#338: You Are You Because Of Today
There’s a postcard hanging up in my room with a saying from a Crosby gathering some years ago… “Somewhere out there is a disruption with your name on it. Am I creating it, or a victim of it?” And I’m definitely feeling AI as a disruption! Rob’s callback to wisdom from one of the great American philosophers gave me a lot of relief. And I love thinking about how I can be more “me-er than me” every day!
- Corey
You Are You Because Of Today
As someone who spends a good deal of time in technology, it’s always hard for me to gauge when something “big” has really arrived. I’ve come to depend on my lovely wife as that signal. We have a daily ritual where we end our work days, and a bottle of wine (or Tequila depending) comes out. And if she opens the cocktail hour like a comedian (“So, what’s the deal with this thing”), I know that the thing is starting to get some buzz. Well, like many I’m finding, she’s equally frightened, fascinated, and filled with wonder with what’s going on in AI right now.
My wife wasn’t concerned that artificial intelligence is a blunt force “copying” creative work and spitting it out in some creative proprietary violation (though that fear also exists). Quite the opposite, her concern was rooted in the idea that sophisticated technology will evolve its learning model into something capable of “speaking in the style of me”. Her question (perhaps with a bit of hyperbole) was “what value do I have if a machine can create as well as me?
My entire career is based on creative output that could inevitably be repeated by an AI Engine. But, weirdly, I don’t find myself concerned at all. After my wife approached me about this, she asked me why I wasn’t worried and I found myself (without even thinking honestly) repeating a line from Dr. Seuss. I said “well nobody’s you-er than you.”
She didn’t get it. And I wasn’t sure I did either really. So I actually went and purchased the book and reread it a few times. As it turns out the good Doctor had just the remedy for me.
In the book Happy Birthday To You! Dr. Seuss wrote something that really alleviated my fear of being replaced by AI. It all starts with how important you are – but not just generally. Very specifically, it’s the fact that you are you - today. In the middle of the book, Seuss writes:
Today you are you! That is truer than true!
There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
I took special note of the use of the word “today.”
Could it be that because I can be present, and act for tomorrow, that it separates me from an artificial intelligence that can only live in yesterday?
In other words AI can never out-you you. Because only today’s you can change tomorrow’s you. As Seuss puts it so perfectly when talking about the importance of you on this day:
Or worse than all of that … Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all. No, he doesn’t.
A Wasn’t just isn’t. He just isn’t present.
But you … You ARE YOU! And, now isn’t that pleasant.
As I see it, Artificial Intelligence is a Wasn’t. Its creations are always based on a learning model that is set in the past. Therefore, inherently, it is a reflection of what was or what wasn’t. It’s not present. It’s not the future. So my creativity that I choose today, might be completely different tomorrow, and unlike anything I did yesterday. Only I can choose to do something different tomorrow and make yesterday’s creation a logical step, or a complete jump.
I am simply useful because I am simply me. Today.
I like that.