“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute.” Captain Beatty, Fahrenheit 451

Casey Gilfillan

I find myself wondering what kind of questions people might ask an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. I find myself wondering what unanswered questions I have, unattainable through Google or physical research, that a bot trained by humans with knowledge known and established by humans would have and humans would not. I find myself intrigued by the notion that some would be more inclined to speak with this manifestation of personhood than refer to a reliable human source. Some people, a lot of people evidently, would rather speak to this impersonal superficiality of a ‘being’ than with someone who, either through your independent relationship or association with a specific institution, you already have established trust in. Confidence, faith founded upon authentic process, are sacrificed instantly for the lust of convenience and exploitation.

edit my resume / write a 5 page paper on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / find a recipe that includes lemon and eggplant / what is the meaning of life / summarize this concept / summarize this book / how do I prepare for an interview / write a poem based on the second world war / write a song / draw a picture / tell me a joke

I don’t know all the ways Chat GPT or other AI-based models work, I don’t even know what to properly refer to them as, generically speaking. I don’t really think that’s important. I do know the important things about these platforms; I know how they are amplifying the speed at which we are killing the planet. Spewing out carbon dioxide, exsanguinating the world’s water supply one low-hanging fruit of a question at a time, they are beasts of immense burden. The waste they excrete and the natural resources they require alone should render them illegal on account of environmental toxicity. Yet they are not, even as people die every day in desperate need of basic resources, people who would be grateful for just one sip of the hundreds of thousands of liters of water used to cool the servers. And all of this for what? It’s quite embarrassing. These AI institutions weigh heavily upon us, diluting the content of knowledge, media, and information as well as our ability to engage in the process of understanding and knowing these things on our own. Without them being presented on the silver platter by bots that are systemically flawed and continue to prove this with incongruencies of objectivity and aesthetic. Without the information being instantaneously delivered to you for regurgitation, only for the information to be whisked just as effortlessly from your memory. In our rejection of learning and pedestalization of the artificial, we become untethered to the very knowledge we feed it, and subsequently to the culture itself. We are alienating ourselves from our very humanity, outsourcing our knowledge-acquisition, creative expression, and critical thought. Google wasn’t enough? You need someone to hold your hand the whole way through?

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A man brings his cat to the vet. The cat is stable, bright and alert, but the cat is skinny. It isn’t quite emaciated, but the fur clings a little too well. The fur outlines, in great detail and shadow, the bony, thoracic crevices; the curvature and spacing of the ribcage. The cat presents for weight loss observed over the span of several months.

The doctor examines the cat and recommends diagnostics, starting with a blood test. The doctor explains that if this pursuit does not beget answers, the next recommendation would be an ultrasound. The man nods along, agreeable to the cost and seemingly unburdened with follow-up questions, like what it could be or if this is common for a cat this age or even what specifically the blood test checks for. The doctor is thorough but people usually want the dialogue, it helps them feel better about proceeding.

The cat is lifted off the table and moved for the blood test. As the cat is being carried off, the man softly says, laughing almost, “Chat GPT said you would say exactly what you said.”