We are entering into a time when we will have trouble believing our lying eyes. So far, AI appears to be mostly used for hilarious memes, but the camel nose is under the tent. I think most of our readers are sophisticated enough to at least question what they see, but being able to distinguish between real and AI-generated will grow more and more difficult. We will have to rely on our spidey-sense in some cases.
In this issue, Scott Graber addresses the subject, and surprisingly, AI helped him in a survey, but not in a way you might think. As Scott says, it can be a marvelous research tool. Even so, it pays to remain rooted in the real world. According to the AI in Google, “…Mata v. Avianca, Inc. is the most prominent case where fake, AI-generated citations were submitted to a court. The 2023 case involved attorneys who used the AI chatbot ChatGPT to conduct legal research, resulting in a motion with nonexistent case citations.”
Now, I have no idea if these attorneys received any sanctions for their lazy behavior, but Scott points out another source for alarm: liability. Many of us try to lessen our liability with disclaimer language, but I agree with Scott: … in a courtroom, intent often matters less than impact.
And speaking of disclaimers: To the best of my knowledge, information and belief AI was not used in the preparation of this magazine.
We have used AI, however. The flyer included with your mailing was created by AI. But in doing so, we ran up against one of the current problems with AI: you tell it what you want, and it produces something. You like everything it has done except for one thing. You tell it to keep everything exactly as it is but change this one thing. The AI then produces something entirely new, ignoring your instructions. Not that we were unhappy with the flyer, just frustrated that the AI wouldn’t do exactly what we asked. I assume this will get better over time.
Bottom line, we ignore AI at our peril, and it behooves us to treat it as another tool in our toolbox. Scott’s experience with AI should be encouraging, not frightening.
In This Issue
Tons of great material is in the new issue.
- Lloyd Pilchen provides another deep dive, this time regarding rights-of-way.
- With dangers from spoofing on the rise, Trimble explains how its RTX-NMA deals with it.
- Chuck Whitten regales with another fraudulent survey tale.
- Attracting young people into surveying is the subject of a California project.
- Glen Thurow brings us up to date on the PLSS Foundation, now celebrating its 16th anniversary.
- We have a new book reviewer who wishes to remain anonymous. We were working with some speech-recognition software and every time it came to the words “land surveying” it coughed up the words “lancer vang.” I think it makes a great nom de plume.
- Rounding out the issue, Carl De Baca continues with his examination of threats to licensure, and Wendy Lathrop appeals for more civic participation.