Are humans becoming obsolete?

AI concerns

I am very sorry that posting here is inconsistent, but the truth is I am in a very busy season and this is the one thing that has been pushed to the back burner. I am grateful to all my subscribers and I am working on a schedule that will increase productivity.

Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on Unsplash

As a believer in God I am convinced that human creativity is the spark of the divine in all of us. One may not have great musical or artistic talent but we are created beings and as such we are creative. Your creativity will express itself differently than mine but we are no less creative. I honestly believe it is a necessity for human development, to be creative. I like fiddling with my little, imperfectively executed hoops of embroidery and there is this writing thing I do. I also love to create beauty in my home as best I can on a tight budget surrounded by large teenage boys and a dog who, at 120 pounds and a big dope, is a daily cause of catastrophe.

Creativity pushes us to be a little better than we are, to work a little harder at something, and to exercise our minds while engaging our heart and soul in something. It’s the closest we get to God, when we toil at something beautiful or new.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to change that, to weaken our minds and will to create and I really fear that it will only take a generation, perhaps less, before society becomes nearly brainless in its dependency on AI to solve problems, create, and to do our work for us.

How will an artist who has toiled for years at their craft of painting or drawing make a living if all publishers us AI generated art in their publications. I was really disappointed to see a major Catholic publication put, what is a clearly AI generated picture of Our Lord on their cover this month. How long before they are reducing their writing and production staff because ChatGPT and DALL-E are cheaper and more efficient? Humans are becoming less engaged in the full creative process and I think that could have serious repercussions for humanity. And yes, I know someone has to tell the AI what to generate and to tweak that painting or story until it is just write but telling a computer what to draw or write is not nearly the same as staring at a blank page while your brain coupled with that spark of the Divine creates something unique and totally yours.

There will be a lot of brains turning to mush judging by the panic in academic circles about the prevalence of cheating and the possible obsolescence of teachers. Why pay a union teacher when you can park a kid in front of screen and have him ask the screen all the questions? No fan of teachers unions am I but still less am I a fan of a “bot” teaching children. I am certain that no generated content can express the complex beauty of the work of John Donne or Emily Dickinson. How about Shakespeare? Sure I can generate the answers to questions about the work. I can ask ChatGPT to compare the progression of Ophelia’s madness to that of Lady MacBeth and I will probably get a pretty decent answer but will it thoroughly express the turmoil felt by each character as they descend into their own brand of madness? Can it adequately bring to life the words.

"O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
A courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mold of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh." (Act III, scene I)

I think not.

Ophelia - Sir John Everett Millais 1851

Proponents of AI’s use will tell you that it will provide lots of jobs and opportunities for those willing to adapt. I don’t doubt it will. All technology does, television provided many jobs to many creative people, but my point is that the people were doing the creating.

There are already AI tools out there that are grading papers, diagnosing disease, driving cars, picking stocks, doing quality control on assembly lines and the list goes on. It’s a little scary. Exciting to be on the brink of new technology, certainly, but every bit of creativity that we give over to a machine, we lose something. Something important and irreplaceable.

It’s a complex topic. I’d love to hear your thoughts.