What’s worrying is not the AI we have today, it’s what might be coming down the tracks at us. AI didn’t suddenly pop up, fully formed, from some programmer’s keyboard three months ago, it was years in the making. And bubbling away in a dozen digital cauldrons are tomorrow’s iterations. What are they cooking up next?
Which brings me to my second worry. However self-teaching and learning these AIs may be they are all starting off at the hands of a computer nerd somewhere. They learn what s/he tells it to learn in the first instance. We’ve already heard about some of the biases in early versions of this algorithmic progression, and those are the obvious ones. What else lurks in the code?
What you have observed in the AI generated essay is very correct. Basically any new technology or technical development acts in both ways, either for betterment of the society or otherwise. It solely depends on the nature of the human beings who are using it. After all AI is a tool developed by human beings itself. When the team designs specific AI platform, the answers about naturism which we will derive out of it will be either pro naturism, neutral or anti naturism depends on (their inclination towards the naturism) human beings which are team of this particular AI platform.
Great article. But I think the best use of AI for naturism isn't writing general summaries about what naturism is and what's great about it. That's been done again, and again, and again... by human naturists. Honestly, there's not much new to be said about it, nor does there need to be.
As BOPBADGER probably knows, I've already written several articles about AI and naturism. The first one was back in March (https://naturistplace.substack.com/p/i-just-had-a-brief-conversation-with). It's a dialog with ChatGPT where I asked several practical questions naturists often ask about how to get others interested in naturism. I think the answers there are generally pretty good. The thing about using a chatbot is you have to ask specific questions that you want information on. These are called "prompts". And once you start, ask additional questions to drill down to get more detail in order to receive (hopefully) suggestions you may not have thought about. In some respects, it's like having a conversation with an experienced naturist, and the answers not infrequently can be helpful.
Then in April I posted two additional articles. The first (https://naturistplace.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-ai-could) gave 3 examples of specific ways AI could be used to help naturists and naturism. It also provided some references for anyone who wants to learn technical details about how AI works. The second April article (https://naturistplace.substack.com/publish/post/120574705) went into detail about how to discuss naturism with non-naturist acquaintances, and in particular how to deal with common concerns people have about naturism. When encountering specific objections, if you provide more information about your relationship to the person you're talking with , it may be possible to get even more appropriate and detailed suggestions. Chatbots know a lot about human psychology, since so much has been written about it, including innumerable works of fiction dealing with it. (Some clever author somewhere has almost certainly written a relevant story.)
I've had another article in the pipeline since then, but unfortunately I've been too busy with other stuff to finish it. (The past two months have been hectic for me.) The topic is why and how a naturist club can do more to provide good information about naturism to members of the general public. Here again, an AI chatbot can be a source of good ideas, or have useful advice on pursuing specific ideas. So stay tuned...
Thanks for your words, Charles. I agree that as a tool to come up with ideas and suggestions, A.I. may be a useful resource. I guess my concern is that the method you describe takes a certain amount of clear thought and effort, something I am not confident that many people are prepared to give. I hope that I am wrong.
Regarding naturist clubs using A.I. to research the general public's attitudes and develop ideas to engage them, I would have thought talking to the public rather than asking A.I. might be a good place to start.
The problem is that "the public" isn't specific people who might actually be interested in naturism if they knew more about it. Most of "the public" simply have no interest in the topic or have negative attitudes to naturism. One thing that could help is making it possible for people who might be interested to meet with naturist in person, usually in a clothed environment. AI could help plan such things. Naturists really don't need AI to "research" the general public's attitudes - those are pretty clear already.
Oh, and as for "clear thought and effort" - that's what is required to tackle nontrivial problems. You're right that isn't easy for many people. It's a big problem with the world we live in today. If naturists can't handle that, they may as well give up trying to persuade others.
Charles, I believe you are quite correct in saying that information about naturism could be effectively offered to members of the public by meeting in person. But you don't need A.I. to do that. The best way, from personal experience, to achieve that is to simply get out there and do it. Nothing needs to be planned. It's as simple as calling some naturist friends and set out together on a hike or beach visit or some other activity in a public space. Inevitably you will meet clothed people and have the chance to chat.
The big "but" in that, of course, depends on where you live and the laws of your country. But I've come to realize that the worst enemies of the promotion of naturism are naturists themselves - either too comfortable with the status quo of being confined to club grounds surrounded by tall hedges and security gates, or else too nervous and fearful of what others might think to dare venture into public spaces.
A.I. cannot possibly give a definitive answer as to "the general public's attitudes" because, again, that varies hugely depending on where you live. In Australia, for example, attitudes are very prudish, while here in New Zealand the public is mostly indifferent and "live and let live". I very occasionally receive a negative response, but those incidents are quite rare.
I haven't yet published more details about this topic in my newsletter, but I hope to do so as soon as possible. You're quite correct that much depends on "where you live". New Zealand is laid back compared to, say, Australia. But have you ever been to the the U.S.? It's probably worse than even Australia. One does not simply go to a beach and start talking up naturism to others present. Not, at least, in the U.S. Culturally speaking, most parts of the country are still in the Middle Ages. That is why secrecy is the norm among most naturists here and why they confine themselves to club grounds or their own homes. Going for a naked hike even in remote places is a scary thing for most avid naturists.
Reading the four comments here already (at the time of writing this one) I think we're all on the same page - that A.I. is a tool to aid human research - nothing more. The piece on nudity in the article is an excellent collection of thoughts that are already out there, and saves some time in doing that basic initial research. For me, I would then use that info and align it with my own further research, making the necessary corrections. The problem, of course, is that there are a lot of lazy people who would simply use the text as it is and place it back on line, creating, as you say, the feedback loop.
Having said that, though, this is only one of many forms of A.I. Algorithms have many different uses in all kinds of fields.
All good points. TBH, I find Alecia Isobel mildly disconcerting and off-putting. There is something about her delivery that is emotionless and dead. The idea of naturism being natural, and yet using an obviously unnatural avatar to read the text jars with me. I might be a minority and would be interested in what others think.
Using AI as a start point may be ok but is should be purely that. Yes I agree AI generated content should be labeled as such. I don't know if AI could generate new ideas such as those that come out of left field or as you say continue to become increasingly bland. I can however make rapid links across vast amounts of information. This may have benefits but it will come with risks.
The biggest problem is of course you can't put the genie back in the bottle. So out there are millions of artifical brains that all learn something at exactly the same time. It's probably important than mankind still controls the on/off switch.
So true but I fear humans more. The overarching problem is not I fear reaching for the off switch but trusting that everyone will reach for the off switch. Thus because you can never know that, no one will.
Hi, well written AI article and yes very vanilla. Your review of the article was even better. Absolutely going forward all AI content has to be noted on the article when its being used. No exceptions.
Thought provoking - I think AI generated content should be used to form a base for content but using whole cloth without any human input can always leave open the possibility of inaccuracy or the other flaws you point out.
What’s worrying is not the AI we have today, it’s what might be coming down the tracks at us. AI didn’t suddenly pop up, fully formed, from some programmer’s keyboard three months ago, it was years in the making. And bubbling away in a dozen digital cauldrons are tomorrow’s iterations. What are they cooking up next?
Which brings me to my second worry. However self-teaching and learning these AIs may be they are all starting off at the hands of a computer nerd somewhere. They learn what s/he tells it to learn in the first instance. We’ve already heard about some of the biases in early versions of this algorithmic progression, and those are the obvious ones. What else lurks in the code?
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t tell you that.”
For anyone interested, there was a fascinating documentary called Coded Bias about flaws in facial recognition. I believe it is on Netflix.
What you have observed in the AI generated essay is very correct. Basically any new technology or technical development acts in both ways, either for betterment of the society or otherwise. It solely depends on the nature of the human beings who are using it. After all AI is a tool developed by human beings itself. When the team designs specific AI platform, the answers about naturism which we will derive out of it will be either pro naturism, neutral or anti naturism depends on (their inclination towards the naturism) human beings which are team of this particular AI platform.
Great article. But I think the best use of AI for naturism isn't writing general summaries about what naturism is and what's great about it. That's been done again, and again, and again... by human naturists. Honestly, there's not much new to be said about it, nor does there need to be.
As BOPBADGER probably knows, I've already written several articles about AI and naturism. The first one was back in March (https://naturistplace.substack.com/p/i-just-had-a-brief-conversation-with). It's a dialog with ChatGPT where I asked several practical questions naturists often ask about how to get others interested in naturism. I think the answers there are generally pretty good. The thing about using a chatbot is you have to ask specific questions that you want information on. These are called "prompts". And once you start, ask additional questions to drill down to get more detail in order to receive (hopefully) suggestions you may not have thought about. In some respects, it's like having a conversation with an experienced naturist, and the answers not infrequently can be helpful.
Then in April I posted two additional articles. The first (https://naturistplace.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-ai-could) gave 3 examples of specific ways AI could be used to help naturists and naturism. It also provided some references for anyone who wants to learn technical details about how AI works. The second April article (https://naturistplace.substack.com/publish/post/120574705) went into detail about how to discuss naturism with non-naturist acquaintances, and in particular how to deal with common concerns people have about naturism. When encountering specific objections, if you provide more information about your relationship to the person you're talking with , it may be possible to get even more appropriate and detailed suggestions. Chatbots know a lot about human psychology, since so much has been written about it, including innumerable works of fiction dealing with it. (Some clever author somewhere has almost certainly written a relevant story.)
I've had another article in the pipeline since then, but unfortunately I've been too busy with other stuff to finish it. (The past two months have been hectic for me.) The topic is why and how a naturist club can do more to provide good information about naturism to members of the general public. Here again, an AI chatbot can be a source of good ideas, or have useful advice on pursuing specific ideas. So stay tuned...
Thanks for your words, Charles. I agree that as a tool to come up with ideas and suggestions, A.I. may be a useful resource. I guess my concern is that the method you describe takes a certain amount of clear thought and effort, something I am not confident that many people are prepared to give. I hope that I am wrong.
Regarding naturist clubs using A.I. to research the general public's attitudes and develop ideas to engage them, I would have thought talking to the public rather than asking A.I. might be a good place to start.
The problem is that "the public" isn't specific people who might actually be interested in naturism if they knew more about it. Most of "the public" simply have no interest in the topic or have negative attitudes to naturism. One thing that could help is making it possible for people who might be interested to meet with naturist in person, usually in a clothed environment. AI could help plan such things. Naturists really don't need AI to "research" the general public's attitudes - those are pretty clear already.
Oh, and as for "clear thought and effort" - that's what is required to tackle nontrivial problems. You're right that isn't easy for many people. It's a big problem with the world we live in today. If naturists can't handle that, they may as well give up trying to persuade others.
Charles, I believe you are quite correct in saying that information about naturism could be effectively offered to members of the public by meeting in person. But you don't need A.I. to do that. The best way, from personal experience, to achieve that is to simply get out there and do it. Nothing needs to be planned. It's as simple as calling some naturist friends and set out together on a hike or beach visit or some other activity in a public space. Inevitably you will meet clothed people and have the chance to chat.
The big "but" in that, of course, depends on where you live and the laws of your country. But I've come to realize that the worst enemies of the promotion of naturism are naturists themselves - either too comfortable with the status quo of being confined to club grounds surrounded by tall hedges and security gates, or else too nervous and fearful of what others might think to dare venture into public spaces.
A.I. cannot possibly give a definitive answer as to "the general public's attitudes" because, again, that varies hugely depending on where you live. In Australia, for example, attitudes are very prudish, while here in New Zealand the public is mostly indifferent and "live and let live". I very occasionally receive a negative response, but those incidents are quite rare.
I haven't yet published more details about this topic in my newsletter, but I hope to do so as soon as possible. You're quite correct that much depends on "where you live". New Zealand is laid back compared to, say, Australia. But have you ever been to the the U.S.? It's probably worse than even Australia. One does not simply go to a beach and start talking up naturism to others present. Not, at least, in the U.S. Culturally speaking, most parts of the country are still in the Middle Ages. That is why secrecy is the norm among most naturists here and why they confine themselves to club grounds or their own homes. Going for a naked hike even in remote places is a scary thing for most avid naturists.
Reading the four comments here already (at the time of writing this one) I think we're all on the same page - that A.I. is a tool to aid human research - nothing more. The piece on nudity in the article is an excellent collection of thoughts that are already out there, and saves some time in doing that basic initial research. For me, I would then use that info and align it with my own further research, making the necessary corrections. The problem, of course, is that there are a lot of lazy people who would simply use the text as it is and place it back on line, creating, as you say, the feedback loop.
Having said that, though, this is only one of many forms of A.I. Algorithms have many different uses in all kinds of fields.
And, of course there's our lovely Alecia Isobel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw-QBCcXuOU
All good points. TBH, I find Alecia Isobel mildly disconcerting and off-putting. There is something about her delivery that is emotionless and dead. The idea of naturism being natural, and yet using an obviously unnatural avatar to read the text jars with me. I might be a minority and would be interested in what others think.
Good point, Steve - but she's a lot prettier than me! LOL!
Using AI as a start point may be ok but is should be purely that. Yes I agree AI generated content should be labeled as such. I don't know if AI could generate new ideas such as those that come out of left field or as you say continue to become increasingly bland. I can however make rapid links across vast amounts of information. This may have benefits but it will come with risks.
The biggest problem is of course you can't put the genie back in the bottle. So out there are millions of artifical brains that all learn something at exactly the same time. It's probably important than mankind still controls the on/off switch.
True, the genie can't be put back in the bottle, but I fear that by the time we reach for the off switch, it may be too late.
So true but I fear humans more. The overarching problem is not I fear reaching for the off switch but trusting that everyone will reach for the off switch. Thus because you can never know that, no one will.
Hi, well written AI article and yes very vanilla. Your review of the article was even better. Absolutely going forward all AI content has to be noted on the article when its being used. No exceptions.
Thought provoking - I think AI generated content should be used to form a base for content but using whole cloth without any human input can always leave open the possibility of inaccuracy or the other flaws you point out.