technology – skepticlysm

Again, apologies for vanishing.
Work sucks the words right out of me, leaving few for myself.
I have been trying to write lists.
I have two 2/3 finished.
They’re rants.
Like old-man-screaming-into-the-void full-on rants.
One’s about AI.
The other’s about loss of liberty due to executive orders.
I’m hesitant to make you read the ranting.
Yes, that would help sustain my grumpy/angry image.
Which is funny because I have the face of a mannequin when I’m writing.
Other than moving my now-weird eyebrows, I don’t smile at the screen or anything.
I don’t growl at it.
It’s all in my head.
I don’t do much aloud.
Who would be there to hear it?
Who wants to listen to it?
Besides which, having grown up with an alcoholic, I read rooms very well.
Sometimes, however, you need to get it out.
For me, that comes as writing.
Copilot keeps offering to help.
Dude, AI.
Buddy.
Bro.
Pal.
I do not want your help.
These thoughts and emotions are mine, not yours.
Real, not facsimiles.
(Holy shit, I spelled that word right on the first try.)
Seriously though, there’s a pencil icon with stars around it that stays in line with each successive bullet point.
If you hover it, it says, “Draft with Copilot.”
I have that turned off on my computers, but you can’t avoid it writing in Office 365.
Everything I write it absorbs.
All my words train it.
To replace me.
Why in the hell would I want that?
Like you’re going to believe an AI talking about all the shit that comes from being on prednisone for three years … and then tapering off.
(Oh, god, get it out me! GET IT OUT ME!)
I just had this vision of a … well, some sort of robot thing perched on my shoulder as I scavenge the dump for things to take back to the mud hut during the apocalypse.
Little guy dictating into my ear.
But let’s be real, that’ll more likely be an implant.
A HUD built into your neural interface that beams the corporate-sponsored nonsense right on the back of your eyeballs.
…
Yeah, so I looked up a malady online the other day.
No, I did not look at the WebMD link.
I chose the Mayo, obviously.
Nice to know there’s a reason for this, and an end to it.
Oof.
Or I’m dying.
Thanks, WebMD!
Imagine what WebMD’s AI is going to be like.
“That strange spot on your foot? Yes, you should be dead by the end of the week.”
Maniacal Laugh. Maniacal Laugh.
AI …
Struggling with it a bit.
Let’s do it this way.
Last night, we watched the first episode of Alien: Earth.
(Which was excellent, btw, but I’m not getting into that.)
In that episode, several characters have an overheard conversation about the three (four) … (five?) corporations that own earth.
As though nations have been replaced.
An implied planet of indentureds.
Literally, as one of the characters talks about how he’s stuck with his military medic assignment until he fulfills his contract.
All this exposition comes naturally through dialogue, through conversation.
It’s no one explaining.
It’s just people talking.
(Really good writing.)
Sent my brain into the chain of events that would lead to corpos outright owning all of us.
This is a common sci-fi trope, btw.
You get it in Murderbot, too, for instance.
You get a lot of that kind of thing in Gibson’s writing, though the corporate takeover isn’t as far along as what you’ll see in Alien: Earth.
That could just be because his early stuff was always about people on the fringes trying to make a living outside the system.
How do we get there?
Well, AI.
If AI automates everything, everyone’s going to be out of work.
Or back to those early industrial revolution shit jobs.
Or both.
If you can’t earn a living, and let’s be clear, AI can replace almost all the white-collar stuff if you believe the hype, then what are you going to do?
Saw a guy talking about how close AI is to being able to do his accounting job.
Which punched me in the gut.
Because writing seems to hold the top spot on the AI-replacement list, at least according to the tools the AI overlords have so far provided.
I’m going to be out of work before I’m scheduled to retire (which won’t really happen because Social Security’s going to be dead before then).
Yay.
For real, why are they trying to get rid of writing?
To get rid of thinking.
The early studies already show a detrimental impact on the minds of those people overusing AI.
It’s not just writing, obviously.
Today alone I’ve seen a couple articles on how AI is replacing entry-level coders.
Which, cool and all, but how then are you going to get senior coders who know when and how something is borked?
Oh, just use AI to get good enough to know when AI has it wrong.
Sure.
Those billionaires are not going to support UBI, not without a way for it to profit them.
Company stores?
Wage slaves in the literal sense.
It’s not going away, but neither are we seeking to leverage it in the best way for our species and the planet.
That’s the thing about greed.
It’s short-sighted.
Now, let’s wrap some greed up in reduced liberty, shall we?
Last Thursday, the kid and I had a whole conversation about the governor’s executive order banning cell phone use from “bell to bell.”
I’m sure he just texted Abbott and had him cut-n-paste over the one from Texas, which was probably written by … sigh.
Now, before we get started on this, yes, I imagine cell phones are the most disruptive thing to teaching/education in the last 50 years.
They should not be allowed during class time.
Demand kids keep them in mini-Faraday cages while instruction happens.
However, if they’re not in class, that’s something else.
First off, I don’t think older people understand how much phones have changed childhood.
Check that.
I don’t think older people can comprehend the impact smart phones have had on society.
Nevermind that social media atomic bomb.
Social media would not have the reach without the phones.
Kids of today primarily communicate via their phones.
That ship has sailed, to borrow a cliche.
You’re not going to magically make them do things the way we did in the medieval days before the internet and smart devices.
You won’t magically make introverts who rely on their phones into extroverts.
So yes, no phones in class unless given permission.
After that, however … infringing on their freedom.
At her high school, they’re not allowed to be on their phones at lunch.
(That’s what she told me.)
Bro.
No?
I’m not sure why you’d want to do that.
Or entertain that you have the power to do so.
And since he does, apparently, have the power to do so …
That’s another fucking wake-up call.
It’s another layer of control.
Another attempt to control.
Any mandate that stipulates you act the way of the people behind the mandate is an attempt to hinder freedom, a grasping for more control.
Goddammit, I hate people trying to control me.
And I’m being a little hypocritical here.
As an anxiety sufferer, I had to learn (and continue to learn) that I cannot control anything but myself.
With anxiety comes fear.
Or is it fear induces anxiety?
One of the most-used attempts to lessen fear is control.
What are these people afraid of?
Not making money?
Of the plebes rising up and usurping them?
If you ever get into a political debate with me, this is the thing that puts me on one side and gets me fired up.
This is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of doing what you tell me.
“The land of the free? Whoever told you that was your enemy.”
Because we’re not “owned,” right?
We’re already indentureds, but most of us are distracted by all the consumer bullshit.
They’re chipping away at your freedom, one dollar, one hour at a time.
No, I do not agree with this particular executive order.
From the governor this time.
Their lunchtime belongs to students, not the state.
Sigh.
In light of all that, again, go read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.
Dude wrote it in 2008, and there are a lot of similarities between that and our current environment.
He did miss on Journalism being a force for change, a voice for the voiceless, a mechanism for justice.
Hard for that to happen when most of the “news” people consume is propaganda propagated by consolidated media channels owned and operated by billionaires who only have their greed to feed.
…
Okay, so i combined three half-lists.
You probably won’t get this far.
It’s like 400+ words longer than what we’re used to.
#RAtM

Tag: technology

Unedited For Your Amusement