by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
With the advent of advanced chatbot technology, we have to begin to contemplate the idea that humanity’s relationship to writing may be about to change dramatically. From what I can tell about the ability of chatbot technology to generate writing of all sorts it definitely seems as though some basic ideas about human creativity may be about to be upended.
The case could be made for a dystopian near-future whee writing itself is seen as quaint and antiquated, much like cursive writing is today. We may face a future where being trained to write is something that a narrow subset of the population is trained to do.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of all writing — be it creative or otherwise — will be done by at least chatbots, if not an actual AGI. In a way, if we don’t invent AGI sooner rather than later, that’s kind of the worse case scenario.
At least with AGI, there is the opportunity for us to tax its activities to fund a UBI program — or, even better AGIs might be willing to fund a UBI of its own volition as a “bribe” to humanity to keep it busy playing video games. I’m not saying the transition to a UBI wouldn’t be rather…turbulent…to say the least.
But it could very well happen.
I suppose my biggest fear is that, given human nature, all of this could happen a lot sooner than we all expect because there’s probably going to be a global recession in 2023. As such, that would be the time when the ability to replace high paid writers of all sorts might simply be too enticing for the Powers That Be.
But I think I’m getting a little too ahead of myself. History rarely goes in a straight line. There’s every reason to believe my fears that we’re going to face a Singularity in late 2024, early 2025 at just the same time that the whole world is collapsing because MAGA Nazis are in the middle of trying to steal the 2024 election might be a little bit too hysterical.
And, yet, the fact remains — there’s a real risk that the next generation may see learning to write as optional. Or, if they do learn to write, it will be more about how to write a chatbot prompt than it is writing an essay or a novel or whatever. As is the case with all of my hysterical, dystopian rantings about the rise of chatbots and AGI, the point is to get us all thinking about different scenarios instead of waiting until we have a serious case of future shock.
