Rec
đ„ïž
i'm always getting too bleak about technology and AI, about the brain rot and disassociation and spiraling out and general cognitive decline we're all experiencing, that will only continue to worsen with time. but this essay gave me some hope
âDo you see a way out?â âYeah, I mean .â.â. Iâm not in the business of saving the world, but it would definitely be a better and more interesting place if more people were involved in making these things. Thatâs the fundamental thing: that if more software, more buildings, more social spaces, and more everything were designed by more people, of course it would produce a more interesting and better world! ...One of Stafford Beerâs more famous and brilliant phrases was âPOSIWID,â which stands for âthe purpose of the system is what it does.â Itâs a kind of maxim of cybernetics. And itâs very good for diagnosing systems. Instead of saying, Oh, we have a democratic system, we have an education system, you say, The purpose of the system is what it does. And what our society produces is people who are undereducated, or just educated enough to perform specific tasksâthe way to get a good education is to study something that has this high economic value. Apart from that, you are pretty fucked. The purpose of the system is to reproduce the existing power dynamics of that system again and again. That is what it does. Society has no interest in educating you in how technology works. Because then you make your own technology, and you make different technology, and you upset the economic power balance and so forth. But it is doable, and people are doing it all the time. You can do it yourself.â
âDo you see a way out?â âYeah, I mean .â.â. Iâm not in the business of saving the world, but it would definitely be a better and more interesting place if more people were involved in making these things. Thatâs the fundamental thing: that if more software, more buildings, more social spaces, and more everything were designed by more people, of course it would produce a more interesting and better world! ...One of Stafford Beerâs more famous and brilliant phrases was âPOSIWID,â which stands for âthe purpose of the system is what it does.â Itâs a kind of maxim of cybernetics. And itâs very good for diagnosing systems. Instead of saying, Oh, we have a democratic system, we have an education system, you say, The purpose of the system is what it does. And what our society produces is people who are undereducated, or just educated enough to perform specific tasksâthe way to get a good education is to study something that has this high economic value. Apart from that, you are pretty fucked. The purpose of the system is to reproduce the existing power dynamics of that system again and again. That is what it does. Society has no interest in educating you in how technology works. Because then you make your own technology, and you make different technology, and you upset the economic power balance and so forth. But it is doable, and people are doing it all the time. You can do it yourself.â
May 30, 2025
Related Recs
Rec
đŻI have some subscriptions expiring soon that I canât financially justify anymore so Iâm on that article grind and for I suppose sadomasochistic reason many of these articles have been about ai and I simply canât get behind these overeducated assholes proposing it has any humane, beneficial qualities at all. (It is quite literally inhuman.) the main argument always seems to be efficiency or offloading the emotional labor of navigating your own life and an argument that essentially boils down to âfuck the elderly and disabled leave them alone isolated in their homes or institutions with their screens and an algorithm fed on bigoted rhetoric that hates themâ. You have to keep the whimsy to remember the time ai saves you is worth nothing if it keeps you from your friends and family and passions and general Ă©lan vital. (Also that nothing is worth the environmental racism, air pollution, and quickening towards the water wars necessitated by data processing centers.) in the scope of universal relativity, the laws of physics, space and time, string theory probably, it is a miracle that any of our consciousnesses have been realized as a tangible collection of cells cloaked in flesh moving around on the single life sustaining planet we know of among one another, each individual their own fantastical miracle at the crosshairs of time and space. That you are ever anywhere with another person has cosmic implications. Whimsy and recognizing the secular miracle of existing is what makes it all mean anything. They want us to forget our miracle of being and sign our time and eyesight over to the ai that further resigns you to the hustle culture normalizing three jobs to afford food and shelter. Mortality makes your life mean something but death in itself is meaningless. It is cruel and random. Itâs the life that matters, not the moment it ceases.Take that hammer for your brothers and sisters, remember however gooey you feel inside is the same solubility everyone always feels shifting inside, and it is that persistent threat of dissolution and navigating the slick tumbleweed in each of us that makes us human, that keeps the poets employed. The confusion of being alive is paramount to the human condition, and the clinical precision of ai obfuscates the beauty of being alive with other people. If you prick us we bleed! Heaven is each other, etc. Reject binary codes and techno-fascist yes-men. Iâll show you my ooz and you might see yourself in the leaking I canât contain. Maybe we can ooze together in a Francis Bacon, Queer (2024) sort of way.
3d ago
Rec
đ€When the smartphone revolution began about 20 years ago you knew when you were using a smartphone or not. You knew when you were sitting down at a computer or not, when you were opening up a social media app or not, etc.
I think the big difference here is that AI is everywhere and in everything, almost without user consent. No industry is safe. Education isn't safe. Childhood isn't safe. Religious communities aren't safe. Text exchanges with family members aren't safe.
For months now I've recognized the need to establish a set of personal values and safeguards around AI. These apply primarily to me and in my domains of oversight. But also they will shape who and what I engage with and consume from.
In many ways I think this will be the issue of our time. What does it mean to be a human? Is there value in creating or only in the completed product? What do we gain from the struggle of the creative process?
Also I see opportunity everywhere.
As generative AI overtakes and as we realize that we can't trust anything that comes through a screen, even, soon, the person on the other side of a Zoom video chat (it could be their AI avatar authorized to speak on their behalf), then real life and real world interactions become so much more poignant and beautiful.
Right now I lead a community writing workshop on weekly basis. IT IS REAL. No one is using AI. We write together with pens in notebooks. We read our work aloud together. This will remain a safe space.
I can see other safe spaces springing up too. For instance: we gather and paint or make art, together and in realtime. Then we walk next door and hang our art immediately in a gallery and have a show. It's real. It's human. And we can trust it.
Also I see communities forming of people who choose to opt out of the generative AI devolution. There's a lot of thoughtful writing about this out there already.
May 15, 2025
Rec
đŸA.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 itâs 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? Itâs soulless dreck. Iâm 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 itâs (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 itâs not used to enable laziness and shortcuts.
Jan 14, 2025
Top Recs from @pratibha
Rec
the comfort in the ebb and flow, the cyclical nature of it all
Rec
đi love that our seemingly high-tech phones still cannot do the job of capturing the moonâs ethereal essence. itâs so humbling and vulnerable to attempt to take a photo of her and have it come out all ugly and orb-like. itâs literally none of ur business to see what she looks like anytime apart from the present moment!
(and please donât tell me if samsung or google pixel have invented technology to do a better job of this. it wouldnât sit right with me⊠like trying to sneakily undress a woman without her consent when she has explicitly stated sheâd rather remain demurely clothed and mysterious)
(and please donât tell me if samsung or google pixel have invented technology to do a better job of this. it wouldnât sit right with me⊠like trying to sneakily undress a woman without her consent when she has explicitly stated sheâd rather remain demurely clothed and mysterious)
Rec
đȘit's like.... kind of insane that we (not me, of course) made the internet to be any other way. imagine if the real world were algorithmic... how kooky would that be?? you'd only ever talk to people who've already gotten a thumbs up from 10,000 other people that they're cool and worthy of being heard and it would be super weird and parasocial bc everybody else would be trying to get their attention too. and maybe you'd only be able to see people like in that episode of Black Mirror w Jon Hamm where some ppl are crystal clear in color and others are blurred out and grey and inaccessible to you. well, that's what an algorithmic internet feels like!!!! and it's terrible! i like being able to post on here whenever a thought softly lands in my head and know whoever happens to refresh their page or hop onto the app when i hit SHARE will be able to see it right away... it's the beauty of your words being seen at the right time with no filters or algorithms shoving u into a corner.....and being able to see others in the same way <3