ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

 What could possibly go wrong? No worries, folks Big Tech has got you covered. Can't write a complete sentence? Tech has got you covered. Artificial Intelligence is purporting to be the great 21st Century blessing to mankind. It can drive your car, write your term paper, guide your drone. It can even help maga to rite gooder. Or so we are told. 

Here's the problem; there's no responsible human in this operation and I'm not convinced that machines can be relied on for compensation when they mess up. I do admit that finding responsible humans in the tech industry is an extraordinary challenge. And they have not yet achieved a perfect record. Will they ever? Technology billionaires are confident they will. Technology billionaires stand to be well compensated by success in those fields. Those of us who remember watching 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY, possibly stoned, remember the HAL 9000 computer. And we can't get that warning out of our minds. Of course many of us struggle in the shallow end of the computer pool.

It is possible to believe we can expect this new technology to be very reliable, possibly quite soon. But there are areas where we can expect AI to not be up to the task. Let's start with AI vocalizations. We have all heard podcasts where the activated voice stumbles over word combinations where voice inflection is important, in the same way that auto-correct mispells duck. For the last nearly hundred years people have been combining voices and microphones. Actors made decent money at this. Perfecting it so that we the listeners can feel that we are conversing with the audio or televised voice, minus the swearing. But that is changing. Today a computer nerd types in an algorithm and a voice emerges where the tone and timbre, even the sex are digitally manipulated to appear as a familiar human. The resulting program "learns" from its mistakes. To date that is more promise than reality. For the business, this is a windfall. For the actor, it is devastating. 

Digital video manipulation is even more complex than the audio algorithm. I have been familiar with George Will since that far-off time when I used mascara on my barely discernable mustache. George Will is the image of a controlled, rational delivery of political conservatism. You might not agree with him but you know you can trust him to use judgement, not judgementalism. His dour Visage was on multiple news feeds for decades and he never seemed to develop an ego, like Sean Hannity. He could, in a relaxed moment, Crack a smile but our expectation was that his smile would crack. I watch him today on the occasional podcast. George, digital enhancement is not your friend. Your voice does not reflect the long career of working with words. The shine on one side of your widows-peak moves in tandem with the shine on the other side. Your eyebrows move in tandem with the wrinkles on your forehead.  Cheek wrinkles do not move in a believable way. Please, George, make your presentations before a camera in your own person. 

Another favorite example is Rachel Maddow. I have carried a crush for her since she appeared on Air America, back in the '90s. I have listened to her, read her books, and otherwise followed her career. She's as close to the real deal as a human being can get. So it is even more disappointing to see her presence in the blogosphere as digitally-enhanced image and voice. And she's reliably progressive. Or she was. Her AI version makes me suspicious. Which is another thing that makes me uncomfortable. How do we know which digitized image of whoever, is the authorized version, if some Geek can punch in a bunch of keys to make something out of nothing? Does George Will or Rachel or even a worthless POS like Sean Hannity get royalties from this use of their image? Their voices? We can't know for sure and it's not likely that the news industry under billionaire ownership cares too awfully much about veracity. 

This is where we are. People have been berating the MSN or mainstream news since Rush Limbaugh appeared on the airwaves. Not surprisingly these attacks have benefitted the weakest form of news, the news that is fake but believed by anyone stupid enough to be maga. People whom we have grown to trust are still there, but now we scrutinize their Visage for fear that they might be an image which someone has digitally compromised. People who we might not respect become more visible and way too well paid. Because it is most profitable for the news to fit what management needs to print, rather than all the news that's fit to print. 

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