Bishop Barron And AI

Bishop Robert Barron posted yesterday on something I've noticed for a while on YouTube: phony videos that represent themselves as being on a particular topic, putatively generated by AI. I spent a career in tech, mostly before the "AI" quasi-phenomenon, but I've always been skeptical of what's now being represented as AI. Certainly it's the case that there are YouTube videos that represent themselves as being about Bp Barron, C S Lewis, and Abp Fulton Sheen, which quickly turn out to be vapid fakes -- but are they in fact AI-generated?

In the video above, Bp Barron notes,

One that just came out recently had me giving recommendations about how to remove demons from your toilet. So my point, everybody, is this is all ridiculous. And I think if you spend just a moment, you can tell the difference between an authentic video from me and one of these fakes.

This is exactly right. What I see in the news over and over is that "they" are gonna have to build new nuclear power plants to feed the massive infrastructure AI computer centers are gonna need, blah blah-- and all of it to generate fake videos of Bp Barron telling us how to remove demons from our toilets? How is this intelligence at all, much less artificial? Bp Barron is correct: this isn't intelligence at all, it's dumb.

Lately I've seen some authentic videos on how certain wild animals like possums can in some cases make satisfying pets, although this certainly requires patience, commitment, appropriate veterinary care, and obedience to applicable state and local laws. The problem is that there seem to be dozens of phony videos on every possibility, with heartwarming stories of lynxes (for instance) adopted by lonely seniors, whose lives are thereby changed.

The problem is that an awful lot of hand work seems to go into these phony videos. The videos need images, and you need to find pictures of lynxes that can be credibly merged into pictures of seniors happily cuddling them or whatever, and somewhere you have to find seniors willing to model for these scenes, which often require others to pose as grandchildren, game wardens, angry neighbors, or whatever to suit the needs of the story. I can't imagine that this is computer generated; it would be too expensive for this sort of marginal stuff.

Next, the writing, while generally grammatical and idiomatic, has all the earmarks of being written by hacks -- human hacks. "Smiling graciously, Liddy scratched the lynx's furry head with her wrinkled hands." If this is AI-generated, someone is spending big bucks to get a cheapo product. You could hire a hack for a lot less.

Isn't this the dilemma of AI? I asked the web, "Can I get AI to write me a Henry James short story?" and got this answer from "AI":

Yes, you can use AI tools to generate a short story in the style of Henry James, but with some key caveats.

. . . AI can analyze and mimic patterns: AI writing tools are trained on vast datasets of existing text, enabling them to identify and replicate stylistic patterns like sentence structure, vocabulary, tone, and common phrases associated with specific authors.

. . . Lack of true creativity and originality: While AI can imitate style, it doesn't possess the same level of human creativity, emotional depth, or understanding of the nuances of human experience that characterized authors like Henry James. It can mimic, but not truly innovate in the way James did.

Risk of superficial imitation: AI might capture the superficial markers of James's style (long sentences, certain vocabulary) without fully grasping their deeper purpose or meaning. The resulting story might feel like a stylistic imitation rather than a genuine work of art.

In other words, whatever AI tries to do in any sort of creative realm, something's going to be missing. But there's nothing new here. I had a dorm neighbor as an undergraduate who was a computer science major working on a project trying to get the computer to write music like Bach. It got as far as producing scores that looked like music, but there was always something missing --and this was 60 years ago.

So on one hand, AI itself gave me an insightful answer to my question, but we're still back to the other question -- I can hire a hack writer for far less than minimum wage. Why spend money to get AI to write uninspired prose? I asked the web, "Why should i spend money getting AI to do work when I can hire a mediocre person to do the same thing for a lot less?" The answer was very different:

There's a prevailing notion that hiring a human for a lower cost might seem like a more budget-friendly approach than investing in AI, especially for tasks perceived as "mediocre". However, a closer look at the actual benefits and long-term implications reveals a more complex picture.

AI can significantly boost productivity, reduce errors, and handle repetitive tasks with greater efficiency than humans. AI agents can conduct research, create websites, write content, and cross-reference information across databases, automating entire services and replacing the need for full-time employees in some instances.

Except the "AI" that answered my first question said if you ask AI to be creative, you're just going to get a blah result that anyone can tell isn't creative. The "AI" that answered my second question said well, AI will free up your mediocre employee to be more than mediocre, or something like that, or maybe you won't even need a mediocre employee, except you've spent a lot more money. Which is no answer at all.

Bp Barron concludes,

To those who've been following me for, you know, 25 years, use your common sense, too. When you see these goofy images that are obviously generated by a computer, and you hear me talking about some wild thing, I hope you have the sense to know, look, that's not really Bishop Barron speaking.

But this is just another way of saying AI is overrated, particularly in any area that requires genuine insight or creativity. Just a little bit of common sense can burst that bubble.

Bp Barron also points out that the people who put out the phony AI Barron videos are doing it for ad revenue -- but if they're actually using AI, they can't be making much money at it. That's the real dilimma.