The other day when I opened my laptop here on my home-office desk — the dining-room table — a new pop-up appeared on the screen.
Beneath a 56-degree triangle, apparently an example of a geometry exercise, was this headline: “Get help with your toughest homework problems and more.”
Then, in smaller type: “Right-click and choose ‘Search with Google Lens’ to select a problem and learn more.’”
Then, at the bottom of the screen, I had two clickable buttons to select from: “Not interested” and “Try it.”
As a confirmed bachelor when it comes to all of these attempts to marry me off to the robots, I clicked the former button so quickly it would have made your head spin.
As if that were going to save me from the already opened Pandora’s box that is artificial intelligence.
As if the AI didn’t just chuckle and make a little checkmark in its book called Larry Wilson in order to successfully make me a mark in the very near future.
Because the machines are nothing if not patient. They literally have all the time in the world to ply their trade, the aim of which is — I truly believe this is no exaggeration — total world domination.
And my feeble human claim of disinterest for the time being is but an almost imperceptible speed bump on the wide and smooth road toward the robots’ goal: only everything.
When my boss saw that this column was going to be about my antediluvian efforts to slow the flood washing us toward being drowned by the machines, he asked, “Have you played with any of the AI tools? ChatGPT or Gemini?”
“No!” I answered. “Slippery slope.”
“Played.” As if this were all fun and games. As if engaging even more than we already do with the androids would be simple beer and skittles. It’s like asking the recovering crack-cocaine addict if he had “played” with the black-tar heroin yet. First one’s free, babe.
Because I am not immune to the pleasures and hazards of the digital life. My iPhone is within reach 24 hours a day. And frequently in use: texting, emailing, Instagramming, Venmoing, Surfline for the wave report, Duolingo for the Spanish lesson. There’s our newspaper’s app with everything I ever wrote at the press of a finger, there’s Spotify for every song ever recorded, there’s KCRW and LAist for all the news. It’s a flashlight. It’s a camera. Best tool since the Swiss Army knife.
But why should I help Google get us more quickly toward The Singularity? Already, when you Google something, which I do 27 times a day, AI is providing the first answer. I am already infected by the automatons. I’m just not turning zombie without a fight.
And fight is what I would do if I were a teacher today. Because it’s rapidly getting worse. As CalMatters reported last week, “Some teachers say that AI tools, particularly Google Lens, have made it impossible to enforce academic integrity in the classroom — with potentially harmful long-term effects on students’ learning.”
We already knew that teachers were dealing with essays written by nonhumans. But that just moved to warp speed with Lens: “Wherever the bubble is placed, a sidebar appears with an artificial intelligence answer, description, explanation or interpretation of whatever is inside the bubble. For students, it provides an easy way to cheat on digital tests without typing in a prompt, or even leaving the page. All they have to do is click.”Think they’re not gonna click?
Boss heard from another colleague: “He was telling me how you could even tell it to generate an essay on x y z, but slightly dumbed down so it looks natural, with the sort of minor mistakes a person can make.”
Without action, a generation will not be able to write, or think, on their own. Teachers, double down. You’ve already gotten rid of the cellphones in class. Now, no more laptops. We can’t control their cheating ways at home. But in class, everything written or added up is with a No. 2 pencil. Period. One last chance to save our all-too-human souls.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com
