This is a Test!

Is the following essay Chatbot or human writing?

Is the following essay Chatbot, or human writing?:

“Chatbot ain’t got nothin’ in me.”  With that, you pretty much already know this essay is by a real person, because Chatbot would never say “ain’t” and “nothin’”.  Chatbot would not be so crass as to use slang expressions, because its programmers are not so crass.  Also, Chatbot would not use slang expressions because its programmers aren’t creative writers.  Its programmers are rules followers, systems functionaries, and group-thinkers.

 I’ve been verbally transcribing a book, Solomon Northup’s “Twelve Years a Slave.” You should at least have heard of it (The BOOK, for Gawdssake, not the movie!).  Solomon Northup was an actual black freeman, kidnapped into slavery in 1841.  He wrote a book about it, published in 1853.  (Solomon did NOT make the movie, in 2013.  Don’t see the movie, read the book.)

So, is this essay about Chatbot, or about Solomon Northup?  It’s about Chatbot.  Ok, and a few other things, as well.  (That’s another way you can tell me from Chatbot; I’ve been known to digress.)  I cite Solomon’s book to make a point about AI.  I was verbally transcribing it into Word.  I found out that, when you say “Negro”, Word types out “*****”.  That means that some geek who has probably never read anything from the nineteenth century, took it upon himself to not let Word type out Negro.  I could type it in myself, but Word would not transcribe it from the verbal input.  Somehow, according to artificial intelligence, that makes the world a better, kinder place.  But, at least I got “*****”.  That must be good for something, right?  Do you know what happens when you verbally transcribe “N-word”?  Nothing.  Not even “*****”.  Nothing.  Like the word doesn’t exist.  Like it’s never been said.  Like it doesn’t appear frequently in Solomon’s book.  Oh, and when you say “squaw”, you get more of “*****”.   “Bondage” gets, you guessed it, “******”. So, apparently, AI programmers see being kinder and gentler as being superlative to being historically accurate. No, thanks, guys, I’ll take historically accurate.

Would you believe I’m this far into this, and I have yet to get to my main point?  Here it is: The wonders of the internet and instant information are not making us smarter.  It is not even making us better educated.  It is turning us into subsets of Chatbot.  We are given precise parameters, in which we are free to say as we please, as long as we say only what we’ve been programmed to say. Years ago, I went to college.  Plato was a personal friend.  OK, not THAT long ago. Some of my teachers would start the semester off by telling us that all opinions were welcome, and to not be afraid to express them.  I quickly learned that THOSE teachers were by far the most repressive.  The teachers who truly favored free expression apparently felt it was so obvious, there was no need to say so.

Today’s schools think they are very expansive intellectually, but are they? You can decide for yourself if you want to say capitalism is the worst thing that ever happened; or would you rather state that systemic racism is worse? Just be very careful expressing a view that is contrary to “accepted” ideology.   It’s a free world, sure, you decide.  Just don’t decide to develop your own thoughts or set your own standards.  There are LIMITS, you know.

So, all of the above was written by a real person. And now, here’s my real person’s impersonation of Chatbot:

“There are many factors involved in climate change, but experts universally agree that humans are responsible for all of it.  It is impossible to say how much longer we have to live, but if we do not build and install many more solar panels and windmills by 2035, we are all likely to die by the year 2000.  But it is not as grim as it sounds.  If we all work together to stop the evil advancement of capitalism, we can all hope to achieve social justice in time for the next episode of ‘Stranger Things.’ People have power, and if we all sing together, we will be heard.”

So, in conclusion, (I knew I’d find my way here, sooner or later):

People are concerned that Chatbot and other AI is developing to the point of being indistinguishable from human writing.  I have no such concern.  My concern is, human writing is degenerating to the point of being indistinguishable from AI.