What Did Humanity Do Once It Got Its Hands on AI?
AI has become thoroughly commonplace.
Pay for it—or, in some cases, don’t pay at all—and you can use AI to do something.
And now, you can even use it to avoid doing something yourself.
So, what did we create with it?
With a few exceptions, mostly rubbish.
We tried using it instead of search engines.
We generated videos of a certain Hollywood star eating pasta.
We mass-produced content that looked like reheated versions of YouTubers.
We used it to make fake news seem more credible….
Well, AI has been used for a remarkably wide range of purposes—from perfectly harmless things to things with both feet firmly planted in criminal territory and the rest of the body submerged up to the neck.
And that made me think:
“Is this really all we humans can manage, even with AI?”
Because there’s nothing interesting about it.
It doesn’t stimulate the imagination. Everything is just an imitation of reality.
Honestly, I was disappointed.
…Erm.
Dear Mr Will Smith,
I hope this letter finds you in excellent health and spirits.
Honestly, the AI-generated videos of you eating pasta were funny.
Watching them become more and more realistic actually made me feel like I was seeing the future.
I cannot even begin to imagine how you yourself must feel about all this, but I wish you every success in your future endeavours.
So I Thought I’d Try Making Use of My Own Individuality
Then I asked myself, “Well, what would I do?”
And something occurred to me.
If the limits of our imagination are either “imitating reality” or “fantasy”, what would happen if we mixed the two together…?
That was the origin of what I call “Fake-Real”.
Not real. Not fake.
Deliberately blur the difference between them until distinguishing one from the other becomes meaningless.
And if there’s originality to be found somewhere in there, maybe that represents a possibility.
Your originality.
How do you define it—and how do you observe it?
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