Here is my response. The beginning may be confusing to some. Focus on the substance of the email:AI is easy leverage.
It's also easy leverage for bullshit - and that's a problem
We volunteered for the convention and had time to check out some panels.
There was one panel in session we walked in on. I don't remember the topic, one of the speakers asked a question. I spoke up and answered Television. I then said something like TV gave us a way to educate everyone about good things like science and things. You responded with something like, "And how is that working out for us?" The room erupted in laughter. It was funny and I agreed then and I agree now.
Your point was that TV also spread bullshit and was also being used to spread proganda and that, if used improperly, created chaos. It was an easy leverage for doing wrong and cheap results.
That stuck with me all these years. I think about that moment often - a couple of weeks ago as a matter of fact.
When Amazon created Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), it transformed the publishing industry. It was an easy leverage. Now, anyone could be an author. 500,000 new ebooks were published each year in the world. 99% of the books were all bullshit and trash. That was a problem. The industry is still suffering.
Fiverr came and furthered the industry to more bullshit and grift. Another easy leverage. Authors paying someone else to do the writing. AI replaced Fiverr freelancers.
The Internet - Grift, bullshit, and propaganda. Another easy leverage.
It's all a problem.
But it's also transformative in a way that the benefits outweigh the grift, cheats, and the numerous ways that accelerate humans' head long race into hell.
A recent copyright usages landmark ruling on Thomas Reuter's AI training said it was copyright infringement. Their AI merely regurgitated rearranged data it obtained from others' Legal data repositories. The court ruled that training the AI on other people's knowledge was against the law. That did not include Generative AI.
A copyright Lawyer I started watching said that companies that train AIs that allow untalented individuals to create something in a field they were never trained in probably is not copyright infringement.
The Generative AI created new derivatives, which is allowed under US Copyright laws. Any technology that allowed someone, who otherwise never had the expertise, to create something new and different from the "original" was transformative and thus allowed.
It is an easy leverage, it will always be easy, and a problem, but its ability to do so should not be a reason to immolate it. The Genie is out of the bottle, the toothpaste is already out of the tube. It's too late. It's already entrenched in everyday life.
I'm going to use AI to enhance my life and help me produce things I couldn't do otherwise. The hell with what nefarious others do. It won't stop me.
I got two choices. Let others leverage AI and I go along for the ride, or I take the wheel and steer my own path. The former is fine - it's what the masses do. Sometimes we have no choice. However, the latter, I think, is a better choice. The one I'm still trying to get my daughter to understand.