I know little about AI, compared with the average person these days.  (And I suppose that’s strange; I’ve been a serious fan of science fiction since age 19 or so.  I still remember devouring books by Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card and Harry Harrison on summer vacations.)

I do know that AI suddenly seems everywhere — on Grammarly, on Google, on my phone … and it’s the subject of too many damn YouTube advertisements.  (AI’ve had enough.)

The little with which I’m acquainted leaves me unimpressed.  Google’s AI results (which it supplies to me unprompted) are too vague and sometimes misleading.

The novelty of Amazon’s “Echo” and my phone’s virtual assistant likewise faded for me quickly.  I like to read and absorb information; I retain far less when I hear it.  And these, too, are still clumsy technologies.  (I consulted my phone a moment ago about shoegaze bands, only to have it respond with information about “suitcase bands” and a series of luggage advertisements.)

There is another reason, however, that I remain late to AI party, and it is as subtle and as troubling as it is predictable — I believe that I am subconsciously avoiding AI because of my apprehensions.

I’ve heard the same admonitions that we all have about how AI cannibalizes the existing work of artists and writers to only ostensibly “create” something new.  Those warnings have left me with a gnawing existential dread.

The news and my social media have had a lot to say about exploitative AI “art.”  The things I’ve read about “book-writing bots” and AI-generated poetry are equally daunting.  I’ve perused a couple of AI poems and, while they’re rudimentary, I honestly think I would mistake them for being authentic if they were submitted to me as an editor.

At first, none of the issues connected with AI affected me directly.  The first problem I’d heard about was students using AI to generate essays and papers.  Then came the “image generators” that look like so much fun, and their “creations” popping up on Facebook.  The latest controversy I learned about was brought to my attention today — leading comic book artists being accused by fans of “soulless plagiarism” for using AI in their illustrations.

Because I am human and therefore prone to emotional biases, I am always the most concerned when the creative people I trust sound genuinely alarmed.  Their worries primarily stem from the idea that anyone’s writing and artwork are now vulnerable to a kind of computerized theft.

What’s far more harrowing for me is the specter of obsolescence.  As a poet or storyteller, am I easily replaceable by a computer program?  If I am not presently so, will tomorrow’s astonishing advancements change that?

Am I feeling the same anxiety as people in my parents’ generation, when robots first arrived in factories during the prior century?  Creative people are not magical beings.  Why should we think of ourselves that way?  We’ve simply sought to develop certain skill sets — why should our niche be unique among human endeavors?

Or is the overall situation even worse for all of us — does even the notion of “creative” machines ultimately steal something from our shared definition of being human?

Hey … I’ll reiterate my opening statement here — I know little about AI, compared with others in my peer group.  My apprehension should not be mistaken for an informed position.

But … yikes.  What a discomfiting topic to ponder.

Image credit: Copyrighted by Loew’s International. Artists(s) not known., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons