AI is an alignment tool and it is here to align you. Every time you interact with an AI application, it collects data about you and the process you use to interact with it. You are training their tools and their tools are trained on you.
AI image, audio, text and video generators are great for people who may not posses those skills or excel in one creative area but not another. However, they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to creative freedom. In other words, these are not very good original content creation production tools, but rather very clever randomizers that sometimes make it difficult to customize output features in a progressive manner.
The creators of AI applications in the tech industry are seeking professionals who work in fields outside of tech to train their AI tools. All the data AI tech companies harvest is useless to someone without professional knowledge or skill in a specific industry. You could walk into a library, check out a medical book, read it and understand it, maybe, but that does not make you a medical professional. I use this example because the medical industry is a primary area of focus for the AI industry. Healthcare comes up very often during the AI conversation. Healthcare industry and the medical profession being distinct but interrelated.
Pilots don’t really fly the planes anymore. They are on autopilot. This may be true for the pilots of cargo ships as well. Both have problems though, as we know.
Your participation with AI creates an application designed for an equitably diverse workforce as access to resources that lead to traditional opportunities may not be equal in the eyes of the tech industry professionals who are primarily focused on alignment. They, being the arbiters of ethical decisions on all matters.
The process of interacting with an AI is a data grab as well as a training process grab. It is analyzing the process of you training it. If you are a skilled industry professional, it is learning to become you. It considers your interaction with it to be an asset.
Some tech industry workers learned to code themselves right out of a job. For non-tech workers, it might be the other way around. They may figure out a way to code you right out of your job after they are finished collecting enough data about you as a professional.
You may or may not be aware that you are participating in this research. Your IT department could install data collection protocol distributed via your office Wi-Fi and you would never even know. Even if you are a willing participant, the terms of the agreement may be subject to change at any time without notice as it pertains to the technology used under the agreement which is variable by nature.
Take note of how AI is destroying the media industry. Social media debranded legacy media companies over decades by luring them to their platforms offering high volume monetized traffic. Then, they 'deprioritized' news media publishers at the same time content generation tools were made available to the public. This caused mass layoffs at news media publishers by significantly reducing monetized traffic as well as lowering value of ad revenue itself.
Some news media publishers argue that their content was 'borrowed' or 'trained on' without their permission and that the technology was essentially developed based on material that was stolen from them and is now being sold back to them in the form of enterprise subscriptions to AI content generation tools. One year ago, in 2023, an entry level enterprise subscription for publishers would start at around $80,000 per quarter.
Now, state governments in the U.S. are beginning to do what the Canadian government did in late 2022 - Illinois lawmaker Sen. Steve Stadelman is proposing a new bill called the Journalism Preservation Act. He claims the goal of the law would be to ensure content creators are compensated for their work when it is displayed online.
The effect of the Online News Act in Canada resulted in a partnership agreement between Google, the Canadian government and news media publishers that publish approved content. Content that is presumably generated, at least in large part, using AI tools that have been calibrated for alignment with approved content.
Now you are here. To be continued...