• @agent_flounder
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    16 months ago

    To me this question hints at the seismic paradigm shift that comes from generative AI.

    I struggle to wrap my head around it and part of me just wants to give up on everything. But… We now have to wrestle with questions like:

    What is art and do humans matter in the process of creating it? Whether novels, graphic arts, plays, whatever else?

    What is the purpose of writing?

    What if anything is still missing from generative writing versus human writing?

    Is the difference between human intelligence and generative AI just a question of scale and complexity?

    Now or in the future, can human experience be simulated by a generative AI via training on works produced by humans with human experience?

    If an AI can now or some day create a novel that is meaningful or moving to readers, with all the hallmarks of a literary masterwork, is it still of value? Does it matter who/what wrote it?

    Can an AI have novel ideas and insights? Is it a question of technology? If so, what is so special about humans?

    Do humans need to think if AI one day can do it for us and even do it better than we can?

    Is there any point in existing if we aren’t needed to create, think, generate ideas and insights? If our intellect is superfluous?

    If human relationships conducted in text and video can be simulated on one end by a sufficiently complex AI, to fool the human, is it really a friendship?

    Are we all just essentially biological machines and our bonds simply functions of electrochemical interactions, instincts, and brain patterns?

    I’m late to the game on all this stuff. I’m sure many have wrestled with a lot of this. But I also think maybe generative AI will force far more of us to confront some of these things.