AI Doesn’t Have to be the Future
They promised us jetpacks, but no jetpacks. They promised us robots to make our sandwiches and clean up after us, but so far, no robots. I’ve got a Roomba, but it keeps getting stuck on things in the living room and then it beeps for help until I either go save it or it runs out of battery. So far, none of this robotic stuff is optimal. I had a Google Nest I used to turn the lights on and off until I realized if was easier to just flip the switch instead of arguing with a stupid box on the end table. Not to mention all of that eavesdropping got icky. So yeah, the promise of Big Tech has pretty much turned into a nightmare of datamining, endless ads, and spam.
The simple fact of the matter is, it’s a lot cheaper to code an algorithm that steals (they call it ‘compiles’) other people’s creative output to regurgitate it in a digital mish-mosh than it is to build a robot that can make you a sandwich. This isn’t some brave new technological future, it’s the cheapest way for Big Tech to make a buck and we should reject it hands down. Instead, we debate and celebrate.
Now, right on script, Big Tech is jamming AI down our throats, but it’s not the kind of AI that knows exactly how I like my liverwurst sandwiches, It’s the kind of AI that is hellbent on destroying every last bit of my creativity. I actually know a guy who took a bunch of his story ideas and plugged them into ChatGPT hoping the algorithm would extract a book for him to sell. Graphic artists and videographers are being pushed aside. So are song writers and musicians. Meanwhile, I’m still cleaning up after myself before I go for a ride so WAZE can tell me the absolute worst way to get somewhere. I actually got a ride to O’Hare in Chicago, and the guy needed his GPS to get him there. He lives in Chicago. He’s lived there for twenty years. He has enslaved himself.
Amazon and ChatGPT want to use the words in my book that took me two years to write to “teach” its AI algorithms storytelling. For free. So someone else can generate a book with an algorithm. It’s theft and when we use the results we are complacent in the original theft.
I refuse to use AI to create and I refuse to patronize the work of those who do. Giant faceless corporations want us to step in line and hand our thinking over to them, but what giant faceless corporations want isn’t inevitable. We don’t have a lot of power left, but we do have the power to refuse things we don’t want. Every time you watch a video, read a passage or listen to something AI generated, you give away a little more of your human autonomy and you cede the tech monopolies a little more power over you. Not to mention the fact you are stripping away the human creativity that makes society work.
Refuse AI.