Hey! Ho! We're all going to die!

I am currently consumed with worry about AI. Doing this didn't help, really.

Joey image generated by DALL·E (description: ‘joey ramone but in heaven on a cloud with a halo’. This was the best image of the four it gave me, surprisingly).

I can’t be the only person working in creative industries who is basically terrified about the emergence of AI. I make my living by writing and talking about stuff, principally about music, although I did write an article the other day about Britain’s most popular vegetables (potato at number one, if you’re interested). “You’ll be fine!” said my friend Nick when I told him about my fears a few days ago. “AI can’t go to a gig and review it!” I heard those words in the voice of the T-1000 from Terminator 2.

These fears about AI and journalism aren’t without basis. The Guardian report that the CEO of German media group Axel Springer - owner of German newspapers Bild and Die Welt - recently said that he believed that journalists are at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched last November. Springer warned that job cuts lay ahead, because automation and AI were increasingly making many of the jobs that supported the production of their journalism redundant.

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to make independent journalism better than it ever was – or simply replace it,” CEO Mathias Doepfner said in an internal letter to Axel Springer employees. “Understanding this change is essential to a publishing house’s future viability. Only those who create the best original content will survive.”

Gulp.

I’ve spent the last few days populating the Spoook YouTube channel with video from interviews published on The James McMahon Music Podcast, and so I have naturally been thinking, “who would I most like the interview for the podcast?” The answer is always Joey Ramone, the singer in my favourite band the Ramones. Unfortunately, in so many ways, Joey is long dead. But I thought I’d boot ChatGTP up and give it a go anyway. We’re all fucked. We’re fucking fucked. We’re fucking fucking fucked.

Maybe I really will have to learn how to code…