AI is the world’s future; it isn’t mine

      I haven’t used ChatGPT. Nor do I plan on it.

     At 76, I have a hard enough time printing pictures from my phone or sending contact information to somebody else. But my reasoning goes beyond my aversion to technology. It relates to some degree to Mitch Stephens’ essay on this site, ”So You Think You’ve Seen AI?”

      He in essence warns those who’ve fully embraced AI that technology takes a long time to evolve, so we don’t really know what we’re in love with yet. “Most of us in the early years—the early decades—on the internet did not have a clue what the internet would be.”

      Now we know better that some aspects of the internet are good, as I wrote a week or two ago, noting that Facebook has helped me find long-lost friends. Other aspects of the internet are awful, such as the bullying and trolling that goes on hourly on social media, the state of electronic bombardment we live under daily, and our obsession with and addiction to our phones.

      Now AI is everywhere. These days, I can’t start a Google search without first getting pasted with AI information about whatever I’m looking up. I’ve learned quickly that sometimes that information is wrong—really wrong. Let me give you one example from a couple of weeks ago.

      My wife Kathy was reading an article about Martin Baron, who led the fact-checking department at The New Yorker for a dozen years and worked there 36. He died this year at age 85 and was the subject of a New Yorker article, “Martin Baron, A Fact Checker for the Long Haul.”

      “Didn’t you know him when he was editor of The Boston Globe?” Kathy asked.

      “Nope, different Marty Baron,” I replied. “He never worked at The New Yorker.”

      That Marty Baron, whom I met when I invited him to speak at Emerson College, led the Globe to a Pulitzer Prize for its extraordinary investigative work about pedophile priests. The story of that investigation later was captured in the film, “Spotlight.” The Globe’s Marty Baron came to Boston from The Miami Herald and went on to lead the Washington Post, before retiring in 2021. He is now 70.

      But that’s not where the story ends. I went to a Google search to see if the two Martin Barons were related. Instead, I was told they were the same person. The first thing that came up on Google AI was a completely inaccurate description of Baron as someone who worked at The New Yorker before going to the Globe and Washington Post. If I recall correctly, that bio also killed him off. Regardless, it was a mess.

      I had to chuckle when I had to go to Wikipedia to straighten things out. Speaking of technology, remember when we were warned—and cautioned students—to never use Wikipedia because It gets things wrong?

      This week, Kathy told me she’d just read a different story. This one told the story of AI-generated influencers who have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers. I guess to some extent robots already rule.

      Yes, AI is not only the future, but the present. But I’d just as soon not have anything to do with it in the (not-so) gentle state of retirement.

      Give me a good book, a chance to write on my own, an adventure on a new trail or in a new city. There’s plenty to fill my time and imagination without leaving it to robotic brains to screw things up.