So, inconstancy, fallibility, forgetfulness, suffering, failure — these, apparently, are the unautomatable gifts of our species. Well, sure. To err is human. But does the AI skeptic have nothing else to fall back on than an enumeration of mankind’s shortcomings? Are our worst qualities the best we can do? It’s hard not to read the emphasis on failure as an ambivalent invitation for the machines to succeed.
The way out of AI hell is not to regroup around our treasured flaws and beautiful frailties, but to launch a frontal assault. AI, not the human mind, is the weak, narrow, crude machine.
For publishers, editors, critics, professors, teachers, anyone with any say over what people read, the first step will be to develop an ear.
Whatever nuance is needed for its interception, resisting AI’s further creep into intellectual labor will also require blunt-force militancy. The steps are simple. Don’t publish AI bullshit. Don’t even publish mealymouthed essays about the temptation to produce AI bullshit.