AI is about to jack us up, Y’all. What do you think?

I heard about ChatGPT over a year ago. If you don’t know what that it is,  it’s a free open-source AI program that will pretty much give you back whatever you ask for.

Here’s an example…I asked ChatGPT for a list of ten popular children’s books…

Here’s another one…I asked ChatGPT to write the opening paragraph for an essay on healthy eating , introducing 4 points to be discussed in the essay.

Here’s one more…I asked a free AI image generator (deepai.org) for a picture of an angry brunette woman wearing sunglasses.

Do I have your attention? Amazing, right? Scary? Perhaps. Those are just two free, simplified AI tools online.

Don’t get me wrong…I love, love, love advancements in technology. I love gadgets and inventions. I love cures and solutions. I never want to seem like one of those old fogies who swears and be-damns that whatever new-fangled contraption the kids are playing with is going to be the death of us all. But, Y’all…AI is something else.

In a time of gross and shameless propaganda, in a time of filters and effects, in a time of visual, social influencing, yes… let’s please throw bot-powered tech into the mix that can create, well, anything. If what I used was free and simple, imagine what the fancy, expensive AI programs can do!

1) People are using AI to write. That’s disheartening for writers like me who want so badly to cling to the belief that writing is an art, from the heart, and smart. Forgive the Seuss vibe of that last line, but it makes my point. How will we know we can trust that what we read is truly Amanda’s nonsense or AI generated? How will we know that NYT best seller was written entirely by a prodigious author? We can’t.

2) People are using AI to create lifelike images. How will you really know you’re looking at a picture of Hunter Biden snorting coke or Donald Trump kissing a random blonde? Since we know both of these things to be historically accurate, why wouldn’t we believe a fresh, new AI-generated picture of it as if it had just happened? We would.

3) People are using AI to skew algorithms. By infusing AI images and talk into social media, people are led to believe anything. Many comments on Facebook and Instagram, and many reviews on shopping sites like Amazon, are AI-generated. You are being led astray often, if you believe everything you read. Won’t this hurt young people trying to gather info? Won’t this hurt old people who don’t know any better? Won’t this influence voters, make or break businesses, and overrate or underrate athletes and famous people? It will.

So what do we do?

I think we believe little or nothing of what we read or see on social media and even on the news. Maybe we even find one or two reputable sources for news and lay off social media a little.

I think we join in efforts to demand that “AI-Free” disclaimers be made mandatory on product ads, political ads, and news stories and images.

I think we ditch blogs, news sites, magazines, and more if we find out AI is used to create images or articles passed off as human-created.  We want to know we are seeing real pictures and reading the words of real people.

I think we teach our kids to question everything. They are the ones who will most likely be targeted and influenced with a constant barrage of AI-generated stuff.

Ask me in 6 months or 2 years or 5 years how I feel, and my answer might be different. I want to be open-minded and forward-thinking. But for now, I don’t want to get “took” by a bot.

Let me know your thoughts about AI, Sonny. Back in our day, we didn’t have such mess. The internet didn’t come around until I was about 18, and it went “ssskkrrrrrrrtttttt” when you connected via a land-based phone line. We ain’t ready for AI.

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