Should I have done more?
I had an AI training session at work today. They talked about how AI might seem new but it was invented in the 60s. They showed us old photos of men and women standing next to computers, a picture of Alan Turing, some moving graphs, and finally a logo of Anthropic.
I sat through 40 minutes of them talking about Generative AI or Gen AI (not to be confused with Gen Z, they chuckle). They talked about how AI can come up with novel ideas, generate art, and write compelling stories. They then gave us a problem - "Barah, a graphic artist is worried that her competition is using AI. She wants to stand out so her clients can see her uniqueness. Please help her through this predicament.” And the options were
- “Tell her to use AI and pitch ideas quickly”,
- “Tell her to spend the next few weeks creating something by hand, hoping her clients might like it”
- “Tell her to sit down with a company approved AI and have a back-and-forth with it to come up with something novel that reflects her individuality”, and last
- “Tell her to give up. There’s no winning against competitors that use AI”.
I blindly clicked on option 2. And a huge red ‘x’ appeared next to my answer. Turns out, the answer was 3. Which I’m sure a lot of you would have figured out by now. I had a post about AI psychosis recently and one of the comments I got was “Maybe AI is finally helping us enjoy what we do”. And for the last 2 weeks I’ve been wondering how that makes any sense. But maybe it does. Maybe there are these people who have wanted to be artists but felt like shit looking at their output. And every time they looked over to their neighbor, they saw them making a Mona Lisa. And now with AI, they can finally create their own Mona Lisa
Is this an outcome of envy? Or is this the underdog finally getting to punch up?
I wonder if we have placed so much importance on being the best and doing the best and looking the best that we’ve left a significant chunk of society feeling useless.
I used to be extremely passionate about my profession. I remember at the end of my interview 5 years ago, my then manager told me that he saw my eyes light up when I started talking about what we did. I’d spend weekends learning to be better, sharing what I’d learned, practicing and failing and practicing some more until I got better at it.
I feel imposter syndrome with almost every thing I do. Sure there are moments when something clicks and I get a burst of vigor, but I second and third and fouth guess almost every decision I make and still end up being wrong lots of times. But maybe my insecurities have made me hide my struggles.
I won’t claim to be significant enough to have driven an entire industry into a decision that’s harming humans in general. But I think a lot about my place in this universe and the little impact I might have on my surroundings…
Recently I’ve been feeling terribly conflicted. Has my passion come across as being toxic? That I might have made the people around me feel left out? Or somehow lesser than me? Should I have been more vulnerable with my failures so the people around me would see that its okay to fail and try anyway? Should I have done more?