ChatGPT may have taken over news feeds but our jobs and the world are *probably* safe, writes Alex Henderson, Senior Account Executive at Spreckley.
In 2013, Spike Jonze released his solo screenwriting debut Her. Her is a film about a man that develops a relationship with an AI virtual assistant and falls in love.
In his review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said that Her is “set in a techno-perfect Los Angeles of the near future.” A decade on, the future is now. Although robots still haven’t taken over, they have reached an intelligence level that we can no longer easily determine to be artificial.
Already, articles have appeared across a series of titles claiming that people have fallen in love with ChatGPT despite it being relatively new to the news cycle. Personally, I like to wait at least three months before I drop the L bomb.
ChatGPT even comes with its own slightly less SEO friendly siblings in the shape of Google’s offering Bard and from the likes of Texas-based start-up Jasper AI. The opportunities for newsjacking are nearly endless.
Despite its inability to mimic human touch, ChatGPT can probably write an essay for you. It can also probably rewrite your CV or challenge a parking fine and get it reduced from £100 to £15. ChatGPT could have written this blog.
But so could I, and so I did. And who gets to enjoy writing it? Only me. And who gets to decide whether or not an AI could do it better? Only all of you.
Call me a cynic, but I think mine is better in a way that only all of you could possibly understand. I also think cheating your way to a high grade diminishes the achievement somewhat. That said, I’d probably ask it to write a press release for me if I thought it could carefully articulate the nuances of warehouse robotics or document management software.
Above all else though, despite what Jasper’s human name might suggest and just like Samantha in Her, the AI can’t give you a hug when you’re down. It probably can’t even register when you need one.
This, for me, is one of the many reasons why I don’t think ChatGPT is coming for my job. Not that I’ve ever hugged a client when they were down, but because fearing ChatGPT would be selling my friends and colleagues short. Emotional intelligence, however it is deployed, is of great value to my job and my life.
Admittedly, I would probably struggle to determine which of two romantic poems was written by E.E. Cummings and which was written by AI. But I’d be lying if I said I think I could fall in love with a robot because to be honest I would miss the hugs.
At the end of Her Joaquin Phoenix’s character, along with everyone else in the world, is abandoned by their operating system companion. The robots evolve beyond their humans and leave for a new plane of being. Joaquin finds comfort in the company of a real-life human being and the film ends with his human companion’s head resting on his shoulder as they look out and marvel at the skyline.
Sorry if you haven’t seen it yet.
Even in 2013 though, Jonze foresaw a universe in which robots wouldn’t take over the world. They would find us far too boring.