Someone wants you to automate your art so you can devote your attention to working for them

Cameron Summers writes for Broken Hands (What is Technology? (Contraslop, Part 1), June 19, 2024) that "a better term [than what today we call "AI"], put forward by Emily M. Bender et al., is 'stochastic parrot,' which emphasizes that no thinking is happening – it’s simply a statistical trick to produce strings of imitative text."

Then consider that,

"in a hypothetical world where material problems had been solved, and human needs are perfectly attended to – we would be left with art, games, and relationships between equals. To try to automate these things doesn’t really strike me as evil necessarily, it strikes me as malignantly stupid. I’ve spoken quite often on this website as the figure of the spoilsport, and that’s exactly what this is: someone misunderstanding the rules of the game so completely as to say, “don’t worry about all that art and poetry you were going to make, don’t worry about all those jokes you were going to make with your friends, we automated that so you can spend more of your time on paperwork. The machine really can’t do that,” simply doesn’t understand what’s happening, and if we have structured things so that those people have power, then we’ve made a horrible error, akin to drafting the drunkest man at the party as our designated driver."

See also

TikTok pulls new AI tool that spouted Hitler on command, horrified experts, CNN video, June 21, 2024

The other day I was asked over email about our editorial position on Ai. Figured I'd share my response here.

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— Undertow Publications (@undertow.bsky.social) Jun 22, 2024 at 12:03 PM

It’s so cool that cities are like “pweeease only turn your AC on if you’re actively dying and don’t go below 79 🥺🤘🏻💗” while the AI nobody asked for is slurping up the power grid to make 1 image of a girl with 5 tits

— Lauren (@laurenkayes.bsky.social) Jun 22, 2024 at 4:58 PM

The part of college that needs to be re thought is not “can we create essay writing tools?”, it’s, how do we help people complete college when they don’t have four years of time, money, and support to complete a degree?

— Tobias Wilson-Bates (@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social) Jun 23, 2024 at 8:08 AM