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I share your concerns (and those of the writers and actors on strike) about AI. What bothers me even more than the issues you cited is that any original visual or written content can be compiled and used to teach AI how to create similar works. I see it as plagiarism on a much larger scale. The original creator not only gets no credit or compensation when that specific work is copied and falsely represented as someone else’s but also doesn’t get paid to create new content, since AI can do it much faster and cheaper.

I also see parallels between this and websites or physical locations of huge corporations forcing smaller, locally owned businesses to close. And in addition to the automated “self-checkout” stations that, as you noted, are replacing human cashiers, online banking is eliminating the need for human bank tellers and robots are starting to replace human waiters.

And even as I decry those realities I admit that I do often buy things and bank online, because it’s so much more convenient and faster.

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Thanks for your comments, Wendi. Now that things have opened back up after COVID, I try to shop local as much as possible. However, the ONLY time I actually go inside a bank is to open a new account or check on my current accounts. Otherwise, my banking is all digital.

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Thanks for your comments Wendy. And as you point out it is difficult to completely excise ourselves and our lives from all these rapid fire changes. Like you I also shop online fairly often, and I also do most of my banking online. But stores with no cashiers really irks me. I guess we each have to decide where we draw our lines. To decide what is progress and what is excess.

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Yes, we each draw different lines and sometimes change our own lines. Whenever I am in a store that has both self-checkouts and human cashiers, I choose the human cashiers even if those lines are longer and move more slowly.

My husband, on the other hand, has no problem with and actually prefers to use the self-checkouts.

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