When people hear that I write a Substack column the question they often ask is: do you get AI to write it for you? When I reply no, they express surprise and ask why not? AI can produce 1,000 words on any given subject in a couple of seconds, they tell me, think of all the time you’d save. I ask them in return: when we all have personal domestic robots - as we soon will - will you get your robot to have sex for you? Or to go on holiday for you? No? Why not? Think of all the time you’d save: all the freedom it’d give you to do other things. Like what? Well, like go on holiday and have sex.
What these people don’t seem to realise is that we writers like writing. It’s fun and fulfilling - and even more so when we get paid for it. Plus, as we like to flatter ourselves, it’s better when the writing is done by humans and not by robots. And ideally when read by humans too.
So, though this Substack isn’t written by AI, it’s about AI. In my previous column I mentioned futurologists and how they tend to get their predictions wrong. I’ve just finished reading a book which, we should all hope, is destined to conform to this archetype. Called “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,” it’s written by two Men with Beards and warns us of the danger of allowing AI to acquire superintelligence. The spoiler is in the title.
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