Apologies if this is strongly worded, but I'm pretty passionate about this. In addition to the functions public-facing AI tools have, we have to consider what the goal of AI is for corporations. This is an old cliché, but it's a useful one: follow the money. When we see some of the biggest tech companies in the world going all-in on this stuff, alarm bells should be going off. We're seeing a complete buy in by Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and even Meta suddenly pivoted to AI and seems to be quietly abandoning their beloved Metaverse. For decades, the goal of all these companies has always been infinite growth, taking a bigger share of the market, and making a bigger profit. When these are the main motivators, the workforce that carries out the labor supporting an industry is what inevitably suffers. People are told to do more with less, and cuts are made where C-suite executives see fit at the detriment of everyone down the hierarchy. Where AI is unique to other tangible products is that it is an efficiency beast in so many different ways. I have personally seen it affect my job as part of a larger cost-cutting measure. Microsoft's latest IT solutions are designed to automate as much as possible in favor of having actual people carry out typically client-facing tasks. Copy writers/editors inevitably won't be hired if people could instead type a prompt into ChatGPT to spit out a product description. Already, there are so many publications and Substacks that use AI image generators to create attention-grabbing header and link images - before this, an artist could have been paid to create something that might afford them food for the week. All this is to say that we will see a widening discrepancy between the ultra-wealthy and the working class, and the socio-economic structure we're in actively encourages consolidation of power. There are other moral implications with it that I could go on about, but they're kind of subjective. In relation to art, dedicating oneself to a craft often lends itself to fostering a community for support in one's journey, and if we collectively lean on AI more instead of other people, we risk isolating ourselves further in an environment that is already designed to do that. In my opinion, we shouldn't try to co-exist with something that is made to make our physical and emotional work obsolete.
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A.I. used to make art cheaper and to avoid paying artists is abhorrent. Used to write speeches and summarize books reduces the practice and makes the accomplishment meaningless. It cheapens the process and provides no value. The way it’s being advertised is nothing short of disgusting. Google aired an ad where a father uses A.I. to help his daughter write a letter to her favorite athlete. Why are you shortcutting time spent with your daughter, teaching her how to put emotion into words, helping her work through something challenging? It’s soulless dreck. I’m tired of hearing about it, talking about it and thinking about all the ways it can ruin society. Since corporations and industry insist on shoving it down our throat, I think it’s (as always) our responsibility to demand better. The linked essay made me reconsider the use of it as a tool to expand, as you put it, as long as it’s not used to enable laziness and shortcuts.
Jan 14, 2025
AI is garbage for so many reasons and none of us should be using it.
that includes making art as well as seemingly mundane corporate tasks.
it’s atrocious for the planet, it’s horrific for the uncredited workers who labor to power it, it bulldozes all notions of “privacy” and further fast-tracks the commodification of humanity, and it‘s fueling the dumpster fire that is an entire generation of brains raised in the cesspool of the internet.
Jan 13, 2025
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But really, technology is rarely the issue in and of itself, the issue is the system/motivations/logic/power dynamics it operates within.
So AI won't save us, no more than the steam engine, electricity, computers, etc. saved us. Not because it can't, but because it won't be allowed to. Sure, as whole, we might benefit from these technologies, but ultimately one group of people is gonna benefit the most, while another group is going to become all the more exploited (a dynamic that is ultimately unsustainable).
Any increase in productivity (and therefore value) that technology brings about (especially since the 70s) isn't distributed to labor, but rather used as an excuse to drive down the value of labor and increase the surplus value or profits of capital. Therefore, AI, which could reduce the amount of labor humans have to do (a good thing), is instead (due to the logic of capitalism) used as a way to eliminate jobs, drive down the cost of products, and discipline labor by casting people into precarity (a bad thing).
So I guess AI may destroy us, but it's not AI's fault. Capitalism's inherent logic is to blame. But also, I think the abilities of AI are being blown way out of proportion and simply used as the latest bit of speculative fodder to fuel market growth.
Feb 12, 2024
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Apr 3, 2024
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We're long overdue in thrusting "What do you do?" into the sea forever. It's time we collectively get down to what people are interested in instead of minimizing their vibrant existence by asking how they make money.
Mar 22, 2024