Living that AI Life!
Issue #41 Keith’s SciFi Musings Sunday, September 24, 2023
When AI first came out, or I guess I should say when it started to become pretty much part of the scenery back in the early 2020s, I thought it was OK. Lotta folks were jumping around like it was some undiscovered flavor of ice cream or whatever. The new “thang”.
But I just thought it was…well…OK.
Had a friend who was a professor at a college in Georgia telling me about how some of his creative writing students were actually turning in short stories written by AI, and not even bothering to blink when they did it. Couldn’t see a thing wrong, even when the assignment was obviously to turn in a story that they had written. But somehow, same as with their phones, the kids already couldn’t tell the difference between themselves and their supportive technology. To the kids, they were their technology, and their technology was them. So how come they couldn’t ask themselves to write a story?
As for AI-generated images? Some of them were pretty impressive. Could barely tell the difference between an AI-generated human and one for real. And if you asked an AI app to create something fantastical from your imagination, like a tap-dancing blue lion wearing roller skates and wearing rainbow shades, it would give you all these really cool images to choose from. Of all the AI functions, being able to create images was my favorite, and I actually used that functionality more than once. But I never tried to convince anyone that whatever AI managed to come up with in response to my directives was somehow my own creation.
But none of that seemed to matter once the AI Life company came into being last year in 2037. Company was founded by this guy named Frank Jordan, and he’s pretty much the Next Steve Jobs (see what I did there?). Because he took AI and made it into something that has redefined life itself. Just check it out as a before and after kinda thing.
Before: AI was able to generate images and write stories and papers, following simple instructions provided by outdated humans.
After: AI now able to manufacture alternate realities and adjust current realities in real time, again following simple instructions provided by outdated humans.
For example, let’s say you’re walking down the street (does anyone really just walk anymore?) and you see this broken down brick building. It’s best days are behind it and should probably be torn down is what you would have thought to yourself back in 2022. But today? Simply speak into your cellphone how the building should look, then point your cellphone at the building and engage your AI Life App.
Presto. Lookee there at that new skyscraper Momma!
I understand the next thing Frank is working on is an extension of the app that will allow you to alter human beings. Just speak, point, and click.
You look simply marvelous. So much better than before.