A Retirement Journal: Jockobot's Deepfake Retirement Journal

Real Jake:

When I was a young adult in the 70s and early 80s, a tv commercial by the famed agency Leo Burnett was present everywhere on the airwaves. The ad featured renown singer-songwriter-composer Ella Fitzgerald. Known alternately as “The First Lady of Song”, “Queen of Jazz”, and “Lady Ella”, Ms. Fitzgerald was known for her sublime voice and scat singing where she just used her voice to make improv sounds without necessarily using words. With her perfect pitch, Fitzgerald could and did literally and figuratively break glass by hitting certain high frequencies. The commercials over the years featured Ella Fitzgerald breaking glass but with a catch. With each commercial it was not clear whether it was the singer herself breaking the glass or a recording of her on Memorex cassette tape. The line “Is it live or is it Memorex?” became a catch phrase for that period and beyond. The fact that a recorded reproduction of such a pure voice could be equally pure was unfathomable, or so the manufacturer of Memorex wanted you to believe. Today, AI can not only replicate Ella Fitzgerald’s voice but the person itself. How do you know if it is Ella herself or a deep fake?

My young friend Mark Block decided to put me or rather my “A Retirement Journal” to the test. Regular readers will know I have been weighing in on a variety of topics in these musings over the last several years. Mark fed several (10) of my blogs into Chat GPT and gave it the prompt, “Draft an entry for "A Retirement Journal" article based on Jake Chacko’s writing style, themes reflective tone and personal storytelling. Focusing on AI deep fakes and the authenticity of a retirement journal”

The result:

Jockobot powered by ChatGPT:

A Retirement Journal: Reflections on AI and the Deepfake Dilemma Jake Chacko ?(aka Jockobot) Principal at Chacko Consulting Services - November 4, 2024

? When I look back over the chapters of my life — from Calcutta’s busy streets, with chai shops and rickshaw pullers, to Berkeley’s spirited campus and the Silicon Valley tech scene — the world of artificial intelligence still manages to surprise me. And while I find much of this progress exciting, something about AI’s latest capability — the ability to deepfake personal reflections, stories, even entire journals — strikes a nerve.

Now, I’m no stranger to technology’s transformative march. I’ve seen computers shrink from room-sized behemoths to devices in our pockets, and I watched as the internet reshaped industries. But this ability for AI to mimic human voices, faces, and now thoughts in a journal format is a whole different beast. Can it ever capture the essence of a life lived, the nuances of a retirement journey like mine? Let me try to paint the picture. Imagine AI scanning through my journal entries — my memories of California football games, musings on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy, or tales of my high school reunion — and producing an entry. Could it tell the story of my first Uber ride or the delight I felt when Waymo dropped me off in San Francisco’s Mission Bay without a driver in sight? The answer is complicated. AI can undoubtedly simulate language patterns, analyze sentence structures, and pick up on favorite expressions. But can it recreate the feeling of wonder at seeing my first autonomous car or the nostalgia of walking along the old Gettysburg battlegrounds with family?

Take, for instance, the countless conversations I’ve had with my daughters, Tara Chacko and Becca Carroll , at family dinners. Recently, we found ourselves in a heated debate over an employee who posted her own firing on TikTok. Each of us held our ground, blending our life experiences with our unique perspectives on work and values. AI could recreate the words, maybe even the arguments, but it could never capture the layers of family dynamics and history embedded in those exchanges. As much as AI can try to replicate a journal, it can’t generate the years of shared memories, little arguments, laughter, and the “aha” moments we bring into these conversations.

So, as we stand on the brink of an AI-driven era, I find myself reflecting on what it means to live authentically. AI’s ability to “fake” our reflections only highlights the value of true, lived experience. The missed turns, embarrassing moments, and spontaneous decisions that color our lives can’t be neatly packaged by algorithms. And the imperfections — oh, the many “glitches” in life! — are, after all, what make a journal worth writing. I believe, perhaps naively, that human connection and authenticity will always hold a power that machines can’t emulate. For all AI’s advances, the heart of a journal, a retirement story, a life lived — that belongs to us, in all our messy, imperfect glory.

What do you think? Are you ready to let AI step into your story, or will you guard your words and memories with the human touch they deserve?

Jockobot

Real Jake:

Uncanny! Jockobot certainly captures the essence of A Retirement Journal! Any English Professor would grade Jockobot’s writing superior to mine, and not by a small amount. And yet, and yet, and yet—it is not me! As a writer, I would miss the enjoyment of composing an essay every week if I even occasionally “mailed it in” using Jockobot. I am sure you my readers will after one or two of these, look askance and stop reading. For all its beauty, I feel the essay above is sterile. The errors in grammar and the visible markings of an imperfect human being are what make my blog read by so many of you every week. Ironically, Memorex tried to be as perfect as Ella Fitzgerald. My journal is “better” because it has flaws compared to Jockobot’s.

As AI itself admitted, my blog is deeply personal. I can see however where AI Bots can take over large swaths of copy writing and written communications. Will that lower the general standard of writing for us humans? I don’t know. It is indeed a brave new world.

What do YOU think of Jockobot’s essay?

Jake