It felt like a lifetime ago when Sophia the Robot astonished the world with her artificial brain and unconventional looks—the humanoid bot even modeled for fashion campaigns and magazines. Since then, AI has taken on a pretty much incorporeal form; yet, it is omnipresent in our everyday lives.
In just a space of a few months, tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and ChatGPT have become ubiquitous. Readily accessible to the masses, they empower anyone to create art and all other kinds of content with a few simple text prompts. Companies, academics, and even top search engines are brimming with power from programs that promise both efficiency and efficacy in providing wisdom, in mere seconds.
At the same time, the technology has provoked fears of job obsoletion, exacerbated no doubt by the wave of corporate layoffs. It’s also built on the original works of millions of creators, sparking calls for transparency in this scarcely moderated sphere. The evidence of AI seemingly plagiarizing content is compelling.
TIME Magazine contemplates AI’s disruption in human creativity in its February 27, 2023, issue, even fronting the edition with a curious conversation with ChatGPT, the language-processing chatbot that’s swept the world (on a similar note, if you’re interested in seeing ChatGPT’s face, here’s a peek, according to how the robot has described its perceived appearance).
In the cover, designed in-house and animated by Brobel Design, TIME Magazine is seen running its proposed cover story title, The AI Arms Race Is Changing Everything?, by the chatbot.
To which, the computer responds: “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal opinions or beliefs, but I can provide some context and information on the subject.”
ChatGPT goes on to acknowledge the phrase as “attention-grabbing and thought-provoking,” and that the subject could “help raise public awareness about the potential risks and benefits of this trend, and stimulate discussions on how to ensure that AI is developed and developed in a responsible and ethical manner.”
Needless to say, this is the title the publication has gone with.
“To create is human,” quip (human) staff writers Andrew R. Chow and Billy Perrigo in the cover story. They add that this has been the case for the past 300,000 years, where humans have been utilizing their minds to create art, cuisine, and manifestos. “Now we have company.”