About this more social, emotional, and philosophically-oriented, stream-of- consciousness, alter-id, techno!-diary, companion to AIgitated.
When I was collecting and dissecting the causes that resulted in creating AIgitated.com, I realized that for that site to fulfill its mission, the public and creative communities being abused by specific technical, legal, and economic concerns would take us seriously as a force to contend with.
Before I became acutely aware and focused on the nexus of the issues above, I had a few weeks of more generalized and unspecific anxieties about the technical and social ramifications of the exploding emergence of new AI technologies and their social implications. Much was being written about the glitzy new AI-generative tool toys being offered for free (changing fast), almost all glowingly positive. There was almost nothing, at least in the first week or so, about foibles in the tools, the disruptions already occurring in the workplace and society, threats, and realized dangers in this rapidly developing and expanding techno-quagmire (that also changing rapidly since this was initially posted).
The embrace of these new technologies occurs before there is any serious effort to thoroughly survey what AI technologies (I call the aggregate “IT”) have been at work in our lives since the 1950s before rushing into blind acceptance and acquiescing to future “advancements.”
I think all these shiny new AI-generative artsy digital toys—like a digital Etch-A-Sketch® using prompts instead of knobs—are a deliberate marketing and socialization blitz using what appear to be benign diversions to incrementally further familiarize, inculcate, and stealthily continue to condition the general public, generally oblivious to its present ubiquity; to overwhelmingly embed the technology so quickly and deeply so that by the time the legislatures and lawsuits finally catch on and catch up to what is going on, there will be nothing that can be done to rein IT in because society’s addiction will be complete and too deep to be reversed, so the best that can be achieved is some fantasy of containment. Sound familiar? (Or are there too many historic cross-metaphors?)
I notice the age of those who are the vanguard promoting—n-a-a-a-ay, consecrating—these new additions to allegedly “progressive” advancements, and my ennui increases. I read many posts, articles, and comments saying IT can all be controlled and will be the biggest boon to humanity that ever could be. They dismiss with imperious disdain those who aren’t “in the club,” who don’t “get it,” and dare to even suggest looking behind the curtain, questioning, or advising caution. They often want you to see they have special initials after their name, displaying them as a badge of having unquestioned expertise and gnostic knowledge.
What I see is so many, being so specialized, that they can’t perceive the possibility of their myopic tunnel vision and kool-aid naiveté. They can exercise their right to be cheerleaders (or snake-oil pitchmen). If they want to be wide-eyed, unflinching optimists, all-in on all this, so be it. But their delusions will not absolve them from responsibility for their failure to anticipate, see, unheed, or otherwise confront consequences, intended or not.
And they are coming. Actually, they are here.
I have always subscribed to the idea that just because something can be done does not, and should not, mean it should or must be done; examples of unintended consequences alone abound. But I will admit that a debate is pointless once the genie is out of the bottle.
I’m an old goat now, cantankerous, tough, and sinewy. I've been around the block, been places, done things, and seen things. With age comes experience, and with experience comes wisdom. I have learned that it’s wise to evaluate things new and unknown to me and occasionally revisit things thought to be “settled” or have been static for some time, evaluating using my Shopping Site Principle.™ You may practice a form of it yourself and not even recognize that you do.
Mine goes something like this:
I want to purchase an item, so I head online to one or more shopping sites I’m sure we’re all familiar with. I note brands…do I know any of them? I note prices. Then, I note the ratings.
I look at the 5- and 4-star percentages. I will probably dismiss an item if those two combined aren’t 86% or higher, and I note the total number of reviews. If this is substantial, that carries some weight; if only a few, I surmise they are likely shills and disregard the item.
I look at the bottom two ratings, the 1—and 2-stars. If the percentage is no more than 6 percent, that bodes well. But I take time to look them over because often, many are off-topic, focusing on delivery, packaging, or customer service rather than the item, and so I disregard. This usually means that 4 percent or less of the reviews are bad reviews of the item.
But here’s the key: I give great weight to the remaining bad reviews that are well-written and make very specific observations, especially if, say, the item is photography equipment of which I am knowledgeable, and I can tell the reviewer is knowledgeable, and especially if I find agreement from others of commensurate knowledge.
The bottom line is that a few well-founded and presented narratives, contrary to the sense of the commons and common group-think, often have a greater impact on me: The 4 percent can trump the 86+ percent.
I apply the same principle when I am assessing socio-techno-politico discussions. (No, we can’t avoid the political aspects of this general subject because those of low knowledge in high places, ceding to agents of influence, will control our destiny.)
I’m not a modern techno-Luddite; I’m not a die-hard contrarian. I’m just an old goat who has been through situations throughout his life that have some of the same qualities and uncertainties as this broad subject. But none of them had the same aura of developing crisis about them that we are sensing now.
The concept of crisis has equal elements of danger and opportunity. The developing era of IT has the potential for both maximum benefit and destruction for everyone, everywhere. And as I have said above about how I evaluate these kinds of things, I think it wise to pay attention to that ainxiousness,™ that squeezing tension in my head caused by a concrete yet nebulous, known but inchoate and indescribable sense of disruption, discord, and disconnect that gives me aigita™ for which there is no pepto.
Have I hit on anything you may be feeling but were afraid to admit, seem out of touch, or speak your mind in these disturbing times about yet another potential disruption in your life? Then join this old goat and feel free to say what you will about this topic (within the common-sense site rules).
Are there any other benefits to subscribing? If you do, and then get down on your hands and knees, I might climb on your back and use it as my bully-billy pulpit to rave agin’ “the machine”…machine learnin’… and whatever else is related that gives me and causes me techno-social ennui.
Where else will you find an offer like tha-a-a-a-at?
So don’t just kick the can down the road (the label might be mighty good eatin’, and this here ain’t Congress)! Click that dang subscribe button below…and that other one, too.
And remember, this is the alter-ego to
