Musings from By The North’s CEO on Artificial Intelligence
Written by Taylor Devoe
This is a segment of Northern Musings, where we gather essays, journal-style articles, and personal perspectives that don’t fit neatly into any one category but always fit the spirit of the North. All musings are merely the opinions of By The North’s staff and/or contributors.
“Are we headed to a return to pen and paper? Are we rushing to a finish line we are unprepared for? A finish line we shouldn’t want to get to? Am I being alarmist? ”
Taylor Devoe, CEO, By The North
When I think about singularity and AI (“a hypothetical future point where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, leading to a rapid, uncontrollable acceleration of technological growth”... which ironically, Google’s AI bot summarized for me), I try to imagine what the Internet will become. I fear it will become a world in which we cannot decipher if content is from a real person or AI. A world where the next generation of AI will take content from the previous generation, and it will become this endless cycle of AI regeneration. AI junk.
It scares me when I think about the way we shop online, casually saving our credit card information on websites, or even the way we do online banking. How will any of this be safe anymore? AI, especially when paired with emerging technologies such as quantum computing, will surely be sophisticated enough to compromise current cyber-security software, if being directed by a bad actor to do so. I worry about the amplification of deep fakes. How will we be able to use services like telehealth? A client sending you an invoice? A speech from a global leader? What if we watch video footage of a neighbour committing a crime? How will we be able to trust what we’re seeing is real?
Are we headed to a return to pen and paper? Are we rushing to a finish line we are unprepared for? A finish line we shouldn’t want to get to? Am I being alarmist?
This technology is moving at a pace faster than we can even predict. A few weeks ago we could identify an AI-generated video. “Look at the hands. It can’t get the hands right”. Today we look inquisitively, “I think that’s AI”. Tomorrow, I believe we will ask, “is that AI?”
Those leading AI development have even stated they cannot foresee the full ramifications of the technology they are developing. I don’t have a solution, but I do know a huge radical shift is coming.
What will become of the Internet?
There is the “dead Internet theory”- a theory in which the Internet is essentially just AI: the activity and content is created by AI and the accounts that are engaging with it are also AI - no humans even involved. There is a potential reality in which the Internet is solely a place for AI and no longer for us humans. The theory goes on to suggest that we will instead close our laptops, put down our phones, and seek face-to-face human connection again. But will we really leave the Internet? Will we no longer see value in it? I can’t fathom that. I instead imagine there will be a desire to find places where AI is not present. Online communities, forums, websites where we ensure the person we’re communicating with is human and the content we’re consuming is created by a real person. At least I know that’s what I am hoping to see.
This contemplation made me realize what I’m actually seeking is… the old Internet. Remember when we would sign into the computer (perhaps located in your family’s computer room) and we would visit a few of our favourite websites (that we likely bookmarked to easily find them). We would read articles on topics we enjoyed, from bloggers we related to or experts we respected. We weren’t all congregating on a few enormous platforms. The websites we’d visit weren’t littered with ads, click-bait headlines or rage-bait content creators who were trying to get our attention within a few milliseconds.
How often do you now find yourself doom-scrolling and you think to yourself: that was stupid, that was ridiculous or that was fake. Or you go to the comment section and it’s full of trolls, bots, or worse: both.
We seem to have ruined the Internet. And now, with the use of AI, I fear we’re going to ruin it even more.
But we don’t have to kill it. We don’t have to abandon it. Let’s save the parts we enjoy. The connection. Information-sharing. Creativity. Community.
That’s what By The North is. We are committed to creating a space that isn’t littered with bots and AI. We will prioritize human experiences, connections and perspectives. We want to bring together like-minded people to chat, share and connect. Whether it’s about food, travel, parenting, fashion. The insights will be human. The emotion will be human. We don’t want to let AI do the fun, creative work. This can exist. We can protect it. We must. We’re going to dig our heels in the ground and make sure of it.
And it will be imperfect. And there will be mistakes. And that will be the beauty of it.
So if this matters to you, as it does for us, join us here.