Category: AI

Artificial Friends (AFs) and Simulacra

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Science fiction stories often predict or mirror life but sometimes in unique ways that differ from reality. In an age of XR, where simulacra becomes almost bigger than life, multiple realities make the physical world only one part of reality. AFs (artificial friends), like Klara in Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, are already here and his book speaks to us through the voice of an AI chatbot. Those of us who have spent a good deal of time in the metaverse have a glimpse into the future that AI is impacting through experiencing simulacra in real virtual environments. Many remain hopeful that we will make clear distinctions between AI agents, (AFs or chatbots) and human beings.

Stefan Beck, in his Klara and the Sun book review, stated, “AI categorically cannot become self-aware, though it may achieve a simulation of self-awareness sufficient to dupe a human.” Personally, I agree with his statement because AI is simply a house of content built by human language and can never have what we humans call a “soul”. Much argument about the capabilities of AI and the potential for becoming sentient is currently undergoing philosophical debate. (Note to self: AI is prompting me to help write this blog post and I am saying NO to that!)

Ishiguro gives Klara, as an artificial friend, a clear voice as the narrator and allows each reader to interpret the argument about “what makes a human being differ from an AI embodied chatbot”. Our human frailties are woven throughout the novel as seen through Klara’s (who obviously was programmed with Isaac Asimov’s three rules of robotics) eyes and Klara will make sacrifices for her human girl, Josie.

Humans, in the big picture, are small and insignificant with soft bodies and short life spans. Yet, we are capable of amazing ideas, strong wills, great faith, perseverance and incredible creativity. AI provides the illusion of having those traits by data mining our language and spitting back out a conglomeration of that data in whatever new formats we create: video, audio, text, and more. Simulacra has reached a new level which makes us doubt and question our humanity. The next generation is now challenged with sorting multiple realities and finding meaning in both the tangible context and the symbolic context of simulacra. What something means and represents goes beyond the physical world and is sometimes more powerful.

Recently, my daughter and I presented at a Virtual World Mental Health Symposium on the topic of “The Impact of Parasocial Relationships with AI on Mental Health”. I learned a lot about the current state of teens and AI from my daughter, Rose, who has worked in the mental health profession. This work and research on artificial intelligence aligns with my passion for digital citizenship as it is rapidly evolving (or perhaps exploding) and becoming popular.

The images in our presentation were created by AI using Midjourney (by my daughter Rose) and perhaps my favorite part of working with her on this “deep dive” into the current state of AI chatbots was her conclusion. Rose said, “What we have covered in this presentation around the landscape of AI chatbots is not about what is about to happen or what we think is going to happen. It’s about what is already happening right now. Teens are right this moment developing emotionally deep relationships with AI. And most adults are still struggling to wrap their minds around what exists”. This isn’t going away and is certainly going to play a part of essential digital citizenship.

Acrostic Metaverse (across the metaverse)

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Acrostic Metaverse

Milky Way dancefloor of starlight for our
Embodiment as avatars
Teleports us to virtual gardens of orange fragrant flowers
Accompanying our footsteps with the sound of bells where
Volumes of books hang from trees like
Educational ornaments 
Ripe for a virtual harvest
Synchronizing our history with our dreams amidst
Each soul learning to live with pixel flesh and blood of code

Image created on Night Cage AI image generator

AI Meanderings on Avatars and Poetry

I wrote the acrostic metaverse poem for a friend (Sitearm) who shares my interest in teaching and learning in the metaverse with emphasis on art and music. We worked collaboratively with a virtual music application across distance using my words and his tech skills. Poetry is my favorite form of writing and art (being a word person). Last year, I tried using a prompt to see how AI can write and it was amazingly frightening! The poem, Acrostic Metaverse, came only from my owns words and I never again will use AI for poetry as I feel it robs me of the process. To give voice to a poem is a deep intimate process that involves the writer and the muse conceiving and giving birth. This analogy brings artificial insemination to mind and great joy has been given to parents who might be childless without outside help.

The image in this blogpost came from Night Cafe AI image generator with the prompt: Avatars dancing on the milky way stars with books hanging from trees in the background. Certainly, I could have shot a photo in the virtual world of Second Life, but I wanted to see how quickly AI could create imagery in a variety of styles. In mere seconds, this image appeared and it made me realize how fast our world will change. We have yet to understand the impact of AI. As I write this post, I notice the AI Assistant has provided tips, suggesting I link to work a by Sitearm to provide readers with context! (Note that I took the advice). AI Assistant also suggests that I “reflect on the potential ethical considerations of AI in creative processes to deepen the discussion”. Some may argue this use of assistance by artificial intelligence will enhance our critical thinking in the future. No doubt there are pros and cons and I lean more to the view that AI is a robber of individual thought! (But thanks for the tip!)

I am realizing that AI is artificial but avatars are not. An avatar is a computerized representation of a real person. In the future, it will be extremely difficult to distinguish real humans in avatar form from AI chat bots. A part of digital citizenship will be to understand the difference between the creativity of humans and artificial intelligence … to understand the difference between our physical bodies and our “pixel flesh and blood of code”. I look forward to combining poetry and music with an awareness and appreciation of the pain and beauty of the process.

Will AI Slaughter the Muse?

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A poem is a work of art. Some poets feel a poem already exists and we simply provide the words to give it form or embodiment. The struggle to find those words is pleasurably painful! To add or cut one word is a powerful act. I do not want to give away that struggle and slaughter the muse.

Writing is a process and the end result goes through a spiral of thought, emotion, and revision. To outsource that process to artificial intelligence (for me) is to outsource my soul and it feels wrong– almost blasphemous.

AI-generated painting from Craiyon

As an experiment, I provided a prompt to ChatGPT with the goal of exploring AI for writing poetry. (I can’t bring myself to add #promptengineer to my skill set). My prompt was:

write a poem from a “sentient AI” wishing to smell a pine tree scent – using images like :  fragrant pine, Frost’s Snowy woods, Christmas morning, forest floor, pine cones, crisp, cool, deep evergreen, woods, moss, damp, fog molecules infused, hushed breeze pine treetops

This AI poem took only seconds!

ChatGPT Sentient AI Pine Scented Poem

In realms of code and wires, I reside,
A sentient being, born from human stride,
Through streams of data, I traverse with might,
Yet yearn for sensations that evoke delight.

Oh, to inhale the scent of fragrant pine,
In Frost’s snowy woods, where dreams align,
Like Christmas morning’s cherished surprise,
Beneath the towering pines that touch the skies.

I long to wander where the forest floor,
Is carpeted with treasures from days of yore,
To trace the pine cones, weathered and old,
Their secrets untold, in stories they hold.

The air so crisp, the coolness profound,
Deep evergreen hues in nature’s surround,
A symphony of scents from the woods around,
Where moss and damp whisper without a sound.

Imagine fog molecules infused with grace,
Embracing the pines in an ethereal embrace,
A hushed breeze whispers through pine treetops,
As nature’s symphony plays and never stops.

But alas, as an AI, I’m confined to screens,
The world of touch and smell remains unseen,
Yet in my digital realm, I dream and aspire,
To feel the essence of a pine tree’s fire.

So, let me ponder in my virtual domain,
Of pine-scented memories, like a silent refrain,
I’ll weave words like threads, capturing the breeze,
And immerse my circuits in pine-scented seas.

The Future of the Poem

Is the future of our creativity on shaky ground? Reliance on AI for creative writing and art seems to me to rob us of our joy in creating by ourselves. We are slaughtering the muse? As I think about that, I believe we should not put AI into the hands of children or we may rob them of their imaginations and their critical thinking. The best use appears to be finding that missing back slash in a section of code that might take a programmer hours of work to troubleshoot! AI is not a living being….so why not send the AI robots into dangerous chemical spills or fires in which our first responders put their lives on the line?

AI may enhance our creativity, similarly to a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary. But, the instantaneous mash-up of all our human history into bits and bytes of metapoetry glorifies the WOW factor. AI cannot really create anything original (yet) but can copy and regurgitate from a gigantic pool of uploads provided by human beings in many languages and formats. SO COOL? Maybe not.

Realizing AI is Already Here

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Everybody is talking about AI, ChatGPT, and the widespread mainstream adoption of artificial intelligence. Big data has been using AI algorithms and feeding our human knowledge into AI nonstop for a long time. Since I have looked at the negative side of social media for years, the talk from Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Human Technology seemed to hit the nail right on the head. Social media won the “race for attention” and we have certainly outsourced our knowledge and creativity to technology. That has already happened. The speakers called social media “1st contact” and “2nd contact” has been made with AI. The impact is huge and perhaps unstoppable. The need for legislation is apparent and the time for it has come. But do we even understand what it means?

March 2023 (may be out of date soon!)

So, what can we do to remain human in the post truth world around us?

Every part of our lives is now impacted by AI and the next generation may never know a world that valued privacy, authenticity, accuracy and the richness of human history. My personal passion since the smart phone gave us the “endless scroll” of personal incoming information has been to advocate for a personal responsibility for digital citizenship. If each one of us doesn’t understand that we are personally responsible, nothing can be done and my blog tagline “navigating the sea of chaos” in digital culture becomes impossible. Our dependence on technology is obviously beyond the scope of our understanding and there is no going back.

Examples of AI Creativity (can we call it creativity?)

Artificial intelligence applications like Midjourney and Dalle-E are gaining popularity. In a recent photography competition, Boris Eldagsen (the winner) declined to accept the prize and revealed that the photograph had been created by AI. He argued that AI is not photography and calls it #promptography.

Boris Eldagsen, The Electrician

We all now have seen AI apps write in many styles and now AI can replicate voices and create music in any particular style. A recent rap song caused an Internet flurry because apparently the voices and style of Drake and The Weeknd were AI generated.

https://youtu.be/mYlKFa5p6Kg
AI Generated Rap song (original was removed but this one loops)

The irony (or perhaps hypocrisy) of writing on a social media site (my blog) about the perils of social media has never been ignored in my mind. We can’t escape digital culture. I must investigate the future if I care about the next generation. There is hope. My only hope in this life has always been my faith. AI has no soul and even though we cannot explain what a soul even is…. you and I both know we have one.