HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!

In 2023 AI will become a part of all of us in ways big and small. In schools, teachers will have a hard time distinguishing student written essays from essays written with prompts using Open AI's Chat GPT. Internet searches will become more conversational with written responses to questions rather than a simple list of links. And people who love images, like me, will spend hours upon hours creating and modifying them with AI assistance (and a bit of photoshop).

The image above was created using open AI's DALL-E-2 (with a bit of photoshop). My prompt was, “tornado of artificial intelligence code inserted into top of smiling man's head, digital art." It was my 19th prompt. My first prompt was, “internet being dumped into an open human skull, digital art.” The image, as you can see below, wasn't right for a Happy New Year message (although it is pretty cool).

I feel for people who earn a living as illustrators. With DALLE-2 I can now create images to illustrate blog posts and web pages and brochures on my own for next to nothing.

Chat GPT will be doing the same thing for written content. Already there are numerous services promising to automate blog posts using AI. In the not too distant future there will surely be services that write patent applications, resumes, college essays, coding and more with AI assistance. All manner of white collar work will be affected, from insurance to medicine to code writing, law and investing.

AI will make automated chatbots even more persuasively human. The answering service business will probably change into an app we can add to our websites in 5 minutes at a cost of $15/month for unlimited calls. That will save money and cost jobs at the same time. On the purely plus side, customer service should become a lot better.

AI will surely affect our lives in ways we can't anticipate.

Nine years ago I wrote a New Year's Eve blog post about the Singularity, the idea that humans will eventually merge with the digital world and a new and unknowable reality will come to be. I now think that's less likely. Playing with DALLE-2 and Chat GPT I am clearer than before that even as the digital world and the animal and human world grow closer, even as digital creatures evolve and come to walk the earth and share lives with us, humans and animals will remain distinct.

Once again I'll end with the timeless and universal words of Buckaroo Banzai:

"No matter where you go, there you are."

Happy New Year!
- Mike Marks