this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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This is one of those half-truths which I think is doing more harm than good for the AI-skeptic crowd. If all we have to offer in our own defense is that we have souls and the machines do not, then what does that mean if the machines ever surpass us? (For the kids snickering in the back: I am using "soul" as a poetic stand-in for the ineffable creative quality which the "AI as collage-maker" argument ascribes to human people -- nothing spiritual).
For now, the future of AI is incredibly uncertain. We have no clear idea just how much gas is left in the moment of this current generative AI breakthrough. Regardless of whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, do not trust anyone who acts like they know for a definitive fact what the technology will or won't be capable of.
What everyone in these online arguments miss. Personhood. What makes art and all human creations meaningful is that it was made by a human. That has an unrepeatable point of view, and is trying to say something about the world. We can relate, empathize, with that human, and in that connection, imagining what they're trying to say—what they were seeing or thinking when they did that thing—lies meaning. AI will never cross that line. We cannot empathize with the machine, there's no consciousness or sentient experience that we know of that we can relate to. The machine has no particular point of view it's trying to express, it has nothing meaningful to say about the world, it has no concept of the world. It's just probability numbers crunching in an electronic calculator. It's not human, it's not a person, and thus their creations have no meaning. Similarly to how we tend to reject corporate impersonal, void artwork, it says nothing, only ads. It has no point of view, just profit. It has no meaning, but consumption. It's banal, even if it's aesthetically pleasing.