There's been a lot of noise lately on artificial intelligence, and I have some thoughts on the subject.

First, I think it's hella cool. Conceptually, there's a ton of potential in machines that, if not sentient, possess the ability to reason, to create. We're already seeing some of this as A.I.s are learning at an increasingly accelerated rate. I'm also getting a huge kick out of the AI portraits, seeing myself realized in a wide variety of over-flattering (and sometimes humbling) motifs.

Second, it's terrifying. I'm not afraid of machines taking over, but they're already being used to map the faces and voices of actors in films to change what they're saying when a line edit happens after the fact, or when a film is released in a different language. You can't tell it's not real. What happens when someone does that with a politician? What happens when someone does that with you?

Imagine someone sending you a breakup video from your boyfriend, but he swears he never created it. Imagine a politician being deposed but nobody ever knows it because you still see him giving speeches on television. Imagine being accused of a crime and the prosecution brings out a video of your confession, or a collaborative conversation with a terrorist, and you watch in dumbfounded awe knowing it never happened. Maybe that terrorist isn't guilty either. Maybe the defense attorney you've been interacting with on Zoom doesn't exist at all.

How can we ever trust the evidence of our eyes?

A.I. is also learning how to write stories, and it's not great, but considering it's in its infancy, it's not bad either. How far are we from feeding a prompt into a computer and getting a bestselling trilogy back in minutes? What will it do to our collective creative energy when we no longer have to exercise our imaginations, when we can so customize our entertainment to our specific desires, preferences, and kinks that individuals have nothing whatsoever in common?

Another problem is that almost all A.I. is centralized. I always pictured sentient robots working alongside individuals to make life better for everyone. Instead, A.I.'s are built and guided by a small group of people who are deciding what is and what's not ethical, and when we interact with it, we're communing with a master brain, not unique entities, and that brain is controlled by... who? Governments? Corporations? The global elite? A mad computer scientist in his basement laboratory who jacks off to Victoria's Secret catalogs?

To the majority, it really doesn't matter who holds the reins because as long as we get the experiences we crave, we won't question it...

Or maybe it DOES matter because MIT created a psychopath by feeding it violent rhetoric from chat channels. We're on the verge of a technological revolution that's already given birth to a serial killer. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD. Curiosity killed the cat. Maybe it's coming for all of us.

Outputs are also being customized to fit a designed rhetoric. Even Siri and Alexa's answers to questions are at least partly curated so they don't accidentally offend. That should tell you something right there. When a completely neutral entity can be accused of inherent racism because of observed and indexed patterns, we've perhaps gone a few steps too far down the road of offensensitivity.

As an aside, let me just say that I'm DEEPLY gratified that the spell checker accepted "offensensitivity" as a legit word. It needs to be part of our lexicon.

Anyway, the expectation of organically evolving intelligence is quickly being subverted by people with an agenda, and whether you think those motives are good or bad, bear in mind that the armed officer who protects you from criminals can also force your compliance at gunpoint.

Don't misinterpret that analogy. I'm 4'10" and 90 lbs soaking wet so I carry a firearm for protection and I'm very pro-second amendment. My point is that, in all scenarios with AI, YOU don't have the option to arm yourself. You have to trust that the people who hold the power have your best interests at heart and that their successors are cut from the same cloth. Now look at feudal history and tell me that's not scary. Make sense?

I'm not being paranoid, these are all issues that people actively developing this technology are questioning. Elon Musk is close to the front of the wave, having invested billions into it, and even he says that AI is a greater risk to humanity than the atom bomb.

I still think there are aspects of it that are valuable, but we have to be careful as we proceed, deliberately holding ourselves back -- and by extension the AI's -- while we come to terms with the consequences. Humanity has a history of pushing technology faster and farther than the wisdom to use it. If we're not careful, the rise of the machines may happen under our noses as an infiltration rather than a Terminator war.