Presumably fed up with how writers are being replaced with generative AI article writing software, a group of Redditors decided to create a false press release for a product called GLORBO for the World of Warcraft video game.

This went exactly where you thought it might when a company’s Internet scraping generative AI created a new article hailing the release of GLORBO saying “World of Warcraft (WoW) players are thrilled about the introduction of Glorbo and eagerly await its impact on the game.”

This is the irresponsible management I have been talking about when I suggest any company willing to replace the real thinking power of Human beings with an incomplete, barely capable, digital database, which is slightly more sophisticated than a Magic 8 Ball, but only slightly, gets exactly what they deserve.

But Thaddeus, how can you say that about a tool which creates meaningful articles at a fraction of their previous costs? How? Easily. This was, as so many of these articles which have been produced by generative AI, espoused something ridiculous and then are later retracted by the company as a mistake, an avoidable event.

I am fairly confident there are many, many other companies who have engaged in this irresponsible act of using this tool to replace their workforce, without understanding the nature of the tool, how to use it, its limitations and shortcomings and the fact that ultimately this tool is not ready to replace Humans because it is NOT artificial intelligence as we are inclined to think of it.

We are, through the advent of media, led to believe that “artificial intelligence” will be machines capable of thinking in a manner similar to or superior to Human cognition. These machine intelligences are classically defined as artificial general intelligence.

“An artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a type of hypothetical intelligent agent. The AGI concept is that it can learn to accomplish any intellectual task that human beings or animals can perform. Alternatively, AGI has been defined as an autonomous system that surpasses human capabilities in the majority of economically valuable tasks.”

This is where the rubber hits the road. We are assuming generative AI (which ironically isn’t AI as we have thought of it, is the same as Artificial General Intelligence, which ISN’T even real yet and assuming they are the same thing. The assumption is we can create a machine intelligence equal to or superior to Human intellect, and the truth is we cannot.

“Creating AGI is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic. AGI is a common topic in science fiction and futures studies.”

It is the goal of these companies using Large Language Models (the underlying technology for these generative AI engines) to SIMULATE the capacity for thought. However, this is only a simulation, there is no cognitive action taking place. There is no judgement, no analysis, no critical scrutiny, no meaningful thought, only the corroboration of factoids, determined through statistical comparison, which makes the assumption that the facts discovered are indeed the facts desired. There is no understanding of the gathered facts, no references to confirm whether the facts gather are real or manufactured which lead to the introduction of GLORBO to our national discourse.

If you take nothing else from this article remember this: “Generative AI” is not the same as “Artificial General Intelligence.” They are conceptually similar in the same way that a paramecium is technically an animal but the difference between you and a protozoa is orders of magnitude in terms of what is capable of being done by each. No one should put their lives in the hands of these tools. Not yet.

Let me assure you, if Artificial General Intelligence were real, you would have an entirely new series of problems to contend with. Writers wouldn’t be losing their jobs, we all would. This is an article for another day…

Let it be understood this technology is not ready for certain kinds of work, especially work where people are reading for content, reading for facts that are actually facts, expecting information to be real and current and providing useful, safe and most importantly VETTED information for their audience. Let all the shame and derision flow as these generative AI tools produce random hallucinations, alternative facts, and in the case of GLORBO, evidentiary proof their tool is just scraping the Internet like a broken Roomba without anyone at the helm.

I hope this process breaks as many companies as possible as they erode their user base. They will have brought this upon themselves and will hopefully herald the beginning of new thinking about supporting and training quality workers to produce quality content.

Hail GLORBO!

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Thaddeus Howze
Thaddeus Howze

Thaddeus Howze is an award-winning writer, editor, podcaster and activist creating speculative fiction, scientific, political and cultural commentary from his office in Hayward, California.
Thaddeus’ speculative fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals. He has published two books, ‘Hayward’s Reach’ (2011), a collection of short stories and ‘Broken Glass’ (2013) an urban fantasy novella starring his favorite paranormal investigator, Clifford Engram.