Western Civilization Deserves A.I. Or, Sellout While You Still Can

Storming past the final gatekeeper

Cat King Coal

Even though I choose to live under a rock, I’m aware that Artificial Intelligence has been much in the news lately. Specifically, the availability of ChatGPT has caused at least a minor tsunami of response from Western society, ranging from awe and wonder to despair and doomsday predictions for ordinary human-powered services and industry. This issue has a great deal of relevance to me since I earn a living through a combination of copywriting, insurance production, and creative writing.

As anyone who knows me would instantly guess, I’m not a fan of A.I. After all, this newsletter is called Tactical Luddite, for crying out loud! I’ve never been interested in technological inventions and innovations. I enjoy rotating my head and trunk to verify it’s safe to back out of my driveway, thank you very much.

So, in the interest of full disclosure, I have a negative take on the import of A.I. However, my critique is more about the human factors that have created a demand for the kind of generative A.I. technology embodied by ChatGPT; i.e. I have no specific beef with A.I. in and of itself, so perhaps that will come as a surprise to some of you.

When I told my wife about my concept for this piece, she sighed and said, “I can’t wait,” in a how-long-before-my-execution kind of voice. We dissolved into laughter and an affectionate embrace because this simple exchange encapsulates so much of why we love each other (no kidding, this really happened; truthfully, we were both sick at the time, so she wasn’t at the top of her game).

Herein, then, is the introduction to my discourse on how the breaking down of gatekeeping, and the subsequent loss of gatekeepers, set in motion the drive to “creative” A.I. we’re witnessing today.

About A.I. (From An Amateur)

Since I am both ignorant of and apathetic towards A.I. and ChatGPT, I had to do a bit of research to write this entry in Tactical Luddite. However, before I began my research, I had already formed a few conclusions about the technology that appear to be correct. Namely, ChatGPT and other generative A.I. technologies parse an enormous body of language to learn how humans tend to communicate. Through this learning, these A.I. technologies can predict how an average human would respond to a prompt. These A.I. bots are unable to create; they repurpose and emulate.

Now, I’m certain that what I’ve said thus far is overly simplistic; it’s probably open to challenge on the technical front. For those of you who want a relatively easy to understand primer on what it’s all about, I recommend this article from Zapier; in further disclosure, this was my sole source of research into the more technical aspects of ChatGPT.

For the rest of this issue, I’ll be assuming that the output of these programs is what the bots believe people want to read/see/hear.

Why (Some) People Are Scared Of A.I.

For those of you who aren’t in the writing or “content creation” industries, you might wonder why any of this matters at all. Well, let me tell you, a lot of people are terrified about this technology. Not in an existential, machines becoming our masters kind of way, but in the good old-fashioned “these programs are going to steal my livelihood” kind of way.

Yes, people, writers especially, are worried that they’ll be out of work, replaced by A.I. powered chat bots. I do enjoy the self-centeredness of these concerns. To give two specific examples, copywriters are concerned that marketers will be able to write advertising copy with the help of chat bots (omitting the services of the copywriter), and self-published authors (and perhaps some traditionally published writers as well) worry that entire stories, books, etc. can be created, for free, and sold to the reading public (omitting the services of the creative writer).

I believe both of these concerns are valid.

I am in a number of writer-focused groups on social media, and the number of posts either declaring that A.I. is the end of the world, or asking if such is the case, is immeasurable.

I’m also in several insurance production groups, and the number of posts declaring or describing how tools like ChatGPT will allow any agent to easily write content and advertising copy for free is likewise immeasurable.

While it has often been the case in history that people worry about the wrong thing, I think it is at least likely that most businesses ultimately try to use these lower cost tools to handle their advertising writing. In lieu of paid human writers and marketers. As these tools continue to improve, non-writing humans will be impacted as research and other tasks are delegated to the A.I. tools. What these displaced humans will do next is an unresolved question.

If you’re like me, the very notion of a computer program developing an advertising slogan, story, song, or performing a job otherwise done by a human is not only annoying, but somehow depressing. It’s difficult to put my finger on it, but I think my depression takes this form: a disappointment that so many humans are evidently so desirous of entertainment / time-and-thought-occupation that they don’t care where it comes from, or whether or not it was the result of “flesh and blood” purposefully creating something that in some way, shape, or form expresses to the consumer some part of themselves. Absent this, “realness,” you’re simply vegging-out with the fruit of a sterile machine learning optimized algorithm; human connection is absent.

In short, my thesis is that ChatGPT and the gang represent the ultimate “race to the bottom” or “race to the lowest common denominator” of direct to consumer commerce. This has been happening for quite a while now, and is best represented by self-publishing (primarily through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing), independent music recording, publishing, and distribution, algorithm-based scrolling video and image apps like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, and streaming television, best embodied by Netflix.

Now, despite my curmudgeonly instincts, I’m not 100% opposed to any of these processes or opportunities; they do, after all, flow from the entrepreneurial drive of human beings and in some ways come from a (relatively) free market, which things I approve. Therefore, since I myself partake of, and benefit from, these disruptions, I won’t be railing against them per se. Instead, in Part Two of this note, I will shed some light on how facilitating individuals’ direct interaction with what are nowadays called “content creators” has led us to the point where there is a real possibility that computer generated content will replace the creative work of human beings. I’ll also touch on why now is the time to sellout creatively if you’re a writer.

A Brief Update, Or What’s Been Happening For The Last Nine Months?

After writing a tribute to our late cat, Sparkle Princess in June, many things transpired in a whirlwind of activities that interfered with my writing. Here is a quick highlight reel, in no particular order:

• The arrival of our friends from San Diego for a wonderful visit together here in Hilton Head and Orlando

• A large writing project in the Medicare content space

• The Medicare Annual Election Period (AEP), which was very robust for me, thankfully!

• Several bouts of illness for myself, my wife, and our two children

• The visit of my cousin and his daughter, which coincided with Hurricane Ian passing near our coast

• Purchasing a sailboat, in partnership, and sailing it from Southport, NC to Hilton Head in an epic, and divinely blessed, 38 hour adventure

• The arrival of our new cat, Coal, AKA Cat King Coal (pictured above), a rescue from the Hilton Head Humane Society

• The launch of a pen name (my wife and I as writers) in the self-published romance genre

Surely I’m forgetting many eventful episodes, but I also want to mention that Facebook/META dropped below my optimal purchase price of $130, so I purchased it at $100.59 in October 2022. As of today, the price has more than doubled from there, which is fabulous.

Less fabulous has been the performance of Ruger (RGR), which was the first stock highlighted in Tactical Luddite. Since purchasing it at $68.88, it has dropped to $54.80. Mitigating this unpleasantness is the fact that the S&P is down about 6% over the same time period, so I’m not too stung by this; plus the performance of Facebook has far outweighed the decline in RGR. On the whole, the Tactical Luddite portfolio is up a tick over 99% since March 10, 2022.

Next week I will wrap up my diatribe against independent publishing in all its forms, and future issues may touch on the ongoing banking crisis, such as it is, as well as a long-awaited critique on Big Data.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think of A.I. in the comments - or simply reply to the email with your comments.

Thank you!

Joe