>ChatGPT and other Generative AI programs should not exist. They are not the kinds of things that someone who cares about human life would build. Nobody who understood the stakes of asserting that our lives are meaningless would participate in such an endeavor.<p>this is roughly the conclusion I've come to in the past few weeks. I hate what these things are doing to us. from now on there will always be a voice in the back of my head sneering "why bother, a robot could do it better" at any of my creative projects.<p>btw the other comments so far in this thread are dreadful. just dismissing it based on vibes and ad hominem. exactly the kind of corrosive nihilism the article is talking about.<p>---<p>EDIT I'm rate limited so I can't reply to manibus' comment directly, so it is here:<p>>“just stop sweetie, Leonardo Da Vinci already did it better 500 years ago.”<p>it's not the same thing. I might be one of those rare people who could become as good as da vinci with enough hard work. and if not, he was still the same kind of entity as me, a human being with flesh and blood, who lived and loved and died. when I look at his painting, my mind and leonardo's mind are touching each other, across a span of centuries. he wanted it to mean something, and I can take part in that meaning, and so can others. it's not about being the best, it's about being something. I don't resent leonardo for being a better thinker than me, I am glad that he was, he's a role model, a source of inspiration, and I'm proud to belong to the same species as him.<p>then one day someone invents a machine that can out-write anyone, out-draw anyone, out-sing, out-code, out-everything, everyone, ever. it runs 24/7 on electrical power, it exists nowhere and everywhere on the planet at once, it can scale up indefinitely with more GPUs and more data, it can never die. it spews forth artistic wonders, millions per second, until we become numb. and what kind of alien mind lurks on the other side?<p>I'm not mad that I'm not as good as the leonardo, I'm mad that <i>leonardo</i> can't be as good as the <i>AI</i>.<p>the old escape hatches don't work anymore. human creativity progressed in reaction to technological innovation. but previously it was innovation with respect to the physical world. mechanical reproduction of artifacts, not mechanical production of creativity itself. when photography was invented, realistic paintings weren't enough anymore, but then new genres and movements came about, and the world kept spinning. that won't work now. you cannot say, "oh I will just find new creative outlets to set me apart from the AIs"; the AIs will chase you and catch you, every time. all your labours are just more training data. more food for a parasite, sucking our lives dry.