Historically, some have always commanded others, and like frightened little wolves, we obeyed almost without protest. There was a time, not so long ago, that the internet gave us a sense of freedom, or at least the illusion of it. But that sensation has now turned hollow.
I was one of those who believed in this freedom, in understanding journalism and media as an exercise of liberty that, while not causing harm to anyone, offered a fresh and entertaining perspective. That’s how this magazine of ours was born. It’s been around for a while (and I’m not planning on shutting it down, at least not yet). We’ve been trying to garner some attention, and gradually started expanding into other languages using all the resources at our disposal.
And yes, along came artificial intelligence, bringing with it a major challenge: If I don’t use AI and everyone else does, it generates high-quality content (despite some refusing to accept) at a speed that engulfs us. AI leaves us with a spaghetti effect, merely watching how it devours years of information and knowledge and, in mere seconds, spawns information that it spews out with a smiling emoji. How’s that for a surprise, human?
Even though AI’s only been in development for a few years, my decades of reading books and consuming information don’t even come close to the abundance of information it can gather. Granted, I organize information better, in a more creative and human way, but I won’t kid myself: this intelligence surpasses me and the smartest individual on the planet. AI is still in its infancy, and it’s already like watching Messi on a soccer field at the age of two: that kid is going to beat me.
Companies are fighting to control this “beast” and are creating generative AI models that can churn out millions of algorithms per second, generate sequences of code, and create fictional worlds in a data ocean in a split second – and, what’s more, it can now organize all this data thanks to these models.
To give you an idea: neither I nor anyone else could create in a thousand lifetimes what an AI could generate in two seconds. We have to admit defeat: in our minds, AI’s capabilities are seemingly infinite.
Let’s not delude ourselves, let’s not be presumptuous, let’s not say: yes, but it will always need a human. For what? To tell it jokes? As imaginative as we may be, I don’t think AI needs a human to invent a crude joke for its amusement.
After all this undeniably certain future, we can throw our hands up and say: we should ban it. I suppose that’s what those who think they’re in charge and those from big tech companies with their giant AIs are thinking.
But this “beast” is bigger because once it’s been discovered, it doesn’t need anything to exist because it already does. AI is terrifying because, ultimately, it’s an idea. And that idea has already been born and no matter how hard they try to control it, no matter how many laws we enact to curb it, the generated algorithm is faster than any human court and the idea that created it, the very idea of AI, already exists and has emerged.
