Microsoft recently aired an ad for their Copilot AI service in which an individual uses it to copy the work of a musician they like to “create” similar music. (There’s a whole subtext of racism in this ad which I won’t address here.) It’s incredibly disturbing: they’re literally selling AI as a tool to steal other people’s work. It’s probably the most honest ad for AI I’ve seen. It makes it abundantly clear that generative AI really is for people who want the accomplishments without having to do the work to earn them. It’s infuriatingly self-entitled.

The best artists I’ve ever known—the most talented, most accomplished, most dedicated—don’t care that much about success: They love doing the work. The work is the reward. The work itself is the source of joy and satisfaction, not the final product. You can’t create great things if you’re not willing to put in the time and effort.

Also: Good luck getting your lucky break in a work flooded by AI slop. It’s hard enough to get your work noticed in normal circumstances, and so much of success is down the whether you’re lucky enough to get your big break at all. Everyone’s just going to end up buried now. GenAI makes it far less likely for anyone to find success.

I find myself thinking a lot lately about the history of cheat codes in games. I think this may be key to understanding the motives of people who are building and pushing AI.
Continue reading “GenAI & Cheat Codes” →

I recently attended a presentation by Dr. Ruha Benjamin about technology and the future. She discussed how almost all of our depictions of technology over the past decades present it as either a thing that will destroy us or a thing that will save us. She calls these visions “techno-dystopia” and “techno-utopia”.

Both are wrong. Both suggest that technology is something that develops independently of human choice, that it’s a thing that happens to us and out of our control.

That’s definitely wrong! People build technology. People’s choices guide technology. However it turns out, it will be because it serves the desires of the people who built it.

This discussion really helped me clarify what bothers me most about how we depict and try to understand technology in our world:

Both visions deny human agency.

Both visions are built on the same belief: That technology is needed because human beings lack the necessary capabilities to do for ourselves. A belief that we can’t build a better world, or solve our problems, or save ourselves. A belief that we need tech to do it for us.

This is belief is both wrong and deeply contemptuous. Both visions underestimate, undervalue, and undermine human capability in equal measure. I refuse to accept that. I don’t believe it.

We don’t need technology to rule us or uplift us. It’s a tool. That’s all. We are fully capable of building the world and the future we want for ourselves.

The bigger question is this: The people building our technology are building it to serve their own ends. These people are desperate for the rest of us to believe that we need technology to solve our problems and save the world.

Why do you think that is?

Continue reading “Tech Future” →

At a previous library job, I helped host a series of technology drop-in sessions: a couple hours for people to bring in their devices and get help figuring out how to use them, walking them through their frustrations and pinch points.

Often after I had shown someone how to do something, they would ask me how I knew how to do that. Most of the time, I didn’t. I just poked around until I figured it out. This is really the core skill of using modern technology: the willingness to figure it out. (Also, a base knowledge of how to poke around safely.)

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to make your tech do what you want. Sometimes it’s not obvious or intuitive where certain functions live. Sometimes you have to click through way too many options until you find what you’re looking for. Sometimes, it takes longer than you want it to.

The number one thing we tried to teach folk was persistence in the face of frustration.

Which highlights my biggest fear about AI and how it’s being deployed in our society:
Continue reading “My Real Fear of AI” →