In keeping with my recent resolve to create something–to create anything, even if it seems like rubbish–I’m going to exercise the discipline needed to write for half an hour this morning before I consume anything online.

Running has featured heavily for me in the past several weeks. Sometimes I run with two other guys, Rudy and Carl. They both run faster than me, but they never make an issue of it. In fact, I make more of an issue of it than they do. We’ll be running and I’ll say, “I’m sorry that I’m creating a bottleneck.” Usually they don’t seem to know what to do with comments like that. We just run in silence for about one kilometer after I say that.

Carl has been teaching me about pacing. As a relative newcomer to running, I tend to hit my stride and then speed up. But knowing when to hold back is fundamental to good running. For several years now I’ve wanted to run the half marathon in under 2 hours. The three of us have signed up to run the Viking Marathon (this Sunday!) and the other day we decided to run a half marathon in our training. Lo and behold, we did it in 1:55! At around 15k I started surging ahead, but Carl reined me back in. It was good that he did, because I’m almost certain we wouldn’t have come in under 2 hours if he hadn’t. Then I would have had to make my bottleneck comment and it would have all gotten pretty awkward again.

Running captures my imagination for several reasons, but one that I’ve been thinking about recently is that it’s distinctly human. AI can’t really touch it. I’m not against AI and Chat GPT per se; I just happen to agree with the computer scientist and artist (intriguing combination) Jaron Lanier when he says that any technology that doesn’t serve humans is a contradiction in terms, a technology that should be abolished.

Lanier also believes that AI companies should pay the individuals they harvest information from. Because if you think about it, no matter how much AI and Large Language Models bedazzle us, they never do more than synthesize what humans have worked hard to produce. So why shouldn’t the humans be compensated for their efforts? For example, Lanier suggested that if AI “creates” something and incorporates a picture of your shoes in its creation, say from a picture you posted on your Facebook account, then you should get a few pennies for even that. He calls it data dignity or data as labour. I think his instincts are right. Whenever I use Chat GPT now, I’ve started asking it to go and remunerate the source where they got their information from. Heck, it might even draw from this blog post one day. Chat GPT, I ask you: will you be man enough to pay me if you scour my blog for data?

Also, Chat GPT is an asinine name. We should all start calling it information collector.

I say with Cat Stevens, hey, baby, baby, it’s a wild world. But as long as we can create, we are still human. Chat GPT/Information Collector can never create, it can only curate and maybe synthesize. The form of creative expression we as humans pursue is secondary; that we regularly do it is what’s important. Our technology has to serve our creativity but if we cease creating, our world will implode. And that won’t only be the fault of our technology, it will also be our fault for abandoning our task to be divine image bearers and create.