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Mar 25, 2023Liked by Pallavi Aiyar

You know, an interesting thing for journalists, writers, artists and perhaps comms professionals to think about (besides covering it as news and opinion) is to really think about the difference between facts (or what look like facts sometimes to an AI bot) and truth (human evaluation, judgement, compassion, patience, inspiration, optimism)... And the crucial importance of storytelling in unveiling it. What is truth in the age of AI?

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Mar 25, 2023Liked by Pallavi Aiyar

Hi Pallavi, I loved this, but I don’t agree with the conclusion.

Although the first prototype of the Internet was invented during WWII and then in late 1969 (node-to-node communication between two computers) led to the creation of ARPAnet for the US department of defence (so this is the time period Pinto is describing up to 1980)...

It wasn’t until 1 Jan 1983 that ARPAnet adopted TCP/IP which is classed as the official birthday of the Internet, which I suspect was a bigger moment for people like Pinto in that decade.

1 month later I was born in Feb 1983. But it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that the World Wide Web announced it was available to the public. I remember that moment even as a child. I remember the wonderment of getting a dial up connection. I remember being banned at 15 from going on chat forums. I remember not using the Internet much through my university years because it wasn’t a thing. I remember the fuss about joining Facebook. I remember asking an intern as a young manager in an PR agency to show me what Twitter was and how it worked.

I witnessed the birth of the Internet, social media, and human connectivity. I felt lost in the diaspora this created between two generations.

I work in tech communications today.

Generative AI is a revolution like none other. It is at least as big as that moment in 1993 for the whole world. And perhaps as big a moment it was in WWII.

And as an enthusiast (without downplaying the many challenges ahead for humanity that this new innovation genuinely raises) I can say with confidence of my 40 years on the planet and 2 decades of professional experience that this is fundamentally going to change how we connect, how we innovate, how we live, how we think, and (with the obliteration of many jobs) how we eat.

And I’m not even touching on ethics, here. There’s no normative language. I’m just stating the truth.

This is BIG 🙏

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