Colin Sheridan: AI is a crutch that our kids don't need
While I acknowledge the good AI does in improving the lives of so many, especially in medicine and those with bespoke, special needs, surely the last thing our youth need is another crutch that denies them the opportunity to tap into the recesses of their own imaginations and IQs when trying to solve a problem. File photo
Writing is hard. Everybody warned me, but I decided I wanted to do it anyway.
Not to prove them wrong, per se, but because — as difficult as it is — when the magic happens and the words flow there is a chance, a beautiful bastard of a chance that you might just express something on a page in a sequence and sentiment that has never been done before.
Realising that high exists — testing it, tasting it even once — is both a blessing and a curse.
“If I’d never seen such riches,” the James song goes, “I could live with being poor.”
That’s how it is with writing. Knowing that a secret place of poetry lives deep within is enough to keep you going while concurrently driving you utterly demented. Often, you wish your mind worked a different way, that you could seek order where writers see chaos. Clock in and clock out of an office where presentism is prioritised over output.
But then you read something. Or you hear something. Or you stare out the window absentmindedly and think of that one thing somebody said to you on December day in a Dublin pub 12 months ago, and all you want to do is write. Put on the full blast and just write.
It’s a glorious feeling. Fleeting, but glorious. The truth is, even on your worst day, every shift at the keyboard is an opportunity to achieve that rarest of rare things: Original thought. When — if — you ever find it, it really doesn't matter whether anybody else ever reads it.
What is true for writers, I’m guessing, is true for all creatives, whether they are artists, musicians, or architects. Most of us are loathe to even call ourselves by our proper names lest we elicit a snigger from those who ask what we do for a living.
“Me? I write.”
“Yeah, but, what do you really do?”
It’s strange that the one profession that is not fully consistent with LinkedIn love-ins seems so pretentious to say out loud.
I AM A WRITER. I make money from writing.
Don’t judge me. I’ve tried other things. I was an army officer for a very long time, but I genuinely struggled with reading a map. I hated loud noises, shouting at people, and being shouted at — three basic military life basics.
Being removed from it now has given me a greater appreciation for those who enjoyed it so much.
For them, it must have been the realisation of a boyhood dream. Playing soldiers. People saluting you. The feeling of responsibility and power and, yes, the chance to do some good. I think I resented them before, but now I realise how lucky they were.
Doing something you love is a gift. Don’t get me wrong, I was good at other aspects of the job. I could read people, regardless of their nationality or background, which made me particularly effective on overseas deployments when — dare I say it — emotional intelligence was more valuable than accuracy with a pistol.
But I struggled with routine. With order. And orders. The Leonard Cohen line always springs to mind; “Although I wear the uniform, I was not born to fight.” That was me. My brother used to call me the tortured genius. Just without the genius.
Yet, within all the constraints of military manuals and standard operating procedures, there was room to think and observe and daydream. To stare at the sky at contrails and wonder where people were headed.
To suck on cigarettes and warm your freezing hands from the heat of the exhausts of Man Diesel trucks in minus 20-degree weather in Kosovo and listen to soldiers 30 years older tell stories of different times and places.
To mine your local translators for information about their lives and families. To realise we are not all the same. That there is no formula. That though you are not exactly where you want to be, or thought you’d be, some good might come of it if you keep filling the notebook in your head with words and phrases and daft ideas.
It’s what makes the notion of artificial intelligence very scary to me.
Reading the news this week that, from next year, Leaving Cert students will be able to use artificial intelligence tools when preparing research projects seems like the very opposite thing we should be doing when developing young minds already degraded by the ubiquity of technology.
While I acknowledge the good AI does in improving the lives of so many, especially in medicine and those with bespoke, special needs, surely the last thing our youth need is another crutch that denies them the opportunity to tap into the recesses of their own imaginations and IQs when trying to solve a problem, or — God forbid — be inspired?
I understand, broadly speaking, that I am not AI’s target audience. When I think of it today, I think of bots, deepfake pornography, and quadcopters shooting kids.
I think of "Lavender" and "Where’s Daddy", two AI programs used by the Israeli military to identify and target Palestinian people, specifically when they are at home with their families.
These are extremes, I understand, but should it not be from these extremes we begin when assessing the potential harm of such limitless technologies? Am I the only person who was scared shitless by as a kid?
I struggle with writing routine emails, too. I wish some days when the ideas aren't flowing and the words won't come, I could relent and type some stupid quips into an app and it would reproduce them as Chekov, just written by a distracted Mayo man.
I just can’t help feeling it’s better to figure the hard part out for ourselves.
