The newest "AI is taking our media jobs" screeds

A week after The Guardian wrote a shortish piece breathlessly touting new writing AI, specifically a program called GPT-3, The Atlantic takes a deep dive in the shallow end of the pool.

At least Renée DiResta gives us unedited, albeit excerpted, material to read (the Guardian only had edited slices):

In addition to the potential for AI-generated false stories, there’s a simultaneously scary and exciting future where AI-generated false stories are the norm. The rise of the software engineer has given us the power to create new kinds of spaces: virtual reality and augmented reality are now possible, and the “Internet of things” is increasingly entering our homes. This past year, we’ve seen a new type of art: that which is created by algorithms and not humans. In this future, AI-generated content will continue to become more sophisticated, and it will be increasingly difficult to differentiate it from the content that is created by humans. One of the implications of the rise in AI-generated content is that the public will have to contend with the reality that it will be increasingly difficult to differentiate between generated content and human-generated content.

As for the horrors of AI being used for propaganda writing? Well, if Russian trolls can be replaced with AI bots to "flood the zone" even more, or capitalist businesses in America doing the same to We the People, that is troublesome to a degree.

But nowhere near the breathlessness degree.

As for letters to the editor? Ms. DiResta, astroturfing campaigns opened that barn door years if not decades ago, and better-staffed newspapers regularly screwed the pooch.

Moving beyond the media angle, though, which is somewhat what the Guardian does? It claims editing on its AI piece took less than a human piece. That, in turn, makes me wonder what level of dreck its writers, or freelance op-ed submitters, actually turn in.

Other than the narrow world of yet more media-industry job losses, when I look at this, am I worried? No. 

I do worry there, and that many companies like Craphouse and Dead Fucking Media would use stuff like this without much editing.