So nowadays, everything’s gotta be AI.
Or, more precisely, all is rapidly rushing toward it, as if trying to catch the last subway out of hell, lest Roko’s Basilisk hear and be offended.
I see advertisements for artificially intelligent planning software, electronic doodads and gizmos with artificial-intelligence baked into them so you can have conversations with who-knows-who while lying on your rug wondering how to cruft up some silly presentation.
As If.
All Your Stories Are Belong To AI
In my dotage, I have taken to listening to YouTube science fiction through the day. At first, it was okay. Sorta interesting stories. I mean, some obviously better than others.
But then: the repetition... the same title—but with a different thumbnail—all over my feed. And generally, the same story, (modulo some minor detail changes). If I listened to one, my feed got filled with literally dozens of pale imitations.
Shlock you might sum up as:
“Alien woman meets inept but snarky human man who helps her track down some banal McGuffin.”
“An assortment of goofball humans complete a space academy’s week/month/year training regimen in hours with all manner of hijinks and humorous happenings.”
“Alien armada arrives at earth only to be destroyed by “primitive” humans with secret super-advanced battle weapons.”
The repetitiveness and lack of imagination: it’s just tedious...
Boring.
In frustration, I made Sci-Fi Bingo cards: how often would I get BINGO. (answer: Quite often, actually...)
Turns out, many of these stories are AI regurgitations of some originally modestly creative brain spawn, recited by lifeless AI avatars who would get confused by and mistakenly inflect the wrong parts of sentences... Something no competent human would do.
I doubt many of these channel owners even read the AI mush before pushing it through an AI reader (assuming they even were fluent enough in English to understand what was being rendered in butchered cadence.)
Oh, and mysteriously repeating parts mid-story. What the actual...?
Rubbish.
Actual Intelligence
One day, a story popped up in my feed and I gave it a listen.
Holy hand-grenades! It’s read by a real human... the real voice actor introducing him- or herself before beginning the story.
More to the point, the story was engaging.
Real.
I had stumbled upon the multi-part series “Frairen and Miss Rimiki”, read by voice actor Larissa, and written by author Guardbro.
Yes!!!
Imagine having subsisted on bland protein bars, then suddenly sinking teeth into chateaubriand. Close your eyes and imagine the flavor scene in Ratatouille. Yeah, it was like that.
I quickly became a fan. I found the playlist and started from the beginning.
And was hooked.
Then it stopped. The story was unfinished, with no more episodes.
Bummer.
Long silence. No new episodes.
Sigh.
Eureka!
Then, by some happy accident this other channel came up in my feed. First thought: another AI imitation, but then I realized this was Guardbro’s own channel, "Guardpro’s Field Desk". More importantly, it’s a hand-written story, voiced by a real voice actor... the inimitable Larissa, no less.
TL;DR: I’m enamored. Enthralled, even.
Detailed, engrossing stories, excellent world-building, and not a bit of AI mush in sight. Not even the artwork, which is actually hand-drawn illustration. Nice!
If you liked Frairen and Miss Rimiki—because real people read what real people have written—you’ll love what’s up in the "Drop Pod Green" story arc.
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| Real human-drawn images from Drop Pod Green, by Guardbro, used with permission | ||
I’m not a fan of AI, not least of all because it’s an utter misnomer: there is no intelligence there. No sentience, no creation. Just a thoughtless, heartless regurgitation of others’ work, artlessly papering over the uncanny valley for those not inclined to look too closely... but very disconcerting for those who know the tell and would prefer the real deal instead.
So for me, things that still involve a human’s direct creative effort (ie, not using AI) are far more enjoyable. It’s far more interesting, Roko’s Basilisk be damned.