An AI comment?
Written by Ben Tallon
Congrats on launching the site! It's fantastic to see your passion for creativity taking shape in such a meaningful way. Ben
I freeze. My human empathy and compassion glow at first. I mean, there’s a little face in the avatar thumbnail on Linkedin. It belongs to Fortunate Daphine, who describes herself as an ‘Executive and Administrative Virtual Assistant focused on making tasks easier for business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders. Let me take care of your administrative tasks while you focus on growing your business.’
After compassion and empathy comes suspicion. The language is spammy. If it’s written by a real person, it needs some humanity. But not everyone can write well, and when I look at her profile, Uganda is the geotag. So maybe this just isn’t her first language. The use of ‘virtual assistant’ is ambiguous, and fails to clarify whether Fortunate is indeed virtual, or a person offering me her business support via a virtual assistant.
Then my shambolic organisation skills flare up and it sounds appealing. I’ve not missed a deadline in my 17-year career, and I file my accounts each year, but you should see the state of my machine. Desktop like a wedding post-confetti floor.
But what this really comes down to is whether to reply to her comment or not. If she’s real, and I don’t, I’m rude and/or arrogant. If she’s real and I do, we both win. If she’s a bot and I do, I’m a dick head to anyone else following my post. If she’s a bot and I don’t, this still leaves me in the mire because those following won’t be certain about her either.
Oh god, this is what they’re warning us against with AI, isn’t it? The eventuality that the internet is quite literally submerged in spam, leaving us unable to trust anything at all.
Then, having read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt – a book highlighting how social media has wrecked the mental health of kids given access to smart devices far too early – a nihilistic part of me feels good about that idea.
But not really. Not with the important stuff that relies on the internet.
I panic, cancel the window, and go back to my work, but Fortunate keeps staring at me in my mind.
For the rest of the afternoon, I wonder just how much my life has changed since the advent of the smartphone, and what impact tech will have from here.