The true artificial intelligence (AI) is thinking that human beings can be replaced.
Oh, I know it's all the rage. It's trendy. It's new.
But I also think it's potentially dangerous.
Let’s start with a definition from Wikipedia: "Artificial intelligence is intelligence perceiving, synthesizing and inferring information — demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by humans or by other animals. Example tasks on which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs."
That doesn’t clear it up for me too much.
My definition is that you are using computer-generated voices or programs to do what a human being usually does.
A recent article really got me all shook up. A radio station in Portland, Ore., is so proud of the fact it will soon be cloning the voice of its midday host, Ashley. Every day, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., listeners will be hearing AI Ashley.
They are quick to point out that this will not take away Real Ashley’s job — they will just keep her busy doing other things.
Ashley, get your resume ready, girl, because you are on the way out the door.
Live 95.5 tweeted this: “We made history as the world’s first radio station with an AI DJ. We can’t wait for you not meet Ashley, the world’s first artificially intelligent DJ.”
This should not seem exciting. This should scare you silly.
Radio stations have been cutting back for years. If you noticed, in some markets, the announcer doesn’t give you a time check or an accurate weather forecast; it is because the show is either pre-taped or the announcer is broadcasting from a completely different city.
The difference is management used to want to hide it from listeners. We were told to pretend to be live, even if we weren't.
Why? Because it seemed disingenuous, but now I guess technology is king.
And it has been happening for years.
Thankfully, most radio stations still have live morning shows with the news anchors, traffic reporters and announcers that you recognize, trust and have connected with for years. You have a relationship. If you are lucky, your local media goes live all day, but it's few and far between.
You, the listener, depend on the local 'talent' to talk about the important issues in your community. There is a human connection. You can actually reach out to this human being and communicate with them. You can get clarification, updates and offer your own input to the program. Do you remember being able to call in for a song request?
I trust these professionals to know what’s going on in my neighbourhood, city, county, province and tell me what I need to know. It's their job to know and disseminate the information to the masses.
Do I want a robot to inform me of the path of the tornado? The latest COVID precautions? In short, no I do not.
Yes, I realize the information put into the AI program has to initially come from a person, so, let’s just skip the middle man-bot.
Management says they will have a team of human moderators to check, double check and edit the content to make sure it's neither false nor offensive. The decision-makers claim they will still have people inputting and checking the original content and proving it.
To which I say, if you already have those people in place doing that job, let them do it.
Bosses will say it's not about saving money. Oh yes it is!
Nobody will lose their jobs. Oh yeah, in time they will.
It will be time-saving. I doubt that in the long run. Technology does screw up.
Do you know how I know this? Well, 40 years in broadcasting taught me a thing or two.
Plus, I am using my non-artificial intelligence to figure it out.
