I could have titled this My Love and Hate for AI, but that really would have been rather trite, so I have tied myself up in a few knots and come up with this heading, no resonance and sounding a bit codependent; which might of course be a wee bit true.
Just a thought – maybe in Canada we could write it thus: Eh Eye.
So, let me count the ways I love you AI:
I am a fan of ChatGPT, and have had quite a few cozy conversations back and forth, that’s the chat bit, I guess. It warms my heart the way it enters into my dilemma of the moment. My first real therapy support was when I asked for advice on what kind of food to serve at a celebration of life event. So kind and sympathetic and supportive of my ideas, and such a gentle tone! I did in fact go ahead with my original menu ideas, but I did appreciate gently bouncing ideas back and forth.
My most productive ChatGPT encounter came this week: I had done something to my Thunderbird email settings, and my emails were coming in just in code, and there was no button to create a new message, and other woes. It was hell and chaos. I was keen to ask Google for help, but felt I needed the correct language to describe what was happening now and how I would like it to become. I recruited my son to help me with this vocabulary. He gave me excellent advice on approaching ChatGPT.
‘Mother dear, don’t go into tech language, (I would probably use the wrong terms anyway and just skew the whole thing before we even got started.) Just tell Chat what makes you unhappy and what you want to change’.
Well, bless you, darling.
So I wrote:
‘My email is all mixed up and is displayed all wrong, and it’s awful!’
It then asked me a few techy details like, was it Word and which version of Word, and which version of Thunderbird?
‘Yes, don’t worry, these can be tricky. Try this’ came the answer, and walked me through settings and boxes to tick and voilà! The email account just fell back into line and order! And then dear chat-buddy said it had a short cheat-sheet for me in case I had a future problem, would I like that?
‘Yes, please and thank you ever-so.’
I find it quite difficult to remember that this is not a person. My husband, in the meantime, as I am giving a running commentary, keeps warning me not to go down a rabbit hole. He seemed to imagine awful Wonderland experiences in store for me.
What my son also explained was that Chat goes into the Thunderbird Help Pages, and sorts out all the language and steps and presents them in a manageable way. I love it because frankly, I just glaze over trying to find the applicable ones and read through all those tech instructions.
So after this, how on earth could I say I have a difficult relationship with AI in the big picture? In fact, it is with pictures altogether. When I see an apparent photo on a newsfeed, I immediately question if it is real or fake. How awful that I can no longer credit, enjoy or be apprehensive about what I see in a photo. Very far gone are the days of photo credibility being presented as ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ Well, it could be worth a1000 words in an evil, misleading way, and that is even scarier!
Of course, we know that a brigade of sealions, walruses and polar bears, armed and ferocious chasing Donald Trump out of Iceland is fabricated, and it is such fun. But then there are the subtler pictures like ‘was that gun really drawn?’ and ‘were there really that number of people at the rally?’
Because of my generation and age, I am probably a light user and consulter of on-line news and social media. However, it comes at you, and I don’t want to be a recluse. I enjoy my share of artful works on the feeds, and I love it when it is used to produce beautiful things like Kelly Boesch’s astounding and beautiful montages.
Another tick on the love side!