<
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain>
'On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy.
He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were
rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan
The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was
poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook
rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would
blend in with the crowd.
Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast
Dudesy released a "George
Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an
AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate
sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny)
"comedy" special:
<
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/>
As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but
we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and
replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:
<
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week>
AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference
between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush
of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:
<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy>
Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're
convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human
intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit,
assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.'
Via David.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
