Josie Pagani: Why does the internet think the left is so dull?

Thursday, 19 January 2023

AI is picking up the way ‘’progressive left’’ voices present to the world, and, boy, is it preachy, says Josie Pagani.

Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular contributor to Stuff. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance.

OPINION: I like to stand up to the mob when I write my columns. I will usually be found on the side of the underdog.

Politics has become a struggle between those with knowledge capital, versus those with financial capital. The people left out are those with neither. They used to be called the working class, and I'm on their side.

I've noticed the propertied and educated classes these days deny “working class” still exists. To channel Mick Jagger: Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

* Hey Siri, why is most artificial intelligence 'female'?

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Growing up, I soaked up anything I could about the man I called Uncle Rewi. Politics for Rewi Alley was about the life lived, not the party joined. He was a poet. His line that has stayed with me: ‘Life is, colour and warmth and light, and a striving ever more for these.’

For me, this set of values puts me on the political left. It’s joyful. Optimistic.

I mention all this because a couple of weeks ago I wrote a column in which I imagined I was writing as an AI bot. This prompted friends and readers (the Venn diagram slightly overlaps) to go to ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool, and generate “columns in the voice of Josie Pagani”.

I don’t much like Bot Josie. Her columns are dull, preachy and miserable.

I've warned my kids to be on the lookout for “Bot Mum”, who will look like me, but swear less and fold their washing.

“Bot Josie” spat out columns at alarming speed, which made me jealous because the real manual effort takes bloody hours.

I was worried that AI’s turgid prose was mimicking me. Then I realised, AI was not learning from what I have actually written. Instead, it identified me by the description “progressive, political commentator from the left”. Then read the internet, and regurgitated content it thinks someone on the left would produce.

Josie Pagani: I had more wow moments learning about the universe from six hours of podcasts than I had in 12 years of school.

Boy, does the internet's idea of the progressive Left sound lifeless.

Worse than the stale prose, though, is the evidence of the new elite on the left. A self-appointed political ‘’cleracy’’.

AI is picking up the way ‘’progressive left’’ voices present to the world. Thomas Piketty calls it the “Brahmin left”, those who see their mission as clerics instructing the masses. The goal is not necessarily growth or affluence for the many, but a society shaped by their own beliefs.

When did the left stop talking about poverty first, and the hope implicit in lifting people out of it?

The appeal of populism is its optimism. It promises those who feel like they've missed out that their life will get better soon. That used to be our job.

Bot Josie wrote this:

‘’’The recent passing of the Zero Carbon Act was a welcome step in the right direction, but it is only a start. To truly make a difference, we must do more to reduce our carbon emissions and transition to clean, renewable energy sources.’’

Josie Pagani: It's not empathy we need on the left, it's muscle. Over to you, Prime Minister Hipkins.

Clearly, AI hasn't read my columns, such as the piece last year about why long-term targets, “Zero Carbon by 2050”, are a distraction from doing more now and holding people accountable today.

Also, I'm worried about the way those conversations seem to push working class people to the back of the bus. It's no coincidence that, in her final days as PM, Jacinda Ardern called free dental care an unaffordable dream. The 2020 estimated cost of free dental care was $648 million. Her government was spending $678 million to subsidise businesses to decarbonise.

The left mimicked by AI is not hopeful, it is catastropharian. We are close to extinction, not the authors of a world within reaching distance of being free from poverty for the first time in history.

We were once nation-builders, whose pitch was hope. Norm Kirk put it into poetry at a time when politicians were more preacher than party. He believed everyone wants someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work, something to hope for.

Robots see a left in which optimism and red-blooded moral crusade have been replaced by a professional political class whose 10-point plan beats a 5-point plan. Ninety per cent of MPs have a degree. Degrees are something to be proud of – I’m proud of mine – but Parliament should be representative and 90% of voters do not have a degree.

The educated class supports a version of ‘’diversity’’ that manages to exclude diversity of opinion or life experience.

I'm not so interested in the horse race of politics – who is up or down. Politics for me is the joyfulness of life, or why bother?

Bot Josie writes:

‘’It is time for empathy to take centre stage in our politics. Let's hope that, in the coming year, we see more politicians exhibiting this important quality.’’

Now then, that is not me. I read those smug “Be Kind” messages on motorway signs and wondered why Waka Kotahi was telling me how to behave. Stick to potholes.

It's not empathy we need on the left, it's muscle. Over to you, Prime Minister Hipkins.