ChatGPT Should Not Exist
It Isn’t Just Bias and Threats to Creative Livelihoods. Generative AI Is Built on Nihilism. Its Real Product Is Despair.
Every month it seems we are greeted by news of the launch of yet another artificial intelligence tool that simulates human creativity. These tools are usually lumped together under the heading of Generative AI. The latest is ChatGPT, a text-producing engine that generates remarkably human-sounding English. There are many reasons to be very concerned about Generative AI. But some of the major questions surrounding it need to be asked more publicly. When we look at the justifications developers give for pursuing these projects, we find them embracing a profound nihilism on the one hand, and offering no coherent reason for being on the other.
As they have with other Generative AI programs like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, creators have raised alarms about the technology. Some of their worries have to do with replacing their jobs — jobs which, it should be noted, are generally among the kinds of work that people enjoy doing and, presuming they are properly compensated, derive significant satisfaction from doing. Some have to do with consumers of the simulated product confusing it with work by human beings. Some have to do with students and others substituting the AI product when human work is required, especially in higher education.
