I wanted to find a better place to post this, but after much consideration I guess into the Civics Dumpster Fire it goes...
So, Artificial Intelligence has been making the waves lately in a lot of circles. Artists, Writers, Gamers, Voice Actors, Translators, and Tech Fanatics have all been talking about it. There's a lot of heated discussion surrounding it, but love it or hate it AI is here to stay.
And that concerns me.
To start, there's the, "DEY TERK ARE JERBS," aspect... which is a mixed bag. Sure, a lot of people are going to be out of a job and it's going to be harder to get into the Creatives as a profession, but even Creatives themselves admit that their line of work has been a haven for unemployable hacks for quite some time. I also don't know why some people are shocked that their line of work isn't immune to the Technological Innovation happening all around us.
There's also the degradation of quality and aesthetics portion of the problem. Sure, the AI stuff seems cool, but I've noticed that folks with a sense of aesthetics can tell something is, 'off' about it, whereas people with experience in the relevant field can immediately pick apart every technical flaw. As one blog post I read a while back said, "The fact that an AI Picture could win an art contest says more about the decline in the quality of artists than it does the AI Art itself."
Then there's my biggest beef with it: It's a dystopian Nightmare just waiting to happen. Especially the voice aspect.
Here in Canada, since Bill C-11 was passed, Net Neutrality has been basically dead and they've been passing even more laws to desecrate it's corpse. The most recent Bill they're trying to pass is the Online Harms Act, which is your standard political Motte and Bailey... They address a lot of stuff that should have been addressed years ago, but they also lump in a bunch of stuff that's a bit more ambiguous or otherwise harmless. The long and short of it is that you can basically get Soap on a Rope for up to five years for posting hate speech and other shady things online (and I imagine being put on a Sex Offender Registry if your crimes were of that nature).
That alone is scary enough, especially because they're going to be applying it to stuff that happened prior to whenever the Bill passes and Hate Speech is one of those things that's poorly defined and enforced. However, when you factor in that Voice Cloning AI is a thing, your voice constantly gets recorded (Customer Service Calls), and Databases gets compromised all the time, it's a recipe for disaster. All some vengeful jackass has to do is get enough samples of your voice and they can just upload it online pretending to be you, and then go to the cops with evidence that you're spewing stuff online that's normally reserved for Call of Duty Voice Chat. Granted, this could backfire hilariously if it's discovered that the person reporting it was the one who made the hateful comment, but I'd sooner trust a punch bowl in Jonestown than rely on modern law enforcement to do it's job properly.
I don't think this is some sort of grand conspiracy, but it is a problem that needs to be addressed before it spirals out of control.
So, Artificial Intelligence has been making the waves lately in a lot of circles. Artists, Writers, Gamers, Voice Actors, Translators, and Tech Fanatics have all been talking about it. There's a lot of heated discussion surrounding it, but love it or hate it AI is here to stay.
And that concerns me.
To start, there's the, "DEY TERK ARE JERBS," aspect... which is a mixed bag. Sure, a lot of people are going to be out of a job and it's going to be harder to get into the Creatives as a profession, but even Creatives themselves admit that their line of work has been a haven for unemployable hacks for quite some time. I also don't know why some people are shocked that their line of work isn't immune to the Technological Innovation happening all around us.
There's also the degradation of quality and aesthetics portion of the problem. Sure, the AI stuff seems cool, but I've noticed that folks with a sense of aesthetics can tell something is, 'off' about it, whereas people with experience in the relevant field can immediately pick apart every technical flaw. As one blog post I read a while back said, "The fact that an AI Picture could win an art contest says more about the decline in the quality of artists than it does the AI Art itself."
Then there's my biggest beef with it: It's a dystopian Nightmare just waiting to happen. Especially the voice aspect.
Here in Canada, since Bill C-11 was passed, Net Neutrality has been basically dead and they've been passing even more laws to desecrate it's corpse. The most recent Bill they're trying to pass is the Online Harms Act, which is your standard political Motte and Bailey... They address a lot of stuff that should have been addressed years ago, but they also lump in a bunch of stuff that's a bit more ambiguous or otherwise harmless. The long and short of it is that you can basically get Soap on a Rope for up to five years for posting hate speech and other shady things online (and I imagine being put on a Sex Offender Registry if your crimes were of that nature).
That alone is scary enough, especially because they're going to be applying it to stuff that happened prior to whenever the Bill passes and Hate Speech is one of those things that's poorly defined and enforced. However, when you factor in that Voice Cloning AI is a thing, your voice constantly gets recorded (Customer Service Calls), and Databases gets compromised all the time, it's a recipe for disaster. All some vengeful jackass has to do is get enough samples of your voice and they can just upload it online pretending to be you, and then go to the cops with evidence that you're spewing stuff online that's normally reserved for Call of Duty Voice Chat. Granted, this could backfire hilariously if it's discovered that the person reporting it was the one who made the hateful comment, but I'd sooner trust a punch bowl in Jonestown than rely on modern law enforcement to do it's job properly.
I don't think this is some sort of grand conspiracy, but it is a problem that needs to be addressed before it spirals out of control.
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