At this years Hay Festival Tim Minchin said in an interview: "That's AI slop... but let's call art what humans do". He told Anna Foster that AI has no place in art as art 'has intention'. The problem is that AI has the intention of its programmers. What is that intention? Has anyone asked? I don't use it (more later) but I am told it tries to be helpful. It will invent court cases for lazy barristers, take drivers who have forgotten how to read a map, into the sea, and much more. Is this a latter day Little Red Riding story that ends with "Oh Grandma, what big teeth you've got"?
At the start of the World Wide Web I learned programming, HTML and Pearl, and made web sites. With 32k modems we had to create using small everything. Pictures were rigorously indexed to reduce their bit size. Code was written with as few lines as possible. There is an old saying that rubbish expands to fill the available space, Looking at the coding of modern web sites astonishes me. What I would have written in a paragraph is now at least a page. Verbosity seems a by product of AI - is it to deflect our attention? My local surgery's AI sorting programme (Yes I know they call it Triage I prefer English) is a minefield for the uninitiated,. Choose one of their categories and most likely you will be told to go to a pharmacy. Ignore and choose, "Not Listed" and there's a chance of getting at a GP. The last question is "What would you like us to do?" I try to avoid answering stupid questions, however this may simply be a Market Research Ploy. 90% of respondents said ....
As an author I try very hard to block any form of AI. It will, if you let it, splatter your work with punctuation marks and change singular to plural and vice versa. The problem is that there are many, including foreign students, who will assume that AI knows best, posing a serious problem for the future of our language. Worse, from my point of view, is the offer to 'Summarise' content. At school I was taught and enjoyed Precise. It was necessary to read and understand a piece before condensing it. This was invaluable when I began work in commerce. Words cost money in cables and my strict first boss would hand back a draft with 'Half' written on it. Verbosity costs money and its aim is to confuse.
My latest book, Parliament, Privilege and the People required hours of research over more than two years. I could have used AI which I'm sure would have invented all sorts of stuff that never happened. I read everything and used my long training to, where necessary, condense the information. As the author I had to understand the Anglo-Saxon laws that were the basis of Magna Carta. I needed to identify the origins of the Religious and Elite refusal to re-instate common law rights for all.
AI written books and articles are increasingly prevalent without any identification. As a result, authors have decided to identify themselves. The Society of Authors in partnership with the US Authors Guild has launched the Human Authored scheme. Members can use the scheme logo to identify themselves as human authors. For those who care about a human future this is an important step. I am happy to be part of it. Others should follow the example.
Parliament, Privilege and the People will be published on Monday 15th June and can be pre-ordered from Blackwells