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dreamer_easyThere are two basic attitudes one can take to generative AI (ChatGPT and all the rest), which are summed up by the last lines of two stories I read as a kid: "The Macauley Circuit" by Robert Silverberg (1956), and "Skirmish" by Clifford D. Simak (1950). In fact I've been quoting these last lines from time to time for decades; they form a perfect pair. SPOILERS ahead.
In "The Macauley Circuit", a machine is invented that's capable of genuine originality and creativity. The final line, from a despairing programmer-musician: "Gentlemen, we are all obsolete."
By contrast, in "Skirmish", all the machines on Earth come to life and start interfering with their users. Our hero realises that unless he puts up a possibly doomed resistance, the machines will have the confidence to destroy the human race. He hefts a weapon, faces the machine crowd, and says: "Well, gentlemen?"
In each story, the machines are genuinely intelligent, unlike genAI, which is just a statistical model, prone to wild errors. So the analogy with our current situation isn't perfect. In both stories, the protagonists struggle against the machines -- it's even implied that the hero of "Macauley Circuit" has killed someone to prevent such a circuit being invented -- but I prefer the conclusion of "Skirmish" (which, wonderfully, was originally called "Bathe Your Bearings In Blood") -- no, at any cost, no.
I probably don't need to wait more than a year or two to see the end of genAI. How much damage will it have caused -- to the environment, to the arts, to the job market -- by then?
In "The Macauley Circuit", a machine is invented that's capable of genuine originality and creativity. The final line, from a despairing programmer-musician: "Gentlemen, we are all obsolete."
By contrast, in "Skirmish", all the machines on Earth come to life and start interfering with their users. Our hero realises that unless he puts up a possibly doomed resistance, the machines will have the confidence to destroy the human race. He hefts a weapon, faces the machine crowd, and says: "Well, gentlemen?"
In each story, the machines are genuinely intelligent, unlike genAI, which is just a statistical model, prone to wild errors. So the analogy with our current situation isn't perfect. In both stories, the protagonists struggle against the machines -- it's even implied that the hero of "Macauley Circuit" has killed someone to prevent such a circuit being invented -- but I prefer the conclusion of "Skirmish" (which, wonderfully, was originally called "Bathe Your Bearings In Blood") -- no, at any cost, no.
I probably don't need to wait more than a year or two to see the end of genAI. How much damage will it have caused -- to the environment, to the arts, to the job market -- by then?
