Ai

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Heavy on the A, light on the I. Essay. 800 words, 4-minute read.

Image generated by AiTM. 😉

AiTM

By Ray Tabler.

I missed out on the Pet Rock, and the dot-coms, and the subprime mortgage bubbles. But, boy howdy, do I ever have a bead on a sure-fire, can’t lose get-rich-quick scheme this time! It’s AI. Or, at least an AI-adjacent golden opportunity. You can cash in too. Just hear me out.

The way I understand it, venture capitalists are eager to shovel money at any investment opportunity which can duct tape the magic letters AI onto their stationary. In fact, it might be enough to slip “#AI” into your tag list. AI marketing, AI headhunting. AI job hunting. AI art. AI writing. AI for detecting AI. Ai-fill-in-the-blank!

There’s a lot of upside, and only one downside. To run AI, you need several metric pooh loads of computer servers. Plus, a couple of nuclear power plants on retainer to supply all of the electricity your shiny new cyber toys guzzle to write Johnny’s term paper and generate deep fakes of Fred Astaire ballroom dancing with Taylor Swift. To say nothing of the acres and acres of farm land paved over to house this cathedral of processing prowess.

Costs like that can really cut into the obscene profits.

But, take heart! I have found a solution. All you have to do is pitch an idea, any idea, wrapped in the flag of AI, but use people instead. It’s that simple. Believe me, angel investors don’t look all that close. A lot of them have a lot more money than sense. But that’s a self-correcting situation. Dazzle them with a slick PowerPoint presentation. Cook up some rosy ROI estimates. Get them to sign on the dotted line (and the signature line of the check). Then sell the whole kit and caboodle to some other fools before reality sets in.

You may scoff. But I’ve watched this scam pulled from afar many times.

The undeniable fact is, that people are now cheaper than what passes for AI nowadays. Computers are expensive, and are always breaking down, and require expert attention to even do what you want. People are cheap. You can pay them starvation wages. Just look at human artists. They want to starve. It’s part of their creative process. I asked ChatGPT. People manufacture themselves. Granted, there is an extended period of time while you have to wait for them to grow old enough to be exploited. And, if they break, you can just tell them to go get some therapy. Then replace them.

Now, computers are more efficient, and available 24/7. But customers are willing to accept some efficiency and availability issues if the price is right. There’s a saying. Good, cheap, fast. Choose any two. It’s amazing how people forget about good and fast when cheap is cheap enough. And, besides, you aren’t interested in long-term sustainability. Just smile confidently, put out glowing press releases, and keep the wheels spinning until you find a buyer.

It works like this. Say you want to provide AI-generated artwork. Set up a website. Then employ some starving, human artists to draw up what customers want. Charge the customers a third of what Meta, Chat GPT, or Grok does. Pay the humans just enough to keep body and soul together. It’s the gig economy, evolved. Laugh all the way to the bank, and sell out before investigative reporters figure it out, or whistleblowers reach for their whistles. Don’t feel bad about the artists. They’ll get book deals when 60-minutes does an expose.

Rinse and repeat for other industries. English major/hamburger flippers for writing. Political science graduates/baristas for policy. Law students for legal documents. Or, your crazy uncle Charlie who sets booby-traps in his lawn, and runs a website about our lizardman overlords. Nobody really has much confidence in AI-generated stuff, anyway. They just need it done, to check some box on the stage/gate form.

There you have it. Only thing left to do is come up with some snappy brand name, like Shlock, or MoBettaThanMeta, or FrakGPT. I’ll be offering on-line courses on how to set up your own scam venture. Just navigate to Ai.com.

END.

Shameless Self-Promotion Section:

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And visit my website https://raytabler.com/ for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!

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