Missed the motivator?
Recently, someone found a Mars Bar from the early 90s during a routine hoarding clear-out.
After years of complaining that our intergalactic snack had been exponentially reducing in size, had we really misremembered its hitherto gargantuan form? We had not.
It took three people to remove the item of historical confectionary from the scene.
Nowadays, the Mars Bar cannot be seen by the naked eye. Its PR team issued a possibly AI-generated statement about ‘customer demand’.
This is yet another episode in the long history of ‘human motivation’.
Indeed, after two years of dilly-dallying with AI we must hold the largest possible metaphorical magnifying glass up to what exactly is motivating it.
The other day I witnessed a chilling video. Not an AI video, but a video in which people who work in the AI ecosystem had attempted to train AI robot to ‘do the laundry’. The hopeless bot failed horribly, but the most disturbing aspect was the reaction of the human beings. They were laughing because their disasterous creation couldn’t even pick up a pair of pants.
Are AI people – in Silicon Valley or China or Milton Keynes or wherever – interested in eliminating the truly tedious things or is it easier to monetise our insatiable appetite for image manipulation, slop video production and really unhelpful customer service waffle?
We are told that AI can be used as a force for good or evil. It could be capable of destroying everything, even David Attenborough, or it could cure all known illnesses.
Either way, we must never trade our innate ability to challenge things, just because our new toy makes rubbish jumble sale posters.
Enjoy the mag,
John Pinching
editor
