The Great Ennui of AI

(Inspired by the “Behind the Bastards” episode on AI)

Extracting this piece from my brainfolds is going to be gritty, personal, and entirely non-objective, which I think is the only writing I know how to do.  If you read my essay about healing from the patriarchy, you know that I’m going to have to return to some places that are uncomfortable to write this piece.  Sometimes it spins out of control like a Stravinsky piece in an echo chamber.

I’m going to be criticizing AI a lot.  But not so much the invention, or the idea of evolution, or the capabilities of technology.  No, I’m going to be criticizing the foul, narcissistic, incel-driven men (and other kool-aid drinkers) behind these advances.

The first thing that infuriates me about these basic, ranch-dressing, unseasoned-mashed-potato businessmen is the simplicity and predictability of the gas-lighting we know we can expect from them every single time someone suggests accountability from them.

*inhale*  Slow down Lis.  *exhale*  The previous paragraph used to be twice as long.  *inhale*  Okay.

“Well, people were terrified of the internet when it first came to be, and look at us now.  Should we have not invented the wheel?  Is every advancement playing god?  What you don’t realize is that this is how evolution is moving, and you will be left behind if you don’t embrace it.”

I used to date someone like this.  Not that he was super into AI (although it would check), but there was no meeting halfway.  He wouldn’t budge; you had to move around him.  If you told him a need you had, he took it as a personal challenge, and he argued with you about having the need in general.

I was a different person back then.  I thought it was my job to love and to teach, no matter how infuriating the person was.  I thought if I just explained empathy better, if I just worked around the blockades he put up, we could connect on a bridge between us.

Sometimes it truly did work, and he shrugged his shoulders, went along with things, and told himself, “I’m such a good boyfriend.”  So I maintained the strategy until I entirely unraveled, circling around each of our words, arguments, and tone until they lost all meaning.

When I left that relationship, I promised myself that I would never again “explain empathy” to someone.  You can tell from a mile away whether empathy is a skill that a person values or not.  And granted, no one with power who is being questioned in front of a camera or crowd has empathy.  You see it in most members of Congress, CEO’s, or celebrities when they’re faced with accountability in an interview.  Every question is a personal attack to them, so they fart out generic platitudes to hide behind.  Even when they’re faced with irrefutable facts.

All I know is, not a single piece of AI or technology is going to be used to “cure cancer, clean the planet, and end hunger.”  Because we.  *breathe Lis* 

We already have the resources to do this.  We’re not doing it.  We’re chasing dollars.

So I don’t want to hear jack fuck about the humanitarian lies they’re purporting the use AI for.  It’s. not. going. to. be. used. for. that.  It’s going to be sold to whoever will pay the most for it, who will use it to replace human workers, hoard more wealth, isolate consumers, and reduce the quality of our products and services.

If they were using this technology to cure cancer, they would have talked to medical researchers.  If they were using this technology to clean the planet, they would have talked to environmental scientists.  If they gave two shits about ending hunger, they might have caught a whiff that poverty has fuck-all to do with technology. (1)

Artists have been short-changed, shunned, and stolen from since the beginning of time.  It’s nothing new.  It’s particularly egregious to see our skills copied by people who clearly value art enough to have something distracting to look at, but not enough to make them feel something.  They like hotel wall art.  They like air brushes and the idea of perfection.  And they love receiving credit for shit they didn’t do.

There was a fascinating show on HBO Max called Made For Love, about one of these such tech billionaires (Byron), and a woman (Hazel) that got pulled into this intoxicating objectification, and the power she had (and didn’t have) in the relationship.  One of the most interesting psychological themes of this show is Byron’s goal to not only create perfection, but also to pull himself as far away from the existing world as possible.  When he, at one point, leaves his technological cave of paradise and walks the streets of the real world–with its flies, its noise, its impatient human beings–he nearly has a meltdown.

Hell.  He creates “food balls” out of flour and protein that each have the taste of a different food–cereal, steak, pizza.  Imitation food balls.  

But of course, if you show any resistance to these dumb collections of indulgent, unkempt, exploitative algorithms, you’re an Amish potato that deserves to lose your job out of an inability to adapt.  It doesn’t matter that I could tell you three things right now that artists, writers, and musicians want AI to do:  Search for audiences and gigs who would be receptive to our style without making the decision for us.  Understand where automation helps us vs where it isolates us and overcomplicates simple decisions. (2) Make humanity the end-goal (which requires getting to know humanity), not the designers of AI, who apparently are exhausted with all the CLICKING they have to do and need to cut out some of that laborious thumb-work.  The designers of AI who are, for the first time in their lives, experiencing the spotlight, and walking around with 12 hours worth of boner sweat.

But we know how this story goes, (3) and AI creators have told us in no uncertain terms that they’ll continue to ravage our impulses and our privacy for every drop.  We’re all used to rolling our eyes at this point, but I can’t end this post on a negative note, because I actually am healing from the patriarchy.  And no one is going to tell me I can’t.  If you come out of fourth grade alive, you can do anything.  So as much as big tech wants to stick itself in everything we do, here’s some happy aftercare that has nothing to do with AI.

Mae Martin wrote a book several years ago called Can Everyone Please Calm Down?  And thanks to audiobooks, I’m actually able to consume books at a faster rate.  Which I quite like, as a chronically slow reader.  See?  Look at that, I love technological advancement that has clear advantages to the human experience.

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(1) I once had a conversation with a straight, cis-male philosopher about gender studies that went like this:

Him:  “Gender studies isn’t a real field.  It’s just people writing down their opinions about gender.”  (Irony of his philosophy doctorate went unnoticed)

Me:  “Oh, interesting.  What gender studies essays have you read?”

Him:  “Well…I guess none of them.”

(2) I would pay money to watch a tech billionaire sit on the phone with his health insurance company, waiting for a bot to reroute him to the main menu 8 times.  *sigh*  I know, they pay their own doctors so that they don’t have to do any of that.  But it’d be so delicious to watch/listen to.

(3) Thank you to Jordan Peele who included this song in Lovecraft Country, giving me a whole new perspective on how “advancement” sounds to the disenfranchised.