Remember when AI was used to generate a George Carlin comedy routine? That didn’t happen. Generative AI isn’t that good.

After the George Carlin’s estate sued, a representative of the show admitted that it was human-written. The claim that is was produced by an AI trained on Carlin’s material appears to be far from the truth, and rather used as a way to garner attention.

Cory Doctorow frequently reminds us that these stories of magical AI is peddled by both boosters and critics. Critics of AI make the mistake of also assuming that AI is this good, and talk about it as bad use of AI. This unnecessarily inflates the idea that AI can do things that it really can’t, adding fuel to magical thinking.

It’s probably a good idea to more often question if AI is even in the picture, given how effective it has become as a marketing vehicle. Was there AI involved? Perhaps, but not to the extent that salespeople would have you imagine

And yes, there's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype.” A term coined by Lee Vinsel. Read more in Doctorow’s blog post, as always littered with further reading:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

#Critihype #DigitalEthics #AIEthics