In the age of AI, a question does come to mind: Why write at all? After all, a computer can pull information together in seconds that would take me months or years to compile, and it can then put that information into a reasonably coherent form. So why bother with the long-term effort of putting a book together, especially when that effort gets little respect from many people (especially those enamored with AI's potential for producing content cheaply) and sees very little in the way of financial reward?
Don't get me wrong; AI is a marvelous tool with tremendous potential. But AI has a number of serious limitations. Its performance depends on the parameters built in by its basic algorithms, which were put together by brilliant but fallible human beings; even though AI systems can evolve and adapt without further human input, they remain limited by their basic design. AI's accuracy and reliability depend on the data it is able to access, and most of the AI systems available to the public do not limit their data sources to experts or foundational source materials; thus, they run into the same limitations as crowdsourced content, which provides a vast array of information drawn from a population's collective knowledge and experience but is all too often woefully short on even basic fact-checking and proofreading. Anyone who has spent time swearing at Wikipedia, Pedigree Query, and other open-sourced encyclopedias and databases for egregious errors that could easily have been caught with a bit of cross-checking knows what I mean. Even more exasperating (and sometimes rather frightening) is AI's tendency to "hallucinate" material to fill in what it doesn't actually "know"; these "hallucinations" are different from the types of errors introduced by failures in human memory and for that reason are difficult to predict or avoid.
Perhaps AI's greatest limitation is this: it does not know the difference between information and knowledge, let alone information and wisdom. Information, even when 100 percent accurate, is a collection of facts. Knowledge encompasses much more; it is facts plus meaning, which requires context, comprehension, experience, reflection, and sometimes insight. Wisdom adds another layer, that of the ability to consider consequences against transcendent standards and so to make moral choices regarding the use and application of knowledge, or to counsel others regarding those choices. Information by itself cannot build a civilization or a culture; transmitted knowledge and wisdom are part of the fabric that defines a society and binds it together, and that transmission requires caring about what gets passed on. AI doesn't care about anything; it just does what it does.
And that, I suppose, answers my question. I write because I do care: because I am a storyteller at heart and hope that something in the stories I pass on will resonate with others. Other writers, I suppose, have their own reasons for persevering; this one is enough for me.
Don't get me wrong; AI is a marvelous tool with tremendous potential. But AI has a number of serious limitations. Its performance depends on the parameters built in by its basic algorithms, which were put together by brilliant but fallible human beings; even though AI systems can evolve and adapt without further human input, they remain limited by their basic design. AI's accuracy and reliability depend on the data it is able to access, and most of the AI systems available to the public do not limit their data sources to experts or foundational source materials; thus, they run into the same limitations as crowdsourced content, which provides a vast array of information drawn from a population's collective knowledge and experience but is all too often woefully short on even basic fact-checking and proofreading. Anyone who has spent time swearing at Wikipedia, Pedigree Query, and other open-sourced encyclopedias and databases for egregious errors that could easily have been caught with a bit of cross-checking knows what I mean. Even more exasperating (and sometimes rather frightening) is AI's tendency to "hallucinate" material to fill in what it doesn't actually "know"; these "hallucinations" are different from the types of errors introduced by failures in human memory and for that reason are difficult to predict or avoid.
Perhaps AI's greatest limitation is this: it does not know the difference between information and knowledge, let alone information and wisdom. Information, even when 100 percent accurate, is a collection of facts. Knowledge encompasses much more; it is facts plus meaning, which requires context, comprehension, experience, reflection, and sometimes insight. Wisdom adds another layer, that of the ability to consider consequences against transcendent standards and so to make moral choices regarding the use and application of knowledge, or to counsel others regarding those choices. Information by itself cannot build a civilization or a culture; transmitted knowledge and wisdom are part of the fabric that defines a society and binds it together, and that transmission requires caring about what gets passed on. AI doesn't care about anything; it just does what it does.
And that, I suppose, answers my question. I write because I do care: because I am a storyteller at heart and hope that something in the stories I pass on will resonate with others. Other writers, I suppose, have their own reasons for persevering; this one is enough for me.