Should we be afraid of AI?

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that this website was started in part as a reaction.  I had been writing posts about pursuing a creative lifestyle and writing novels and making music and experimenting in a kind of post-work lather of human expression. I was writing for joy and expression, overtly and covertly. But then something shifted. My posts started to weaving unavoidably into talking a lot about AI and generative art and competing with algorithms. I may never have used those words precisely, but this was me: fear and loathing.

On the flip side, the general sentiment from the critical few standing up and warning us off this reaction is that all this fear-mongering is little more than a marketing strategy by the very companies trying to create an AI-lead future. Make it seem inevitable, like a dystopian storm looming on the horizon, unchangeable in the way of the weather and thus we all just hunker and brace for the impact rather than seeing what impact we can have.

I started this blog to think about that exact paradox. 

In other words, I get it: wrapping our heads around the palpable hate for systems that try to be human isn’t quite as obvious as it seems at first glance. Is it real anger we feel or is this frustration just another generated reality?

I’ve been slowly introducing my topics here each Monday in a topic I call “metabytes” and this penultimate “chapter” of my blog is not near the end of the list by accident. Like the stages of grief or loss or addiction, our reaction to AI will invariably include a stage of fear and anger, frustration and hopelessness. But I hope I can quell my own—and sate some of that from my readers—by looking at the AI bubble with a rational eye and a skeptical mind, and I’ll be digging into this under the topic Fear & Loathing as I continue writing on this blog. Stay tuned.