Chat GPT is here for us.
ChatGPT can probably write this essay with perhaps more quality and depth than I ever can. Though the technology looks like magic now, I can only imagine the upcoming implosion of its adoption, making many jobs and hobbyist pursuits irrelevant, why even try if a simple prompt in a computer can produce the same results?
The age of user generated writing and art on the internet might be nearing an end to be replaced by a dedicated AI assistant that does our job of expressing what we feel. The technology demonstrates that human language processing isn't as complex as thought before, which can both be a cause of concern and rejoicing. The burden of being the perfect animal is thus removed from us, we are at the apex, but our individual selves are not as unique as we'd imagine it to be. A future where shells of AI of our personalities talk with each other into perpetuity (have to pay for a subscription before of course) no longer is confined to the seams of a Ray Bradbury novel.
While the fear of ChatGPT replacing white collar workers is true, how the modern workforce will change is only up for imagination. Thirty years ago most of the world would've scoffed that our desks will be shrunk to the size of a computer screen and communication be made so seamless, sitting in the same vantage point now the next 30 years looks fuzzy enough to be magical. The point remains that technological advances have not obliterated human labor changed forms to that a worker from 200 years ago will have nothing in common with the worker of today (elements of class struggle and owning means of production will be a common ground, which tells a thing or two about the nature of capitalism). The means of production will become even blurred as it replenishes the power of the big internet firms that already control our lives. Having a Ministry of Truth also becomes a possibility, as who will be the purveyors of truth in a world where information can be created on the go without human interference? For those who are not blessed with the gospel of machine learning, the new world will be inaccessible except for the pastors of engineering spewing the greatness of the Church of the Computer.
A storm is brewing right on the screens you're reading this essay, where the course of our lives go from here is left to the algorithm.