E69: What AI Is Doing to Our Attention - An Angry Rant

Quizlet Flashcards: Click here

Transcript.

Download • 181KB

Vocab Games.

Download • 51KB

Vocab List.

Download • 7KB

[00:00:03.080] - Oliver (Host)

It feels like everyone agrees on one thing at the moment: that our attention spans are collapsing. We say it about our children, we say it about society at large, and often we say it while scrolling on our phones ourselves, captivated by short videos that last maximum 10 seconds and distracted by constant notifications. You, listener, may be thinking about moving on to another piece of content already, and we're only, what, 20 seconds into this episode? Many, most, people now find it impossible to even watch television for longer than a few minutes at a time without picking up their phone and scrolling through Instagram or doomscrolling through the latest headlines. These habits that we've all developed matter now more than ever because we're in a genuinely new situation, and one that I think is driving down our attention spans even more: there is now a literally endless amount of content online because of artificial intelligence. That cute video of a dog doing something so clever, it seems almost human? It never happened. A perfect photo of a touching moment shared between a beautiful couple. The couple doesn't even exist. More and more of the content we view online is invented, totally synthetic, just a fiction.

[00:01:26.060] - Oliver (Host)

And because it's created at the click of a button by artificial intelligence, by AI, that means we'll never reach the end of it. For most of the Internet's life, we were at least watching stupid things that had existed. People, places, our embarrassing mistakes. Now, we're watching content that has been explicitly created by a machine, purely to hold our attention for a few seconds before the system moves us on to the next seven seconds of borderline, worthless AI-designed content. Many of us spend hours looking at our phones, but never consuming the same content for longer than 30 seconds at a time. It's destroying our appetite and our ability to concentrate on anything with any depth. And, worryingly, AI is only going to get better, faster, more convincing. Soon, we're going to be watching computers generate meaningless content on loop in real-time and calling it entertainment. And anything that requires our attention for longer than the time needed to slide your finger up the screen? It could start to feel like - just too much effort. But there is, for me at least, one ray of hope in the darkness. When everything is becoming instant, endless, and superficial, maybe the things that still demand time and effort will start to stand out just by virtue of existing.

[00:02:51.040] - Oliver (Host)

Proper films and television series, by which I mean television that hasn't been created to be watched passively while you browse Instagram on your phone, which apparently is a thing now. Podcasts made with a bit of effort, including educational podcasts. Books that actually make you concentrate while you devour them, cover to cover. We need to give these things our undivided attention in a genuine way to get any benefit from them. And that matters to me as a teacher. That makes them better for me as a teacher, because attention isn't just about how we entertain ourselves, it's how we learn. And the truth is, learning has always required things that these modern systems are actively trying to remove: time spent on one thing, discomfort, confusion, repetition. In a word: effort. Which is why the current moment is so corrosive, in my opinion. Because AI hasn't just come for social media, it's come for everything, and that includes education. And with the rise in social media, and now with AI, the illusion of educational content is being produced at scale. We're surrounded by content that exists purely because it can be made with a few clicks of a mouse.

[00:04:04.800] - Oliver (Host)

It has no passion, no interest, no depth behind it. It exists not because someone needed to say something or wanted to teach something, not because someone thought the topic was interesting or thought the topic through in any detail, but instead it was created because a one sentence prompt was enough to produce it. And in that case, when it's that easy, why not? To take an example from language teaching industry, you'll have seen all over social media, Five Ways to Sound More Fluent, 10 Phrases Native Speakers Use. Before, when these videos first came out, a teacher had sat down to think about things like all the ways you can say sorry in English, or the differences between British and American spelling. They had to do some research, some thinking. They had to film it, to edit it, to upload it. And now, it's literally just a one-sentence prompt, typed into ChatGPT, and then exported as a video, presented, and for me, this is the worst of all, presented by a cynically beautiful and totally imaginary language influencer created by a random company. I'm not saying I'm better than this. I have consumed this content, too, a lot of it, but I'm so, so sick of it.

[00:05:16.640] - Oliver (Host)

And I wonder whether you are a listener as well. I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone, feeling depressed, reading comments on Instagram from people defending an AI-generated teacher simply because they find this computer graphic sexy. And I'm not joking. I'll explain that a little bit more in the main episode. I wish I were joking, though. But I find it so depressing that we're destroying our attention spans in general, and that even the content that masquerades as educational is often, not always, but often, produced entirely by machines. So, I think the only way to rescue our attention spans is by being willing to choose environments that don't constantly compete for them in this lowest possible denominator way. In a world of infinite content, depth and effort have become a choice. But that choice is getting rarer and rarer online, and soon it may barely exist, pushed out of the marketplace of attention by, frankly, garbage. So with that, welcome back to English and Beyond, the language learning podcast that has apparently devolved into an angry rant. If you find any of my complaints and rantings hard to understand, then there is a transcript, flashcards, vocab lists, and vocab games available on our website, morethanalanguage.com. And all of that is absolutely free.

[00:06:37.080] - Oliver (Host)

Today, I want to thank Ника for her kind comment on a recent video. She said, I'm so used to American English that I thought British English would be harder to understand. But I really love your British English so much. Thank you very much, Oliver, for being there and for your wonderful content. I'm glad, Ника, that we've exposed you to some more British English content, and thank you very much for commenting. Student, if you want to practise your English, leave us a comment, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to read it. Okay, let's get on with the episode and let's see if César can calm me down. Spoiler: he definitely can't.

[00:07:12.540] - Oliver (Host)

Are you ready, César? (I am.) So what are we going to discuss today? Do you know? Have you listened?

[00:07:16.810] - César (Guest)

We're going to talk about attention span.

[00:07:19.640] - Oliver (Host)

We are going to talk about... Yeah, I almost lost my attention there.

[00:07:23.530] - César (Guest)

You're so absent-minded.

[00:07:25.540] - Oliver (Host)

I am absent-minded. But everyone is, aren't they? That's the problem. As I've talked about in the monologue already, as you'll know, but you don't really because you didn't bother to listen.

[00:07:34.160] - César (Guest)

Actually, I ask you to summarise what you said on the monologue.

[00:07:38.060] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, that is a good example of what we're talking about, isn't it? That basically we live in a world in which we are unwilling to pay attention for longer than a minute at a time. Earlier today, you asked me to put a code on your phone to stop you from going on Instagram. You've already changed your mind.

[00:07:58.360] - César (Guest)

No, I haven't. Actually, I have an alarm. To ask you to do that.

[00:08:02.700] - Oliver (Host)

I'm not judging you because I am just as bad. I have about 50 alarms on my phone. I feel like my brain is turning to mush. I feel like I am getting materially worse at virtually everything which we require our brains for.

[00:08:18.570] - César (Guest)

Well, probably there are more than enough investigations, research, saying that, yeah, life nowadays is worsening our cognitive abilities. Switching attention all the time.

[00:08:38.440] - Oliver (Host)

I don't want to spend this whole episode - because we obviously already talked about in the monologue a little bit about the realities with which we live now - but I thought that we could just firstly, before we talk about what we think we can do to make it better, we could talk a little bit about the situation. I mean, I've already talked in the monologue about how dreadful I think AI is for our ability to pay attention. It seems, or maybe it's not that it's any worse than it was already two years ago. But for me, it seems even more pointless now that we are watching content all the time that didn't even exist. It's sad enough that we were watching hours a day of videos about cats falling off kitchen countertops. No judgement, because I watch those things, too, and I find them very cute, I find them very funny, I forward them on to people I know and love. So I'm not judging us.

[00:09:39.140] - César (Guest)

You never send me videos of cats falling from countertops.

[00:09:42.840] - Oliver (Host)

That kind of thing. You know, all sorts of silly videos, I send you lots. But now we're watching videos where it never even happened. We're just watching an AI impression of a cat falling off a countertop and literally just doing that for hours at a time.

[00:09:57.340] - César (Guest)

What is the difference between watching a real cat falling from the countertop or a fake one made with AI? Because at the end of the day, we watch a lot of fiction. In any case, it's entertaining. I think the issue is not AI that much. I think it's more problematic that we are getting used to switching attention, switching attention all the time, seeing videos that is what these platforms feed us with that trigger very intense emotions.

[00:10:28.860] - Oliver (Host)

Okay.

[00:10:30.290] - César (Guest)

Emotion, like, anger.

[00:10:33.840] - Oliver (Host)

For me, this comes down to, I suppose, on what is your view of this dystopian future that we have ahead of us? I'm not so worried about that. I'm more worried about the… I've never read this book, too much effort. But Brave New World talks, I think, about a system which basically lulls us into a a half awake state. I'll have to actually fact check myself. But I'm more worried about the fact that there are two differences for me about AI content versus real-life ones. One is practical, where AI will never stop, as in there will be an unlimited amount of stupid cat videos. Before, we were limited, at least by human productivity. There is a limit to how many silly videos of cats can exist. Yes, it's unlikely that one person will ever get to that limit, but it theoretically exists, and I think that is important. Do you understand my point? The second thing as well is that not only can AI create those videos, but it can also specifically tailor them to you. It will work better and better at giving you the kinds of stupid videos that will keep you, personally, César, scrolling forever.

[00:11:46.350] - Oliver (Host)

It's not just that it is generating that content, which I think philosophically is a bridge too far. It is the Rubicon of senseless entertainment. When these things, I think that there is something important about the fact that none of this is actually happening, none of the people that we are looking at on Instagram look the way that they would look if we saw them in real life. There is something philosophically different for me about that, but also the fact that it's combined with companies effortlessly shaping everything you see to you personally. I find that depressing that companies are going to be able to shape everything to our particular likes or dislikes. I suppose that, yes, that could be used for politically nefarious, politically manipulative and negative ends. But I'm more worried about the cat videos currently, personally. We are talking not about the evils of AI, but instead about attention.

[00:12:49.200] - César (Guest)

I'm not that worried about companies shaping their products or their feed, if we're talking about social media, because that actually could be for other things like health, or let's say an AI app can create the perfect workout routine for you with your needs, with your food intake, all that. That's actually very helpful. The issue with social media, especially, because at the end of the day, the average adult spends over three hours on social media, which is crazy. The issue with that is that it's getting more and more addictive. It's going to be so tailor-made for every person. We're going to be hooked on what is next.

[00:13:40.100] - Oliver (Host)

I'm not worried about AI in healthcare, particularly. No one is spending six hours a day, flicking through their healthcare information generated by AI. It's the literally mindless flicking of your phone during Instagram.

[00:13:56.900] - César (Guest)

The doom scrolling, basically. It's doom scrolling - which is a problem we have and we have had over the last six years - with fake content.

[00:14:06.940] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, and content that is chosen specifically for you, not even by a company having to make an effort. The point that I suppose I'm trying to make is that no one has to make any effort to be entertained for hours by their phone now, not even the companies themselves.

[00:14:23.270] - César (Guest)

That's something I've noticed is that, because I receive many videos like this, is that there are many AI videos that are actually ragebait. So they're political videos created by fake people because it's AI targeting very specific controversial topics in nowadays society. There is obviously enough content already to make people angry. But now on top of that, you can create even more horrible videos that will make people angrier. That's problematic, I think. And it It will change. It will shape political views and decision making in terms of...

[00:15:06.420] - Oliver (Host)

I suppose at least I think that we are coming at it from different perspectives because I mean, I listen to that and I know what you're saying and I agree it's a problem, but I'm like, at least people will be politically engaged. At least they'll be thinking.

[00:15:18.780] - César (Guest)

But based on something that is not real.

[00:15:20.700] - Oliver (Host)

But it's not - it depends what you mean by not being real. Having a fake influencer, an AI-generated influencer, say something political about Donald Trump or about Joe Biden or whoever you want to talk about on the democratic side in America, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter if the influencer is not real, as long as the information is correct. I'm more bored of... I don't know. I'm bored of that, too, but I'm just bored of everything is so created for us to make no effort. This was all triggered by the the AI teacher that you sent me, where it's this very, I've talked about it in the monologue, but there's very attractive young girl, like conventionally attractive, like cutely imperfect, I suppose, giving really, really, really basic language tips, which is totally fine. People have been doing, like online teachers like us have been doing those language tips forever. But essentially it's just someone has sat in front of a computer and been like, make this pretty blonde girl talk about the 10 differences between British and American spelling. That's all they've done. The video is done, they upload it, and they get loads of views, obviously.

[00:16:39.500] - Oliver (Host)

But more than that, the thing that I find so weird about it is that then they get loads of comments about people saying, This is AI, and the other people being like, How dare you say it's AI, this poor teacher. They're defending her because they think she's attractive. (And she doesn't say anything.) She never replies because she doesn't exist. The company can't even be bothered to give her a personality She exists only to be like, Hey, guys, look at this, with alternating accents as well. Sometimes she's British, sometimes she's American. The company can't even be bothered to give her this fake AI teacher- (A constant accent.) -a personality, or not even an accent, let alone personality. I'm like, it's the low quality standards. But then that actually worries me even more because eventually the companies are going to be really good at faking long form things.

[00:17:28.270] - César (Guest)

Do you think there should be more regulation and we should see this is made by AI? Platforms are asking already the creators, you should say if you're uploading something that is not real, but I don't think people...

[00:17:43.580] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know. It never happened with photoshoot - Photoshop. Back in the day when people were just using Photoshop for modelling photos, never happened with that. I don't know how it's ever going to happen with AI. I think the worms are out the can. I think it's done. Basically, it's too late to roll it back. And I think this is the world that we will always live in. This brings us to the next bit, which is what is the solution? Do you have any solutions?

[00:18:10.020] - César (Guest)

Well, I was thinking about regulation, but also education. In the same way, let's be optimistic, because I feel like we're going down, down, down.

[00:18:19.660] - Oliver (Host)

Go and tell me about education, how that would change.

[00:18:22.300] - César (Guest)

20 years ago, no one knew anything about nutrition. Some people knew what a carb or a protein was. That now more or less, people are more educated about nutrition. We know what a healthy lifestyle consists of. So I think information and education will help to understand what is real and what is unreal.

[00:18:51.020] - Oliver (Host)

Fair enough. But I disagree on two bases. One is that despite what you think about knowledge of diet and everything like that, people are not healthier than they were 20 years ago, despite apparently being better educated. If anything, all that would happen is we're lucky if one message gets through to the population.

[00:19:11.140] - César (Guest)

Sorry, one second. Don't you think people in their 30s are healthier than people in their 30s This was 50 years ago?

[00:19:16.700] - Oliver (Host)

I have no idea what people in their 30s, 50 years ago were like. (They were all smokers.) They're all smokers now, César. They're all smokers or vapers now.

[00:19:24.320] - César (Guest)

Who do you know who smokes?

[00:19:25.560] - Oliver (Host)

Loads of people that I know smoke and vape. (Our age?) Yeah. Yeah, look at how many of your family, when we go to Christmas, when we go to the Christmas thing, all run out for a cigarette.

[00:19:36.140] - César (Guest)

My family is not normal.

[00:19:37.960] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. I don't think people are healthier than they were, especially, despite the so-called education. I think that the education, basically, what it consists of is that people will pick up, Oh, that says high protein. I better get that. Like a high protein cheese or high protein pack of nuts where the companies have done nothing except write high protein on it. I think That's all that the education has brought us in that regard.

[00:20:02.220] - César (Guest)

We also have this score, no? "A" for the best type of food.

[00:20:06.180] - Oliver (Host)

Which people don't understand anyway. The Nutri-Score is because they're like... Because I think I did the tiniest amount of research and saw that it's really just comparing two products within the same family. You can get a frozen pizza with a grade A on the Nutri-Score. Because it's got slightly less sodium than another frozen pizza, it's got a grade A. But then you can have something that is a fresh food that has a B because slightly worse than others in its own category. That is so nebulous and so ill defined that I think is actually useless anyway, but more or less. You can't boil it down to a letter. But, the other thing about it as well is the reason I don't agree that education will be our saviour here is because it's not about knowing or not knowing that something is AI. It doesn't matter because of the sheer quantity of the videos that we have. You've got on Instagram and you're flicking through. You don't spend long enough to look at whether this cat that has just attacked this dog in a cute way, like, Oh, that's AI, so I'm therefore not interested. Because you're just already onto the next one. It doesn't matter if it's AI. The point is that you're just there forever. You're trapped.

[00:21:16.450] - César (Guest)

However, apparently because the current AI feeds from real content. When we say a cat created with AI, it's because it's based in many different videos and photos of real cats. But if this trend keeps going on and on and on, the problem is that the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy will be really bad.

[00:21:40.130] - Oliver (Host)

I think you underestimate the quality of AI because I don't think that we're not going to end up with some Picasso-esque cat falling off a sofa.

[00:21:51.800] - César (Guest)

They say that 50% of the content nowadays is AI or generated using AI somehow.

[00:21:59.500] - Oliver (Host)

I don't think that will happen.

[00:22:00.450] - César (Guest)

Okay, so do you have any solution in mind, Oliver?

[00:22:03.260] - Oliver (Host)

I have one hope and one solution. My single hope, my single hope, is that your sister doesn't like AI. (Okay, yeah.) She's really resistant to using it. (She's younger than we are.) And that is a huge hope for me that your sister, who basically is for us the arbiter of what is cool or not, is like, That's cringe. That is my only hope.

[00:22:30.520] - César (Guest)

AI is cringe. That's actually if we can make AI cringe, that'd be amazing.

[00:22:35.360] - Oliver (Host)

We have to have nothing to do with it, César, you know because if we try to get involved, that will make it uncool to think it's uncool. We need to leave it to the cool young tastemakers to please God make AI uncool. In terms of, I'm not saying that AI is not useful, but just not to make it so pervasive. And then the other thing as well is-

[00:22:55.320] - César (Guest)

Not to make us stupider. (Yeah.) Stupider?

[00:22:58.680] - Oliver (Host)

I guess so. Yeah, more stupid. I think it's both. The other thing as well is that no one else will care, but I'm promising to myself to try to make a difference for the way that I consume media because I'm going to stop - for example, the rise of Netflix shows where you're watching it with your mobile on your hand. I keep saying to you, put your phone down because you, for example, when we watch a TV show, all the time you have your phone in your hand. I don't want to control you, but really it's a projection from what I see I'm myself doing. I see you with your phone, and if I have got my phone anywhere near me, I'm like, Oh my God, what are we doing?

[00:23:36.540] - Oliver (Host)

Like, we're watching a show together, we're not even talking, and we're not even watching the show. Most of today, my phone has been locked up in the cupboard. I haven't looked at it, and that has been very nice. So that is one thing.

[00:23:51.020] - César (Guest)

Is that why you feel so anxious right now?

[00:23:52.880] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know. I have separation anxiety from my mobile.

[00:23:56.060] - Oliver (Host)

You have like a drawback.

[00:23:57.200] - Oliver (Host)

Withdrawal. So that is one thing. Then the other thing is just to try to consume more media that is not short.

[00:24:06.560] - César (Guest)

Or books?

[00:24:08.240] - Oliver (Host)

Books are media. (Long-form.) Long-form. Things that require effort, because the thing that I haven't talked about enough in this episode is that I think that I am now so much lazier than I was in terms of demanding things be quick, easy, accessible now. And I, personally, am going to make a real effort, basically, just to concentrate on the things that I'm doing and do them well.

[00:24:30.760] - César (Guest)

I'll make a commitment as well. I'm going to ask you to set the code on my phone so I can only use Instagram for 20 minutes a day, max. Okay?

[00:24:38.860] - César (Guest)

Okay. Yeah, fine, I'll do that. But isn't it crazy that we're having to give our partners our phones to impose a 20-minute limit on doing nothing, like absolute nonsense.

[00:24:52.100] - César (Guest)

The reality, I don't even have Instagram on my phone most of the time, but I can see it on my laptop, so I procrastinate. We have to go Oliver.

[00:25:00.380] - Oliver (Host)

Yes, well, here we are. Thank you very much, listener, for listening. If you got to the end of this episode-

[00:25:05.200] - Oliver (Host)

Congratulations, really, because you are one of the-

[00:25:07.820] - Oliver (Host)

Someone will now put their phone down and they're like, What?

[00:25:11.880] - César (Guest)

In fairness, people who listen or watch podcast, they tend to concentrate.

[00:25:19.200] - Oliver (Host)

Well, they're better than me. I don't listen to enough podcasts, so I'm actually going to listen to more to the bitter end like this. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time.

[00:25:28.570] - César (Guest)

See you next time.