I think folks have really lost the plot when it comes to AI.
Imo, the issue we are faced with is not how to prevent ai from being utilized or advancing, frankly I think that ball is already rolling. The issue also isn’t designating sacred work that can’t be touched by AI (I’m sorry to say, art is not inherently better than manual labor). The issue we are really faced with is now that we are embarking on a world wherein AI is rising and gaining genuine ability to match or exceed humans, how will we ensure we are taking care of our people?
A lot of folks seem to be really concerned with protecting the idea of intellectual property, but at the same time don’t we believe in an egalitarian sharing of knowledge? Should we really be prizing exclusivity of access to media or materials? I don’t really think so, but the challenge we face is how to ensure that a society that will increasingly have less and less need for human labor (particularly in data analysis or data entry jobs that AI tends to be the best in) will still see its citizens financially secure.
I have no problem with AI making art, regardless of whether I think that art is “good” or whether someone a machine makes can even be defined as “artistic” to begin with. Frankly, I don’t care. I do care that many artists will be out of a job and we don’t have a mechanism for ensuring they’re taken care of.
And that is where the discourse is so often falling short in my eyes. Many leftists who claim to want to leave the idea of personal ownership behind become the most forceful advocates for protecting intellectual property. A development that should be spurring on the greatest advance in humankind’s ability to universally take care of everyone is instead demonized on the left for somehow being theft and largely ignored on the right as a pipe dream.
AI is growing more powerful exponentially. Our lifetimes will see a shift on the level of the invention of electricity or the internet (if not much much greater) and we need to be prepared for that. The outcry cannot be “You used AI tools and therefore your work is invalid” but rather it must be “How are we restructuring ourselves to better absorb this new change?”
Universal basic income has to become a default. Removing healthcare from being tied to a job is a necessity. Eventually moving past currency might even be a possibility.
You can’t stop the world from turning, you can’t stop this progress from happening. But we still have time to focus our efforts on taking this change and handling it well. History will watch what we say, what we do, and how we addressed this.