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I am not on YouTube or social media
I am better at cheating than you are!
I have no identity
[ 7 minute read ]
A few years ago, I contributed to a forum which required at least some substantiation from other sources. I am fairly lazy in that I probably spend only about an hour researching each point, or premise for any argument, I make. On this occasion, I was crass and found only a single reference and ran with that; I agreed with it (confirmation bias). It was a reference to a Wikipedia listing. When Wikipedia started up, anyone quoting its content was viewed with the same amount of skepticism that was also applied to the Wikipedia site and its contributors. 'Yeah, anyone can make stuff up and call themselves a contributor!' was the default cry of contempt, though this was also somewhat suppressed. These days, I have come across academics who have lightly referenced Wikipedia; perhaps they know the contributor in those instances. When I referenced Wikipedia a few years ago, there was a responding comment from a scornful and defensive person on the same forum. I say defensive because the commentator had contributed on the same forum without providing any references at all. I suspect that they were using a phone to make their forum contributions and it is, I presume, much more difficult to spend hours searching online for suitable content; copying and pasting it; and comparing numerous saved documents for common areas. This is how I fact-check, anyway. Of course, direct similarities mean that any obvious plagiarism must negate the documents as invalid. Defensive came across as an accusatory attacking approach, 'You used Wikipedia!' I did. I did because I already knew the subject and just needed to anchor it.
It is disappointing that, as an Open University student I have to ignore everything I know on a subject; that I learnt at school; that I learnt from books; that I learnt from exploring with my parents and grandparents; because I cannot include our knowledge in essays without referencing it. I had tutor feedback that included a statement that I should have cited and referenced the author of one of the chapters in an Open University book, because I included deductive reasoning and then induced a supposition from that. It was the same as the chapter writer's opinion; someone with a doctorate in their field. It must have seemed to my tutor that only someone with a doctorate would be able to come up with an opinion that I had independently formed without first reading any Open University content. I have been assured that while I didn't lose any marks for not citing and referencing appropriately, I also failed to gain any credit or credence for my perspicacity.
I am fortunate to be able to control my own work schedule and that means I can spent a great deal of time online. I watch quite a lot of YouTube videos; not the conspiracy theory types, or gain-saying opinion videos. I avoid them.
I watched King Charles' speech at Congress this morning. I found it fascinating that the Congress-people kept giving him standing ovations throughout his speech every three or four minutes. In Britain, and I think, all across the world, we listen to what is being said, store it and compare it to what is subsequently said. We induce and deduce and extrapolate and test our understanding against further declarative statements, and then, and only when the speaker has finished and we are sure we have understood the message(s) we applaud and give standing ovation. If the speech was eloquent we applaud that. If the speech was penetrative, we applaud that. We spontaneously laugh at jokes and quickly calm down to allow the speaker to go on. We are all aware that speakers have timed their speeches.
After the King's speech at Congress, I drifted to clicking on one or two of the suggestions, as is my wont. I suggest that viewing a single video creates no structure for the forming of an opinion. Soon, there was a video suggested by YouTube that was about how Britain has helped Ukraine. There were subtitles; I sometimes leave them on to check for A.I. generative software. Sure enough, the number 1,300 was speech synthesised to be 'one three hundred'. The comma in 1,300, trips up weak A.I. systems. Instant turn-off in my book; next video. Supposedly, this was Bill Clinton commenting on how Trump was infuriated by King Charles' speech at Congress; a still picture of Bill Clinton and a voice similar to what a impressionist might use to simulate Bill Clinton's voice. That one got only three seconds before I stopped it and moved on. YouTube, by the way, regards any video that plays for at least 30 seconds as a view of that video. The algorithm also punishes videos that are started and then left within those thirty seconds; the probability of being suggested is reduced.
It has long been an irritation to me that I recently read an oblique question on an Open University Forum on whether the use of A.I. generative software was allowed at any point before submitting an assignment. I know that the Open University has notices that say, 'No!' What really troubles me is that someone, more than one person, wants to get some kind of accreditation without being worthy of it. That is most definitely cheating. If, for example, I pass a Maths test and cannot even do addition, I must have cheated, right? My concern went on; and this really gets my goat, or gets my gander up, or gets on my wick, or just irks me until I am so miffed that I am spitting feathers; there were responses to the oblique question on using A.I. generative software. One of them said something like, 'Oh no! I have been using A.I. generative text for years at work.' I was gobsmacked for two reasons. First, the commentator is inadequate for the task they are employed to do; and second, that this person, by openly admitting to using A.I. generative software had no inkling that they are a fraud. Cheating is entirely normal for them.
I don't know anyone who uses Grammarly. If I did, I would instantly 'un-know' them. How dare people pretend to be something they are not? Charlatan! Fraud! Cheat! Away with you, ponce!
I suppose it is because I have spent tens, or hundreds, of thousands of hours learning my language that I am insulted when averaging software tells me I am wrong. There is something about homogeneity that makes my blood boil over and burn on the flames of rage. These days, any average person is indistinguishable from any other average person. In fact, people's IQ and EQ (emotional quotient) are now obsolete as evaluation metrics in, I suggest, most fields of existence. Even though I could have used dictionaries and thesauruses this morning I have had no need to. It saddens me that I am only as good as the person who cheats (There is no shame in using dictionaries and thesauruses to learn. The shame is in never looking in them.) It disappoints me that cheating is wholly and firmly positioned in the current hegemony as being not only normal and acceptable, but immeasurably desirable as a character attribute.
The whole thing, to me, denigrates people with disabilities (which A.I. should, of course, be assisting). It is walking up wheel-chair ramps because we are too lazy to use steps; it is parking in disabled parking spots because we are too lazy to walk across a supermarket carpark; it is never bothering to pay attention in school because there is the internet and A.I. to instantly gives answers that do not make anyone understand anything. It is acting as though we are dyslexic. It is acting as though we are blind and using speech synthesis to read pages on the internet.
A long time ago, I used to get stoned. I didn't like it and stopped doing it and lost all my childhood friends by saying, 'No.' At that time, like many stoned people, stray ponderings would emerge. One of my former friends said, 'One day we will evolve so we only have to think about where we want to be and we will be there.' I immediately responded with, 'We are already there. Everything about a human serves the human brain. If we want to be somewhere we make our bodies take us there, it just takes a while to get there.' No-one responded. Today, the question of intelligence would never arise. Today, we are concerned about how we can cheat more effectively than we cheated yesterday and how we can show how more effectively we cheated today than we could demonstrate yesterday.