Sandy Supposes....

AI, Where's the E,O,U?

September 3rd, 2023 Blog Week Birthday Bastion Prompt: Is Artificial Intelligence a burden for writers? What are your thoughts on AI in general?

         At a first quick glance I read 'A1' and thought to myself isn't that a steak sauce? Then I tried again and read 'Al'. This could be a reasonable, plausible blog prompt after all the internet provider modem I adopted urged me to address him as Steve. Maybe I could write about Al and how he's a burden to writers. Perhaps Steve and Al have a relationship, I dunno.

         Don't worry I got a grip and finally understood the assignment. I consulted good ol' Google's infinite wisdom re AI. The following quotes caught my eye.

         "ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model developed by open AI capable of generating human-like text based on context and past conversations."

         "ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that uses natural language processing to create humanlike conversational dialogue. The language model can respond to questions and compose various written content including articles, social media posts, essays, code and emails."

         Phew! Those are bold claims.

         Do I wish to communicate with a bot? No. Something that exists in the realm of virtual reality doesn't strike me as interesting. What experiences, successes, failures, judgements has a bot endured? Humanlike is no substitute for a genuine, flawed human.

         As is anything manmade AI has some serious limitations. Incorrect and biased answers abound. If one is seeking an authoritative source of information one may be disappointed. It lacks common sense and access to the internet. Translations could be inaccurate. Not the stuff expected of a reliable learning tool. Like the developers that created it AI is only as good as its coding. A lack of human insight exists. Data breaches are possible. Conversations with AI are not confidential and most likely are used for training purposes. In other words it's a new technology yet to stand the test of time.

         At the moment and for the forseeable future I will not entertain the use of AI. I disabled autocorrect and spellchecker from my devices. I do not need a program second-guessing my word choices, or arbitrarily substituting random words that make no sense. Predictive text, bah! Granted the second-string words are often hilarious and ridiculous. It was annoying to type two or three letters before autocorrect presumed to know better. As for correcting my spelling, thanks but no thanks. I am a proud Canadian and spellcheck enforces American spelling. If I doubt my abilities I can and will consult a dictionary. If spelling faux pas exist in this blog they do so because my fingers erred typing.I also insist upon proof-reading what I write.

         I don't believe I need to apologize to AI, but as I mentioned I am Canadian. It's in my blood and in my social conditioning. We tend to apologize, so, sorry, AI. I will not be conversing with you. It's not you, it's me. If a warm- blooded, breathing person is not nearby to speak with, I often blurt and burble to myself. Me, myself and I can verify our information sources and we will not blab or share confidences.