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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
May 30, 2025
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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
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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 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
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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.
Mar 24, 2024
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the comfort in the ebb and flow, the cyclical nature of it all
Mar 5, 2024
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it'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
Feb 6, 2024
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i 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)
Mar 17, 2024