Can You Hear Me Now

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

Hermann Hesse

Those of you who have been paying attention to my recent blog articles have surely witnessed my experimentation with AI-generated podcasts. WordPress recently unveiled a feature that allows bloggers like me to convert our written articles into a spoken conversations between two virtual hosts — Pip and Mara. While I believe the software is still in beta, I am beyond amazed by what it is capable of producing. Not only do Pip and Mara sound frightening real, their back and forth dialog expresses humor, empathy, wonder, curiosity, and excitement. They laugh, pause, and even sigh at all the right moments.

The podcasts accurately relate the important points of the underlying articles, often using words and phrases that I wish I had come up with. Additionally, they weed out my superfluous poetic interludes. If that isn’t intelligence, artificial or not, I don’t know what is.

Needless to say, this has been a very humbling experience.

Not My First Rodeo

I have been working with Generative AI for several years now, so I should be well past being amazed at what it can do. And yet, I am continually blown away each time something new is unleashed.

I remember working with OpenAI’s image generation APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) when they first became available to developers some three years ago. I surrounded the APIs with a homemade web application and for a while could not stop showing off every new computer generated image to my awe-struck friends, family, and colleagues. These days, though, the technology is light years beyond even the best of those creations. We’ve gone from cave paintings to Rembrandt in only a few short years. I can’t even begin to imagine what the next iterations will bring. AI generated life-sized holograms?

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. Albert Einstein

Darkness at the Edge of Town

Are you familiar with the phrase, “There is a serpent in every paradise”? That is how I feel about artificial intelligence. As much as these virtual podcasts amaze and delight me, it is unsettling at how quickly they entice us into relinquishing our creativity to soulless machines. After all, if I wanted a podcast, shouldn’t I be the one scripting and voicing it? I can laugh, pause, and sigh, too.

While I am no great orator, neither am I a stranger to the microphone. I spent a 40-plus year career presenting to groups large and small. If you know me, you know that I am not shy about speaking my mind.

While I have never actually created my own podcast, there is nothing keeping me from doing so. I have the necessary hardware and I am certain that I could acquire and figure out the software. Mastering technology has always been one of my strengths.

Still, I have been seduced by the ease and quality of these virtual podcasts. As I previously said, they are coming up with ways of making my points using words I failed to come up with on my own. They allow me to sound smarter than I actually am and that in itself is very appealing.

They are also great time savers. It only takes one click and about three minutes to create a podcast that would take hours to do on my own. I may be retired, but time is still a precious quantity. I am busier than ever and it already consumes enough of my “free time” writing these blogs. A handmade podcast of decent quality would require far more time and effort than I am willing to give right now.

They are also time savers for the folks who come to my blog. Today’s 1600-word missive takes time to read and digest. It’s far quicker to listen to a three-minute podcast that generally says the same things. You aren’t getting the real me and Pip and Mara disregard many of my more subtle points, but perhaps that’s just fine for some of my followers. I can be an acquired taste and less may be better.

Of course, if I continue to rely on AI technology, I will never have the opportunity to learn the art of podcasting. Like I wrote about in my article on programmers not knowing how to debug their own code, I am depriving myself of what might be a worthy educational and creative experience. I am enshrining the notion that a machine is more capable than a human and that makes me more than a bit uncomfortable.

Clearly, I am wrestling with this and for now, calculated laziness appears to have the upper hand. I am not proud of that.

Spam, Eggs, Sausage, and Spam

I have been sharing my virtual podcasts with a number of friends and acquaintances and the feedback has been varied. Like me, quite a few were amazed at how impressive they were. They too noticed how closely aligned they were to the original blog article while adding those clever, albeit humbling flourishes.

There were also a few folks who hated them without even bothering to listen. They forcibly let me know that AI is evil and responsible for the proliferation of huge data centers that consume vast amounts of energy and water. One expressed fear that her husband might lose his job to AI. Sadly, this is a very real concern that many people are experiencing these days.

I get all that. I too am worried about data centers and the environment — job losses are a different story. I am also aware that AI is only one component in this. Yes, data centers are being used to host AI servers and software, but they also provide a home for social media platforms, e-commerce sites, streaming services, and a slew of other digital technologies we use on a daily basis.

To put the blame entirely on AI is myopic. Real change will come when we take a good look at the big picture and ask ourselves what are we willing to live without. We can’t say “no” to AI and “yes” to Netflix and Facebook without admitting that they are all part of the problem. Spoiler alert, both Facebook and Netflix use AI. You can run, but you can’t hide.

It’s like the old Monty Python spam sketch. “Spam, eggs, sausage, and spam. That’s got not much spam in it.”

You either eat the spam or you don’t.

Sinners and Saints

In addition to all the negative environmental and employment impacts, there are the insidious aspects of AI. I teach cyber fraud protection classes and spend a great deal of time informing folks of how AI is being used by criminals to steal their money. I also see it being deployed by corrupt politicians and governments to manipulate peoples’ thoughts and perceptions. AI bots are everywhere and they are rarely to never there to help people make informed decisions.

That said, I am neither ready nor willing to give up all my AI-infused digital toys. I like my iPhone, Windows PC, streaming services, smart speakers (I own both Google and Alexa), AI search results, and for now, virtual podcasts. I am well aware that AI is worming its way into nearly everything I own and do, and there are costs and benefits to that. This technology is widely used by both sinners and saints.

In every revolution, there are winners and losers. Every dystopia is a utopia for somebody else. It just depends where you are. Are you in the class that benefits, or the class does not? Ken Liu

Despite any of the positive benefits I derive from my use of AI, I continue to live much of my life the old fashioned way. I do not use AI to write or research these blog articles — despite its ability to cleverly out-phrase me. I rely on my brain and body to play music, ride hundreds of miles a month on my non electric bike, navigate around town without the use of a GPS, read made-from-paper books and newspapers, and generally connect with the world. Thankfully, a long walk with a friend is still free from AI.

Is this a compromise that will save humanity? Will it slow the growth of data centers, job losses, and the onslaught of destructive AI. Doubtful, but there is only so much that one man can do and for now, it’s my devil’s bargain. I am willingly eating the spam, eggs, sausage, and spam.

The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good. Pope Leo XIV

So, until I decide that enough is enough, I hope you continue to enjoy both my written-by-a-human-being blog articles (those would be mine) and their virtual podcast counterparts (courtesy of Pip and Mara). We all have something to say no matter how we are saying it — and no matter how often the virtual podcasters one-up me.

Thank you for reading.

Too many questions and too few answers
the unproductive pondering of matters
both young and old
near and ever so far away

Reaching
grasping for promises given
but never meant to be kept
illusions in time and space
they briefly come into focus
before quickly fading away

Frost on the windows
ice in the heart
it’s a cold morning that offers no warmth
from the old, reliable places