When I hear the term “artificial intelligence” or AI it just makes me think of a Schwarzenegger flick; or perhaps an eighteen-term U.S. Congressman. Not too long ago someone pitched me on a “how to” article for The Fisherman in which the potential writer stated how he wished to write it using AI. I had to politely decline, explaining how I was the only “artificial intelligence” that our publisher wished to employ at this time.
Then I read about a 19-year-old social media influencer from Helsinki named Milla Sofia with over 30,000 Instagram followers, which from what I can tell consisted mainly of creepy old men anxiously awaiting her next bikini pics. After following her personally for the past year (like I said), we learned that Milla was created using AI – in other words, she doesn’t really exist.
After unfriending the bikini robot from Finland (not Sweden, but I digress), I used Bing’s “AI” feature to specifically ask, “what is AI?” Bing answered by saying “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the intelligence demonstrated by machines that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation. AI is a technology that studies ways to train a computer, robotic technology, and an analytical system to think intelligently like a person. The dream of intelligent robotic assistants arose long before the invention of the first computers.”
Like I said, Terminator. Seeing as how the mainstream media completely ignores the potential impacts of industrial offshore wind on coastal fisheries, I thought maybe it could be an “artificial intelligence” issue on the part of young journalists who perhaps aren’t typing exact terms into their little AI machines to help develop insightful editorial. So I went back to Bing’s AI search with a simple request, “Write me an article about industrial offshore wind and its impact on coastal fisheries;” here’s how Bing’s AI mechanism responded:
“I found an article on the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that explains how the construction and operation of offshore wind turbines could impact commercial, recreational, and tribal fishing in a variety of ways. These include:
- Displacing fishermen from traditional fishing areas.
- Changing the distribution, abundance, and species composition of fish in an area causing economic losses.
- Increasing vessel traffic and competition for support services on shore.
- Disrupting vessel radar systems.
- Damaging or destroying fishing gear.
- Reducing safety at sea from increased vessel traffic and navigation challenges.
Offshore wind turbines can attract fish and marine life, but also repel them. Water cloudiness from turbine operations, noise, vibrations and electromagnetic fields could also make them leave the area. Offshore wind farms have four broad types of direct effects on fish and fisheries: the artificial reef effect, fisheries exclusion, energy landscape effects, and fisheries displacement. Construction and operation of offshore wind farms can disturb mobile and sessile species, leading to displacement of or reduction in fish and shellfish resources.”
On paper NOAA Fisheries has continually acknowledged the problems we face as fishermen with this massive offshore industrialization effort, even as they deny it in every spoken media interview and congressional hearing. Heck, the information is pretty simple to find, even for those of us who rely on old fashioned methods of intelligence gathering, like AOL.
So the next time some faux fishing guide with a wind turbine lapel pin on his jacket visits your fishing club to tell you about how great industrial offshore wind will be for fishing, by all means, feel free to question whether his intelligence is natural, artificial, or funded directly through the robotic assistance of industrial offshore wind corporations.
