Consciousness is Everything
This was a hard post to write because my brain wants to include so many sitings and citations to prove my points, and yet, the title is really my main message.This past week has seen an explosion of ChatGPT and Lensa-made selfies. In other words, the so-called AI products available for consumer use. Once a tech early adopter, I have changed and am now an early tech skeptic. We skeptics are not Luddites — that’s a third option — but in fact, are tech-literate people who see the degradation of human spaces and human values as a direct result of unrestrained tech. An appreciation for human consciousness is definitely missing from most tech development and usage. Let’s change that!
Here’s my quick take:
Of course, what I meant to say was a Lensa selfie. This is a new app that lets you upload a few pics of yourself; it then spits out a glamorized, superhero version of you. This Washington Post article covers the basics and this was the most relevant takeaway for me:
Due to the lack of representation of dark-skinned people both in AI engineering and training images, the models tend to do worse analyzing and reproducing images of dark-skinned people, says Mutale Nkonde, founder of algorithmic justice organization AI for the People. In scenarios where facial recognition is being used for law enforcement, for example, that creates frightening opportunities for discrimination. The technology has already contributed to at least three wrongful arrests of Black men.There’s potential for harm on Lensa, as well, Nkonde noted. From what she’s seen, the app’s results for women tend toward “generic hot white girl,” she said.
Meanwhile, there was ChatGPT, which lets you ask a question and it generates ‘an answer’ for you. Some are amazed at its accuracy while others are ROTFL at the juvenile and even non-sensical answers.Like any AI, aka artificial intelligence, it can only regurgitate what it’s been fed. The so-called processing it does is merely mechanical — a long, far cry from human processing — how the mind can survey vastly opposing information sets and then run it through the heart to engage a more holistic cogitation on the question at hand. The worse example I’ve seen is how ChatGPT seemingly endorsed torture, because, well, it has happened (aka accurate historical data) and in AI, there are no meaningful value sets as part of the data input. We are using the past to create the future — only more limited, more white, and more male-centered.If all you have is a hammer, AI is gonna make a bunch of nails.
Be Mindful: AI is not Artificial and It is Not Intelligence
What we think of as AI is real, not artificial: it’s computer code written by humans. It is not intelligent: it cannot process it can only regurgitate. Does it have some positive uses? Definitely. Remember, a conscious human can see multiple points of view, can accept nuance, and can weigh pros and cons with values included not avoided.The best use cases I’ve seen are in medicine, where machines have been trained to interpret scans with higher rates of accuracy than humans.
For the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve an algorithm involving imaging, it must be accurate 80% to 90% of the time. So far, the FDA has approved about 420 of these for various diseases (mostly cancer). The FDA still requires that a human be the ultimate arbiter of what the machine-learning algorithm finds, but such techniques are critical for flagging images that might contain suspicious findings for doctors to review—and ultimately provide faster answers for patients.
Not everything that can be created is worth keeping.
Artists know this well! You spend years in the studio experimenting and creating and much of it never makes it to market. There is joy and frustration in the process and a clear understanding that just because an artist made it, it is not become “art.” Some pieces are rejects. And I say this with the most kind-hearted intention.
What about the tech community?
Early adopters like to think they/we are innovators and leaders but what if we are really just geeky sheep? Non-critical lemmings? I believe we embrace new stuff with too much enthusiasm and not enough critical eye — especially now that we have a multi-decade track record of unintended consequences, aka human-scale disasters. Hello, surveillance capitalism!Living in the moment (an action I mostly ascribe to) does not mean ignoring past pain. It can also mean PAUSE, to look deeper into what is really being offered, rather than taking the daily FOMO vitamins and deliberately choosing not to question the consequences of making Lensa selfies and having ChatGPT write your term paper — because you want to be first in your feed.
ChatGPT is Not Open Source.
So not only is it having code write your stuff (and taking away jobs in the immediate future) it’s also another weapon of capitalism:
Under the Weight of Marketing
Ah, marketing — in many ways it’s the anti-consciousness. I’ve done it for 30 years and I detest much of my profession. Why? Because it was fundamentally created to appeal to the seven deadly sins, aka to appeal to lesser selves, our old-brain, fearful selves, and not our conscious selves. In the glorious ‘80s, I was one of the first aerobics instructors and helped write the international certification exam. But that profession, too, had more members who wanted “five new butt exercises” rather than help women and many men, gain physical strength and self-confidence. Nice butts come and go but building the muscle of self-worth is priceless!I was known as the Ice Queen for adhering to strict standards of professionalism when I developed the judges’ handbook for the Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships. Even way back then, I believed that respect for the hard work of the competitors demanded that the judges not get caught up in the fun fun fun of the loud music and cool dance moves but instead evaluated the performances on verifiable metrics.You can see me at timestamp: 16:36 (Back then I was Mary Anne Benton. I changed my name to Roxanne Darling in late 1999.) Watch as much as you like, LOL, I consider this a palate cleanser.
What is FUN at first can definitely undermine us over time. You won’t see a Lensa selfie of me because all I’ve seen are glorified versions. We really do have an issue with reality! And this undermines our individual and collective consciousness in so many ways.I was an early adopter of “everyone gets to be a publisher!” And I still respect that freedom. But without some sort of consciousness filters, we are becoming a cesspool of fakery, running from reality, turning everything into clickbait and “porn” — aka cloud porn, food porn, YUCK THE FUCK, is how I feel about that.
Look at this data on TikTok:
I get it — it can be entertaining and a large part of how influencers and thought leaders (they are the same, BTW, just usually coming from different age groups) use these tools to look cool, feel a part of something, and gain attention for discovering something. But their endorsements are toxic, in my opinion. And for the ‘olds’ who are sharing TikToks, and who could know better, it diminishes the respect I have/had for them.At what age do “we know better” and acquire some measure of impulse control?We are now fully immersed in the attention economy and it does feel like we must be seen to survive. But do we? No, of course not. Plus, there are so many ways to share ourselves now that are meaningful and important. So share yourself please to make a statement, to enlighten others, to teach, to uplift. But endless copycat, narcissistic, look-at-me selfies? Nope. Not gonna do it. I am not interested in that part of you. In fact, it turns me off a bit, especially if you already get a lot of attention in the public sphere. If you want to play with the cool new stuff, how about using someone else who has a message you could share? There are many ways we can each use our platforms to support others, not just ourselves.
The Online Mobs
The last caution I’ll mention regarding unrestrained tech is the explosion of online mobs. Thank you to who shared this:
James McLeod: The internet is changing how our minds workBooks were about ideas. Telegraphs sent information. TVs sent images. The internet sends mobs. And we adapted in response to each.
This mob mentality, facilitated by malicious users of tech, has created two vastly different experiences of being human: one offline and one online. Rebecca Jennings captured many of my frustrations in her piece last week for Vox, Every “chronically online” conversation is the same.
What all of these arguments have in common is that very few people engage in them in real life.
What if we could bring some offline energy to the online space? What if you could drive by a dozen cafes and not have to have an opinion on each one much less stop in to criticize the food? I mean, you can, you do it on the daily!
Will You Consider These Dos and Don’ts?
- Don’t do this:
- Stop anthropomorphizing all tech around the so-called artificial intelligence. It is code, not intelligence, it is rote memory and data processing at ever-faster speeds, there is not a single cell of consciousness in there! Do it with your dog, if you must. I consider that mostly harmless.
- Slow down most tech (ai, chatbots, autonomous vehicles, neural implants) UNTIL the dev teams represent full diversity: BIPOC, gender, age, and expertise across the humanities as well as coding AND the tech in question adds real value to humanity, not just fly by entertainment.
- Practice adulting rather than squirreling by resisting every new tech toy until you can justify using it with a strong “why” statement and a stronger “who it benefits” statement, balanced against “what are the hidden harms in here?”
- Do not use TikTok. Do not have the app on your phone, do not look at its content, and by all means, do not let your children use it. I have managed to avoid it and look at me! Here I am, aware and happy as can be.
Otherwise, we are just lemmings. I was one, for sure. Now arriving at what feels like a place of sanity, I’m going out on a limb to disagree with a lot of my friends and colleagues to ask for a more conscious experience of being human and using technology.I know this may sound like the old man yelling “get off my lawn!” but it’s actually the opposite! Come with your lawn chair and sit with me. Let’s examine the consequences of our actions, not just on ourselves but on those we share the world with.The world becomes a “better” place (better must be defined to be useful) when WE engage with our consciousness to look beyond the end of our own noses. If we’ve proven anything in the past 20 years, consciousness and long-term benefits do NOT happen automatically with just a new app or platform.Life is a continuum. We have choices as to where and how we want to occupy.Thank you for reading. I’m building my voice here and I appreciate your time and attention. Share a comment if you like, so I can learn from and connect with you.
Featured Photo: Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash