I love a good fad and thinking about the future. I also work in an organization called Applied AI.
Naturally, I have been fascinated by the recent advances in generative AI. This feels like the most interesting thing to happen in tech in awhile.
Generative AI immediately makes me think of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation. We are making rapid advances in our ability to (mass) produce synthetic content. Such content is already supplanting human-generated content. The nature of content will change. I don’t pretend to know how.
My employer has recently begun the dreaded Return To Office (RTO). The policy and the office itself also make me think of Baudrillard. The nature of my work will change, again, much to my chagrin.
Simulacra
Baudrillard talks about four stages of development of simulacra. First there are images that are easily recognizable as stand ins for something real. Next we begin to use images to alter how people understand reality. The relationship between image and reality breaks, and at this point images no longer need to refer to something specific and real. Finally, we reach pure simulacra where any given simulacrum has no relationship with the real. We are now in the era of hyperreality, where we base our lives on simulations without relationship to the real.
The example Baudrillard used that stuck in my head was the American chain restaurant styled as an Irish Pub. At the time that Simulacra and Simulation was published, such establishments had started to appear in Ireland for the first time. There are four-leaf clovers on the wall, lots of wooden furniture, dim lights, Guinness on tap, and shepherd’s pie and fish and chips on the menu. The pubs are not trying to be similar to any specific real place. They do make the public feel welcome and comfortable having drinks and overpriced, bland food. These places are easily recognizable and interpretable. Maybe slightly more so in the 80’s and 90’s than today. Great, now I feel like going to Stephen’s Green.
Baudrillard’s theory has been influential in postmodern thought, and it has been used to critique the way that our culture produces and consumes meaning. It suggests that we need to be more aware of the ways that simulations and copies have replaced reality, and that we need to be more critical of the images and symbols that we encounter in our daily lives.
Apologies for butchering that quick intro to Simulacra and Simulation. I relied on hazy, 25 year-old memories from when I was a student, wikipedia, a few first-page google links, and, of course, ChatGPT.
ChatGPT
It won’t surprise many of you to learn that the first draft of much of this post was written by ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI that uses natural language processing to understand and respond to user input. It is designed to simulate human-like conversation and provide helpful responses to a wide range of questions and topics.
ChatGPT is built on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture, which is a type of neural network that has been trained on large amounts of text data. This training allows ChatGPT to generate responses that are contextually relevant and grammatically correct.
Competitors to ChatGPT include Google’s Bard and Baidu’s Ernie. These services have been generating a ton of buzz. ChatGPT has become “the fastest-growing consumer internet app ever.” We are discussing how to use Bard at work.
Chatbots are but one form of generative AI. Craiyon generates images from text prompts. synthesia generates videos from text prompts.
Hyperreality
As ChatGPT bragged to me, the service has reached the point where it can be difficult to distinguish between the responses generated by ChatGPT and those produced by a human.
Huge volumes of chatbot-generated text will soon be published on the internet, if they haven’t already. This mass production of the simulation will degrade the real. It is already commonplace for motivated actors to use chatbot text to shape our discourse.
We are moving towards the hyperreal.
The next step in our Baudrillardian voyage will be text, images, and videos that no longer resemble the creations of a human today. 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001. I have no idea how this transformation happens or what the result will be. I don’t think that I have made a big leap in reasoning and yet I haven’t seen others write about this.
I have seen plenty of people write about how generative AI will put people out of work. This point of view seems historically illiterate to me. There will be so many opportunities for people to manage generative AI systems, predominantly in ways that don’t require a deep understanding of AI technologies and theory. There will also always be other productive ways to use human labor and thought. Disruption? Sure. Mass unemployment? I doubt it. But, yea, if I were a content creator, I’d start playing with generative AI.
The Office
The big news at work recently has been the closing of certain offices and the upcoming Return To Office. I have thoughts. You know I can’t resist drawing a weird connection or two.
Working from home has, in some respects, felt like being part of a simulation. For the last 3 years, almost all of my work communications have been via Zoom video chat and Slack instant messages. For the last 2 years, my colleagues and I have mostly kept our cameras off. It felt awkward and impersonal at first but now I wouldn’t go back. Well, I wouldn’t go back by choice, but lately it feels like the world is going back, ha! The cameras off informal policy lowered my stress levels and increased my productivity without really impacting social cohesion. But I have to say, I can imagine a chatbot connected to a voice synthesizer doing my job.
A chatbot can’t Return To Office. At least not yet.
The office is, of course, itself a simulation, a particularly vexing Irish pub. The executive class claim that RTO improves productivity but I haven’t seen any real evidence to support the claim. It definitely improves the appearance of work.
We all have stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and one of mine is that I’m good at the work but not good at generating the appearance of work. My Spanish teacher was shocked that I was a National Merit Finalist. I have gotten some of my best performance reviews while working from home and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I am the best chatbot. I wonder how many other people feel something similar.
Tech workers skew young. Many of my colleagues have never worked in an office. They are also part of Gen Z, which famously struggles with face-to-face interactions. It will be fascinating to see how they handle RTO.
Personally, I’m going to start working on an AI that can generate the appearance of being a good office worker.
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