable
and makes life somewhat worth living. Someday,
will we come to our senses and just unplug it?
It’s unsustainable, undoubtedly bad for our health.
Ultimately, I believe AI will eat itself.
michael jarmer 