The Whole Truth | ChatGPT is collecting my work, but it's got me entirely wrong

The challenge: How to protect authentic, personal voices in the age of generative AI? (Image: Cottonbro via Pexels)

As a writer, my work is everywhere, and is being aggregated by ChatGPT every micro-second. That hasn’t deterred me from writing, of course. I am being published online every other day and I am feeding AI more and more. It doesn’t help that ChatGPT has got me entirely wrong. I asked who I am twice, and both times I got some wildly inaccurate laurels: One time it said I was “national editor Hindustan Times”; another time, I was a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism; yet another said I had kicked the bucket in 2016! That’s the world we live in, and it’s making designers, photographers, artists and writers uncomfortable, at the least.

When Digital Wellness Day got some attention about five years ago—mostly in the US—the wellness focus was not on the creative jeopardy we are all trying to accept or stand up against at this moment. It was about a day that puts the spotlight on the need for a positive digital culture in an era of remote work.

The idea for a Digital Wellness Day (May 6) was born at The Digital Wellness Institute. Its co-founder is Amy Blankson, author of The Future of Happiness (2017), a best-selling book that provided strategies to balance productivity and wellness in the digital era. A Fellow of the UN Global Happiness Council and the World Innovation Organization, and a featured professor in Oprah’s happiness e-course, Blankson is an advocate of the belief that technology can drive—not diminish—human happiness. Blankson believes that technology, at least in theory, is improving our productivity, efficiency, and communication. The one thing it's not doing is making us happier. We are experiencing historically high levels of depression and dissatisfaction.  But, she says in her book, we can change that.

In the AI-bolstered world, though, wellness would have to be more about protecting intellectual and creative property rights. Collective campaigns, lawsuits, international rules and IT hacks are already on the roll. Among the first to face a genuine threat to their livelihoods are photographers and designers. Generative software can produce images at the touch of the button. Data-derived artwork can be created in response to a few simple verbal prompts. The first line of defence is a growing movement of visual artists and image agencies who are now “opting out” of allowing their work to be farmed by AI software, a process called “data training”. Thousands have posted “Do Not AI” signs on their social media accounts and web galleries as a result.

True wellness today is to find ways to protect authentic, personal voices. It’s too early to predict if that’s an opinion that technocracies are even acknowledging. So far, being productive and happy in the digital age as highlighted by World Digital Day isn’t as difficult—a stipulated time to switch off devices, parents allowing children limited time on device in a day—seem near obsolete.

Happiness now is trying to keep jobs. Happiness is some form of resistance—a hard fight, because most tech elite would consider it anti-progress. Wish us good luck.

‘The Whole Truth’ is a fortnightly column that helps you make sense of the new age of wellness