Why AI as it currently stands, isn't good

photo by Possessed Photography, Unsplash

I’ve been somewhat reticent about my feelings on AI because I believe that it doesn’t do any good to discredit something without first understanding it. But I have felt for a while that there is something deeply disturbing about the recent AI developments and all the hype. I’ve been digging around, looking at research, reading and watching pieces and come to some conclusions that I felt were important to highlight.


You can disagree with me or tell me I got things wrong. I also know people use AI for various reasons and I’m not looking shame anyone. I do believe AI is a useful tool, just not in the way it’s being promised to us.

• ChatGPT or Large Language Models (LLM) are not search engines
• LLMs use stolen work from writers and artists, creating existential risks to their job security
• We are vulnerable to believing LLM are sentient or correct because it can sound so coherent and that is a WAY bigger threat than robots taking over the world
• The term “AI” oversells the tech’s actual capabilities, resulting in bloated expectations with few ways to track results
• ChatGPT’s creators follow a doctrine of long-termism — a modern sci-fi belief that has its roots in Eugenics
• The letter that said we must stop AI work for 6 months is deeply flawed and may have been created to push long-termism beliefs and distract from today’s AI issues
• Filtering out content involving “child sexual abuse, bestiality, murder, suicide, torture, self-harm, and incest” in ChatGPT’s responses has required a massive amount of human underpaid labor
• Without regulation, LLMs can be used to contaminate the internet with non-content and spam making it a worse place to be and a worse place to find reliable and accurate information
• AI tools pose serious harm to marginalize communities (and the women who have been speaking up about it are all being shut down)

Obviously, this is all still super new, everything might change in six months but at this point, I just felt like it was important to list out these issues to fully come to terms with my icky feelings. Hopefully, this helps you too!

Also wanted to add two interviews from both sides that I think are best seen together:

Interview with the AI Ethicists who are calling out current issues with AI

Interview with the CEO of OpenAI calling AI the equivalent of a “Nuclear Bomb” but also that he wants it to be “free and accessible to everyone.”

Interview About Who Is Brown Girl?

Wow yeah, I was interviewed a while back about my story. If you're interested in how Brown Girl came into being here it is!

Interview with Isabella Kestermann: Winter 2019 Flash Fiction Contest Third Place

That Goddam Beauty Mark

“Sorry” I chest. I am sitting on the monarch sofa about to kiss my long-time beau. But seeing his lips pucker like a butterfly about to land on a flower and that goddam beauty mark, I know I have to say something.

“I don’t like the way things are” I look away as I say this. At some point, my lipstick cap had rolled onto the floor and tucked itself neatly between the neon pink shag carpeting.

“But that’s the way they are,” my beau says. His hand is still on my hand. He is wearing spiky red and black rings that make his thick fingers look like pasty hickory horned devils. Ominous.

“Hey,” He says, grabbing my face with one of those spiky hands. “Would you look at that.” That goddam beauty mark hovers just above his lips, twisting and warping as he speaks. Under the sound of Billy Holiday’s voice, I can hear the trickle of water coming from the aquarium. The filter must be on.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” What did I ever like in this man and his campy ways? His obsession with butterflies was enchanting at some point but not anymore. His living room overflowing with pupa paraphernalia clearly indicates he is lacking.

“It reminds me of something, though.” I know he is looking at my butterfly mark, a goddamn mark to match his own. This coy act of his, a subtle reminder of unity, has lost its charm long ago. It’s only a threat now and so is the history behind it. I can feel his blue eyes boring into my face, as though making a cigarette scar out of my butterfly.

“Do you remember,” He asks, letting my face go. “the house at the end of Ceder Street?” How could I forget? I knew him long before Ceder Street, but that was the day our lives were tied. The day the butterfly touched us. Now both our hairs have grayed and still, I can’t escape that fate.

“Yeah.” The Arowana swims in lazy circles in the aquarium. Its grim toothy look seems to be sending some sort of message. Perhaps it sees something I can’t. My beau’s breath weighs heavy on my neck.

“Why?” I feign innocence. I feel like a suspect in a cop show, dancing around facts we both know. This coy game of coy and koi and butterflies, how did we ever get this far? I’ve never been honest with him but this is the first time I feel like we’ve been talking in circles.

“No reason.” That goddamn beauty mark. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have to see mine just so I don’t have to see it get warped and twisted by old age and arrogance. He is not a beautiful as he used to be.

“Maybe I’d better just go home.” I smile feeling my own butterfly stretch in flight. The Arowana seems to agree.

I Won A Contest!

Hey All!  I won 3rd place in a flash fiction contest! You can read the winning story HERE (just scroll down till you see my face.)

An interview should be coming out shortly!

The City

The city was a pretty thing, even when it was half submerged in swamp water. Every building was made out of obsidian black, which glinted darkly in the sun and shone like tombstones in the mist. The people were also black, black clothes, black hair, black lips. The only thing that wasn’t black was their skin, which shone whiter then bleached bone. On good days, you could see the streets bustling with people getting to work, children to school, shopkeepers to their shop. The best day was always Halloween, when the city would set up competitions for the best costumes. The worst days would fill the city with mud and water. People dragged their feet to work, and some wouldn’t even try, falling into the mud and curling, curling, curling into themselves until they were nothing more then a fetus. Children would cry as they walk, their brown tears staining their cheeks and mothers would throw their handkerchiefs from the windows and watch them wash away in the water.  When night fell, fights would break out, friend against friend, wife against husband. Sometimes a person would jump, but most times people didn’t care enough. Then the sun would rise, and water would be gone, and the men would go out and shovel the mud. Sometimes a handkerchief would be found and a husband would wash out the stains and return it to his wife and for that moment things would be ok again.

Hello! I'm back again. Still trying to figure out what to put on this site but I'm working on it. Going to have a mixture of things, I think. Stay tuned!

Warmth

“The temperature dropped on Friday and ever since then I’ve been cold. But not the skin deep kind of cold, you know? It’s like something deep inside me froze and I’ve been breathing frost ever since.” Charlotte didn’t look at me as she said this, even as she handed me the next cup to dry.

“By Saturday I had to pull out my blankets and jacket just to keep myself from freezing over.” Her hands stopped moving in the sink. Her eyes staring out the window seem to take a forlorn look as though she was watching some bittersweet memory in the sky. I had been staying over at her place for the past two nights. Ever since she came back from her accident. Her family couldn’t afford to take her in but they also couldn’t afford to send her to the ER again if something happened. So they hired me as a stay at home nurse. Charlotte had been so sweet, so open to me. I wondered how long she had been living alone.

“I found his sweater,” she said. Her words were soft, private. I asked her to repeat them. “You know, the one with a red and yellow knit snowflakes with my name on the back? I didn’t even realize how bad of a knitter he was.” She lost me. I had never seen this sweater. She didn’t even seem to be talking to me now but rather to memory she was holding in the sky.

“To be honest I thought about putting it on. Just to, I don’t know, feel him again? But when I picked up the sweater I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” She held on to the words I couldn't, repeating it a few times to herself like a mantra. She turned back to the dishes, and started scrubbing hard at the pan. From the corner of my eye I noticed a small porcelain koi sitting on the windowpane.

“I think I was scared to.” Charlotte said, scrubbing even harder at the pan. I couldn’t even see the burn marks over the pile of soap sub she was making.

“He was so warm, you know? I remember we used to hold hands in bed. My hands were always cold, so when I grabbed his it would like grabbing fire. We used to look into each other’s eyes as we did this and just feel our hand temperatures equalize. Slowly, slowly, slowly, I would feel my hand melt in his, like snow in the sun. It was—“ She stopped scrubbing the pan. Outside a garbage truck was passing by stopping at every house, breaking up the peaceful solitude of the suburban neighborhood. Charlotte turned to me. Her eyes registered me now.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore," she said, rinsing the pan. 

"But wait, who was this?" I asked, upset that she ended her story so early. Charlotte wiped the pan dry with a dish towel and then put it away before she answered me. "Oh, just some boy I used to know.”

A Kir Royal

“So, do you want ice cream?” Shirtless asked. We were sitting in a bar, it was late at night, and almost everyone had gone home. The bartender was wiping down tables, collecting broken glasses off the floor and wounded soldiers from chairs and toilet seats. Who takes a drink to the bathroom? The man sitting next to me was shirtless and I may have been too drunk to decently say, but I thought he looked damn good like that. I would have asked him to come home with me but “home” was lacking a definition at the moment. In my hand was a Bloody Mary, half finished. The other half was sitting in my stomach, giving me the buzz I needed to chase away my thoughts until morning. I’m sorry, let me correct myself. It wasn’t a buzz. It was a horde of angry wasps. I didn’t want those thoughts to come back. Ever. I had walked into that bar with every intent to drink until I passed out and choked on my own vomit. And I was well on my way too, until some dumbass took my purse with every last remaining cent to my name. After that I just stared at the empty shot of tequila in my hand, willing the glass to refill itself so I could continue my suicide plan. The bartender offered to call the cops but what good would that do? There was only fifty bucks left anyway. Not even enough for a taxi fare to my parent’s house, not that I would want to go. The bartender gave me a Bloody Mary on the house. I could have laughed but I worried it would have turned into crying. So I just sat there for the rest of the night, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for my life to end, waiting for something to change. Then, shirtless dude showed up – and yes, he came through the door already shirtless. Shoeless too. I half expected the bartender to tell him to leave, but instead he threw the man a pair of flip-flops and told him to go wait at the bar. He sidled up to me, black hair, black skin, a six-pack of meat on his stomach. We eyed each other for a while, unsure of what to say, unsure if there was anything that needed to be said. His hair was covered in flowers, tiny blue forget-me-nots that trickled to the floor every time he moved. He looked young, in his early twenties at most. I wondered if he had been at some flower festival. I could almost see him dancing in a circle of people, making flower chains and friendship bracelets. The bartender came over and took his order, a Kir Royal. I was about to take another sip of my Bloody Mary when he turned to me and asked, “So, do you want ice cream?”