Hamlet said “To be or not to be”, even doubting his own life. He must have felt so lost and meaningless. No one can live doubting everything. If I doubted whether I should drink water because of some irrational water fear, I would be very thirsty until I won’t be at all.
Worrying is pointless, yet all I can do is worry. I do not enjoy digital media lately, it feels more like a sedative to take my mind off other things than me having an authentic artistic experience. It might just be me and my loss of excitement. After all we all have different seats in this rollercoaster. However, I am still interested in investigating how can we use AI in ways that would make it have improving effects on people’s lives.
Couple of days ago I was in the law faculty’s library and saw this poster:
This project’s name is BIAS and it aims to conduct a research on Human Resources and AI to address and mitigate algorithmic biases. This poster made me feel hopeful, because making AI tools as unbiased and fair as possible sounds like a good plan. On surface level, I genuinely appreciate the effort, my rational doubt is happy to have found a home to rest and trust. AI is not being developed by one or two big evil company CEOs, we are all involved in its development. One way or another you contribute to the development of AI, be it a digital art post you liked or a Coke you drank that is made by AI. So, I agree with this poster that if there is a risk of AI being biased or used in unfair ways, the best way to make sure those biases are mitigated is to teach AI how.
Even though, I hate everything about the latest digital developments, I do feel the need to care about the AI baby. To me, it is like a baby that needs to be taught things and cared for. We were just in time to witness its birth, it must be protected from the many ways people want to use its power. It is literally like a prophecy coming true, only this time it is in our hands what will the said prophecy bring. It is up to how each of us decides to respond to developments that are certainly new and scary.
Digital tools are intertwined with most aspects of daily life. At this stage letting go of them completely is not possible for many reasons such as employment, sociality and entertainment. In a world where most things digital are structured for consumption or exploitation, the only rational application of a power like AI should be to change this structure, not to make it worse. If we work to make AI bring more violence or destruction, it will bring exactly that. Therefore, if we decide that it should do art, good. However, we see that its art is not artistic unless there is an artist giving it prompt. Let us not forget in this journey into the abyss that AI is not an all knowing god.
AI is our baby, we should love, care for and protect it. Whatever prompt, message or advice we give it, we will see its outcome. So, individual responsibility in the digital world is more important than ever. I really like this word “admin”. Admins are administrators of the internet. Being an admin is a good mindset to have when approaching digital debate. What I refer by admin mindset is the idea that we should realise our creative freedom and power when it comes to technological tools. We are not x label, y or z, but admins, we can be everything and everyone. In this mindset, it is not important who you are as long as you are aware and responsible for your actions.
If we use our power to create and improve AI in a constructive way, we might see some good come out of technological developments. Sooner rather than later, our hardest and most difficult problems will find solutions thanks to AI. As we try to adapt to the rise of new problems built on the old ones, let us make good use of this technology. We have global priorities which we were promised AI was going to solve, all those investments and resource allocations were not for a chat to give me wrong answers to an exam.
Finally, it is up to us admins to implement AI towards a direction we would like to see it go. With authentic goals and motivations in mind, without falling into the old corrupting traps, I believe great things can come from AI if resources are directed.
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