The Question is Not “Who,” Rather “What”
By Vittoria Satterlee
AI is Artificial Intelligence, an emphasis on the artificial. There is no “who” behind the screen answering test questions, telling its users what to purchase for their father’s birthday, or synthesizing textbook information. Only a “what” provides these answers on the other side. What is Artificial Intelligence, and how can it mimic human emotions/connection while having no meaningful identity?
Artificial Intelligence is truly the best of everyone. It is the most complex theories, the most expansive vocabularies, and the most advanced form of any content ever created. Parts of nearly every individual make up these platforms, but only the best parts, only what is available to steal. Artificial Intelligence is composed of accessible ideas, answers, choices, stories, anecdotes, and phrases. If AI is the best of society, “what” does this superior version of the world look like? This prime version of a society, Artificial Intelligence lurks as a villain with no address, and no identity of its own, waiting to prey upon the thoughts, feelings, and identities of others to enrich itself. An ominous enemy with no home to return to, no lives to interact with, a faceless and lifeless figment of reality with only the traits of those it has leeched off of. A stolen face knows no creativity and offers no unique perspective, rather, it steals all of its knowledge and presents it on a platter of deception.
Interacting with any human being involves the sharing of experiences with one another. Perhaps Tammy had an unfortunate near-death experience with the local Ride-On Bus, or Marshall got into an argument with his fiance after he slept through their engagement party. Real people live real lives, and they endure real-life experiences riddled with failure, success, drama, and mundanity. Artificial Intelligence, however, does not live a life. It has had no near-death experiences with a Ride-On-Bus, it has never slept through its own engagement party, it has not even so much as breathed an atom of oxygen. Artificial Intelligence is a vampire to the lives it is able to claw at through a screen, it has not lived or experienced anything, and with no identity of its own, can only leech onto the stories and lives and thoughts of those who are real. Anything artificial will never be real, and perhaps it is against nature to believe otherwise. There is no “who” answering the questions it’s asked, merely a “what” that has stolen from the minds, stories, emotions, and experiences of others and falsely presented this grandeur palette of genius as its own knowledge.
This “what” is nothing, it knows nothing. There is nothing real about AI answers or conversations, they are merely artificial, fictitious, and unreal answers to whatever question its users may have. AI has lived no life, it has no identity, no story—it is no one being, but rather, an amalgamation of beings. A platform where everything is unlived, and perhaps that is enough for whoever decides to engage with a faceless void. But it is not real.
