Why are we in such a rush to automate the things that give people the most joy?
I have seen no shortage of posts, cartoons, reels, and tweets on the topic and usually it goes something like this: a person is begrudgingly doing the hard labour while the computer is joyously making art and composing music.
The irony is thick.
We built complicated algorithms and robotic mechanizations to churn through calculations and work in factories and clean our homes, and instead we’re having this crazy conversation about how we can distinguish generative music from human compositions in our playlists or avoid buying slop produced novels published in droves via online booksellers.
Over on another project I write about the blind pursuit of technological advancement and the cost to our humanity. You might find it interesting, too.
AI.
Generative content replacing our creative efforts. Our intellectual property slurped into algorithms that spit it back out through chatbots and neural engines meant to automate creative effort and pull humanity out of the business of using our imaginations.
We work hard all our lives so we have time to pursue hobbies, and for many hobbies are painting in the park or playing in a band or cozying up with a keyboard and trying to write the next great novel.
Are we so eager to hand these things over to algorithms?
Of course not, you scream into your screen, that’s why we’re all so angry about this so called revolution of generative artificial intelligence. You’re just stating the obvious!
But someone is eager, no? Someone wants to suck the joy out of humanity, and why is that?
Terms FROm this POSt
- algorithm
- The modern internet in all its forms is far too large for people to fully manage anymore without the help of automated systems. Any time an unseen calculation weighing our public profiles against what an app, website, or service chooses to show us, one of these automated systems is at work behind the scenes recommending product, ideas, politics, and friends. The invisible hand of fate has turned into a digital calculation so big we can’t understand it, and so complex it is often hauntingly accurate. If you are not afraid of the algorithm and what it has done to our society, you are probably not paying enough attention.
- keyboard
- Maybe it’s for typing. Maybe it’s for coding. Maybe it’s for making music. A bed of buttons arrayed for digital input is my favourite user interface and I’ll write about them often in their many varieties.
- slop
- Maybe I’m just leaning into it, but it seems like this has become the de facto term to describe anything generated by an algorithm coupled with the soulless pursuit of creating for-profit content. Artificial intelligence is a complex technology with many positive uses, but making inhuman replacements for human expression is not one of those.
