Happy Geekmas, everybody! It’s the day of the science fiction pun, on which folks who love things show their love for things they love. I love Star Wars, and I will spare you the long list of my similar obsessions and simply say May the fourth be with you, if that’s not too cringe these days.
Let’s start with the soundtrack. Take it away, John Williams!
And do you like my graphic, up top there?
It’s a bit of shareable fun for this special annual festival of geekery, and of course I’m also here with a serious point or three. Welcome to London Ontario Online News and a May 4th column about our journalism1, local news in general, and the current dystopian timeline2 here in Canada’s London, where on Saturday Free Comic Book Day drew my people into the light, hissing occasionally but not too bitey this season.
Hello, everyone. I’m Mike, your communications guy, and you’re the city leaders I’m supporting, because I know for a fact you’re the type of people who would go back and gather up the bits of C3PO, even if he is the most annoying bastard in genre fiction. This is that BONUS CONTENT about A.I. that I’ve been promising for a while; this felt like an appropriate day.
So prepare for the jump to light speed and a hard chat about Artificial Intelligence, how we use it, and what we can do to stop it accelerating our collective move to the Dark Side3. This is where we use Disney’s popularity to amplify our point for us4. Or we could just use the Force - whatever works is fine.
Let’s move along, shall we? Engage5!
The energy cost of generative A.I.
First, the image up top. I made it with A.I.
Don’t freak out - stick with me. I know this topic engenders strong feelings and would like us all to hold tight while I make my point. I created the image for this purpose, and would otherwise have made it myself (it’s pretty simple) or paid a pro. This time, I tracked the work.
Here’s a paragraph, made using A.I., that gives a little context based on reputable online resources. The bold is mine and I edited it, so it’s my voice and I own the outcome.
Creating this image with three revisions in ChatGPT likely used about as much energy as running an LED bulb for a few hours, or boiling a kettle of cold water to make tea. That’s a real environmental cost, but closer to a small everyday digital action than a major carbon-heavy activity.
So, I “boiled the kettle” to give us a point of reference, while accepting that everyone doing this at the same time is actively destroying our planet and we need to do something about it. This excellent piece from The Guardian outlines it well, answering questions about the environmental cost of data centres.
Tldr: it’s very bad indeed.
A giant gumball machine
Accepting the reality
And the point: A.I. is here, like it or not, and it’s the most significant technological advance for a generation - perhaps even the final technological leap forward for our species before our society diminishes6.
We have to understand it. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, especially with first-stage products already popping up everywhere like chocolate teapots. As a veteran of some remarkable tech leaps in media, I look wearily at companies adding A.I. to existing services because the real threat is the new products coming to eat their lunch. I think a lot of corporate leaders are asleep at the wheel.
And many of us are choosing to board this runaway train as we produce images of eerily-smiling six-fingered families and flattering cartoons of ourselves at work7. Every piece of technology can be mis-used, and it’s down to us to take thoughtful steps. As you may know, I use A.I. for note-taking, summaries and other tasks, speeding up work I was doing already. I’ve also developed a prototype editorial assistant chatbot that can support citizen journalists - it’s on my never-ending list of work that hasn’t paid any money yet; le grand sigh.
All of this should make us feel icky, of course, because it’s indiscriminately drawing on the work of real humans without payment, and somehow turning the results into flawed nonsense. It’s a tough go. We’re right to feel uncomfortable with this kind of change.
And it’s in our local journalism already.
The Wingham Free Press - powered by A.I. apparently
On April Fools Day, a small news outlet in Wingham caused the Ontario Provincial Police to issue a warning about misinformation. There’s a London Free Press story here, and and the gist is the fake state of emergency wasn’t funny.
This led me to the fresh media outlet called the Wingham Free Press, which is an interested click-around, if you’re so inclined. I’m linking to it with some hesitation, so I’ll do that quickly (here) and continue with an explanation. You don’t need to give them a click if you don’t fancy it.
It amounts to a bunch of news articles - from crime to local government - all obviously written with heavy A.I. support and not the way I would do it, tbh. Overall, it seems fine to me, not least because I’m doing a limited, careful version of this with A.I.-supported journalism. As a reluctant entrepreneur, I’ve been giving this much thought. I knew there was more automation there, but I couldn’t figure out how to monetize it.
But the Wingham Free Press did. They offered, and have now suspended, a service that removes police press releases from their website, for a fee of $499 - that’s in U.S. dollars. That covers all 28 of their websites, including Guelph, Barrie, Stratford, Hamilton and others.
So they were using some kind of automation to create this content and then seeking to charge money to take it down again. I don’t know if anybody paid for it and I’m certainly not approaching them so we’ll just say it’s an extreme case of monetizing public domain info, which of course isn’t new. There are entire newspapers in the States that are just mugshots, for example.
However, it’s difficult to see how this can be a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization, as is surely the archetype of a news org and, as such, our expected next stage of evolution here at London Ontario Online News. I’m taking great care when talking about another local business, and I’d also like to be clear I wouldn’t use A.I. to this extent. I have deep concerns about A.I. involvement here, and especially the way it relies on public information which is not intended for commercial use.
This is a matter of humanity taking humane approaches. Robots need to keep out of our criminal justice services - completely.
This will keep growing
Leaving that example now, I’ll share further concerns that we don’t know the coming effect of A.I. on news. But I do know for a fact that Postmedia8 journalists have been asked for ideas to incorporate A.I. into workflows and it doesn’t take Philip K. Dick to figure out how that’s going to go.
What’s needed is leadership - regulation. There was good direction under Biden, notably with Executive Order 141109, but obviously Trump has arrived and, well, le sigh again. You can find strong context in this pretty-recent piece from Time Magazine. And this piece from Global is about the Canadian government, including some concern about a lack of progress.
This inescapable threat needs to be managed, and we need clear guidance for everyone on the planet. And everyone on the planet needs to join in, or it’s “abandon planet” and I am NOT moving anywhere Elon controls the oxygen supply10.
And what’s next? Already widely used, A.I. will continue to proliferate, especially as more of us understand how to use it well. As one BBC story from China shows, it’s easier than you think to develop your own A.I. assistants. There, the platform is OpenClaw, but a basic ChatGPT bot can also do a good job, if you’re working to maintain them and of course checking the outcomes carefully.
Here’s that BBC story: on OpenClaw they’re known as “lobsters”.
Getting to the point
It’s huge, right? It feels overwhelming, especially in These Interesting Times. And people wonder why we like movies with space wizards doing laser sword fights.
Y’know, we can all lead on this. We can make good choices about when we use A.I - never as a force for evil. Deny the Dark Side and know that social norms are more powerful than they look: Scousers never buy The Sun11. Understand A.I. but trust the right humans first. Establish and follow reputable sources. Value a real byline. Give no space to toxic people. Support journalists by leading well. And remember we all hate C3PO for a reason: he’s a pompous toaster12.
There was a time this technology would have been science fiction but now it’s here, in our daily lives. The future is now and it’s bleak as hell, but it doesn’t have to be.
On that note, the co-creator of Watchmen and V For Vendetta, Alan Moore - comics writer, magus and bearded wonder - said this in The Observer at the weekend:
“Why do I have to keep doing these terrible dystopian stories that then actually happen?”
Bloody hell, Alan. At least you wrote them as warnings.
And that bubblegum machine
So, what did you think? Real or A.I.?
It’s real, and easy to find at 1025 Elias St., where it’s among a bunch of cool stores grouped together, including Brown and Dickson, which I am trying to quit, unsuccessfully.
Here it is with a bit more context:
So it’s real, and I bet some of you knew that, using your local knowledge. It’s an awesome store, and yes I did buy something, as I always bloody do.
But, without that certainty - just like the certainty brought by a journalist building a reputation for public interest truth-telling - I know many of you enlarged the photo and peered at it suspiciously, expecting a trick. That’s where we are - this tech is being used against the public interest and we need to rein it in. We deserve truth in our public conversation and our society, in one way or another, should work together to secure it.
Now you have certainty. Truth - public interest - co-operation - doing the right thing. The A.I. has less power, now a human has done the work.
It’s a human world. Today of all days, let’s keep it that way.
May the Force be with you.
But not with C3PO, because he’s a dick.
- Mike
Happy birthday Molcher, who wrote a frightening non-fiction book about Judge Dredd stories coming true. You can buy it here.
Gene Roddenberry was right about future society, that’s all I’m saying. Although I’d vacation in the Mirror Universe before I’d go to Risa.
Seriously, you guys, it doesn’t end well. I once met the guy on the left of this photo and, boy, did he have a story to tell.
It’s a wee bit horrible for a Monday, but it’s not hard to find clever people saying we’re doomed. Here’s an academic article in which a doctor argues humanity is a cancer. TW, obviously. Tl;dr: we’re in serious trouble.
You’re not that young or thin, you utter fantasist. It’s farming you.
Postmedia is owned by Chatham Asset Management of New Jersey, USA.
From Judge Dredd. Art by Brian Bolland. (C) Rebellion
Billy Bragg plays London Music Hall on July 7. Listen: Never Buy The Sun.
Here are my standard A.I. prompts, which you can have as a special, yet oddly dystopian, gift:
Do not pretend to be human. Do not be glib. Do not comment in any way. Do not give me compliments. Do not provide any opinion of any kind. Use Canadian English only. Do not make things up. Cite authority for factual assertions.
Ashley MacIsaac definitely concurs with you as do I. AI needs to be reigned in with federal regulations set up...such a destructive force environmentally as well as socially.