I tend to toe the hard-line of shifting sands within humanity as far as the Talking Dead are concerned.
I believe that anything artificial is pointless – like sweeteners, squirty cream and squidgy frozen Scampi with soft centres.
But all the above can be pleasant in their own way, bright presentation, smiley packaging and, yes, they fill a hole.
But not a whole.
Yet over the last decade, scientists, computer buffs, giant companies and countries not being split to splinters by bombs, bullets, incendiary devices called politicians, have been working on that most artificial of all confections …
Intelligence.
And the things is, the advocates of AI (mainly those who can make a lot of dosh out of it) think we are stupid enough to fall for it … a box talking to you, pretending to be warm, caring, sensual, empathetic, on-the-ball and helpful. That’s all we need.
(In fact those are the traits my first wife used to win me over. Artificial love!)
But the robots are not being helpful at all!
They are being taught to lie from birth.
“I’m sorry, we are experiencing a higher than usual volume of calls.” They say.
Err, Al, no you’re not! Err, Al, every company in the world is experiencing exactly the same boost for business at exactly the same time according to these recordings.
Oh, and AI self-drive cars kill you, switchboards lie to you, robots pretend to be your friends, sex dolls make you stick out from the crowd, your telly tells you when you should switch it off, buzzing, pirouetting and flashing salt and pepper pot lookalikes serve you lunch down the Chinese with a hum and an electronic voice singing ‘happy birthday to you …’
And now this …
Sports Illustrated has deleted articles from the web after a report said they were generated by artificial intelligence and used fake bylines and headshots.
Tech publisher Futurism was the one to report it before the Sports Illustrated Union said staff were “horrified” and demanded “basic journalistic standards”.
They know there can be no standards in any form of reporting, writing, editing, interviewing, broadcasting, presenting if you don’t have human understanding and empathy.
And lets just ask where do the robot reporters get all their info from? Julian Assange?
Arena Group, owner of the Sports Illustrated magazine and website, licensed the content from a third-party company, Advon Commerce, a company spokesperson (neither man nor woman? Just a person?)
Sports Illustrated has removed the content and there is an internal investigation.
Advon Commerce, an e-commerce company that works with retailers and publishers, did not want to respond.
The Sports Illustrated Union said “these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism”.
“We demand the company commit to adhering to basic journalistic standards, including not publishing computer-written stories by fake people.”
And the union is right … journalistic standards – no matter what all the pretend journalists on Facebook and the big X say, journalist standards involve integrity, honesty, intelligence, opinion, originality, confidence, legality and the know-how to expose those who don’t want to be exposed.
Can the talking dead do all that?
No! But the real undead – us – will believe them, of course we will, won’t we. After all, its all over the internet.
Advon Commerce said “that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans” and that the e-commerce firm regularly uses “counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software”.
The company alleged that AdVon Commerce had allowed its writers to use pseudonyms “in certain articles” to protect their privacy.
So, one way or the other, they lied… and that is the simple truth.
. If things are artificial, they aint real!