A Small Foreword

Heya everyone, sorry this newsletter has on hold for a while. Long story short, I went back to uni, did some fun projects with some very cool people and got a masters degree for a project that will never be online. For months, I'd planned a grand return of my newsletter, showcasing all the weird and wonderful stuff I have been seeing, doing, and creating, but I'm too angry for that. So instead, here is a rant about all the current state of AI discourse.

On Feeling like Carol from Pluribus

I'm angry. I'm confused. I'm increasingly disillusioned with the world around me and the current state of AI discourse. It seems that nearly every institution and individual around me is, at best, resigning themselves to, or at worst, embracing a world where Gen-AI is seen simply as, what Theorist Langdon Winner would call, a 'Form of Life': a state where day to day activities would feel "scarcely possible without it." A friend — also a never-AIer — told me that recently they feel like Carol from Pluribus: a solitary malcontent perplexed with everyone else's' seeming comprehension of Gen-AI's various problematics, yet apparent ambivalence. It's hard not to agree with them because it feels like there is something to hate about AI, in particular Gen-AI, for everyone. It is a veritable Pick n' Mix of objectionable qualities.

For the environmentalist, there is the vast energy and water usage of these systems compared to other comparable tech. For the anti-authoritarian, it is hard not to see the further centralising of power by the Tech Elite who fund and control these tools. While on the subject of Tech Elites, every liberal should be taking issue with the arseholes who run these companies and their politics. For those who value privacy, these new tools allow for more data harvesting, while also powering whole new data parsing and profiling capabilities. For the anti-racists, anti-colonialists and feminists, Gen-AI is reinforcing cultural hegemony, normative values and stereotypes with biased datasets. In terms of community and our relationships, AI CEOs aren't shy about letting us know that this a project aimed at making us build relationships with machines they control, rather than each other. For the Communists, worker exploitation and rentier economies; the Capitalists, stolen IP and copyright infringement; the Catholics, the Popes Encyclical laying out the Churches' concerns. For everyone else, there is an overload of AI slop drowning out real creators, AI powered scams and misinformation, being disrespected by AI-generated communication, AI support chats ignoring your requests to a human and increasing AI-psychosis as more people become addicted to sycophant chat bots. Even the antisocial weirdos building this future think it might kill us all.

I could go on, and most likely will, listing all the present harms and future risks associated with Gen-AI but this smorgasbord of issues seems adequate. Even if some of these critiques don't ring true, or aren't major concern, for all, I'm sure everyone can find something that moves contra to their particular value system.

Of course, one can bring up many whataboutisms. Arguing, for example, that many things we use daily are not good for us or have questionable ethics — Social Media, flying, and smoking are a few I've heard in rebuttal. However, the crux for me is not that we should all be coherent with perfect politics at the heart of all our actions, but that we seem to be actively inviting a new evil into our lives. Especially one that even on launch was a solution looking for a problem.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about Social Media having its 'Big Tobacco Moment', in light of the series of recent Facebook/Meta lawsuits in America and beyond. Even though these lawsuits seem to have amounted to fuck-all, the narrative is that, like Big Tobacco, Social Media giants have been knowingly hiding that their product is addictive and harmful, and that now this is all finally coming out. I am a tad too young to know what the popular discourse was surrounding early social media, and how unaware we might have been of it's harms, but, for the sake of the argument, I am willing accept this narrative. Mea Culpa everyone! That thing we all thought was harmless fun, well turns out it is/was rotting our brains and society at large.

However, unlike Social Media, I have been abreast of the discourse surrounding AI and its rapid adoption in the last 5 years; and if learning from our past mistakes wasn't enough to be skeptical of swiftly adopting a new technology, every critique I laid out earlier was there and being discussed on Day One. Yet despite that many have invited this walking red flag to have a seat our table; and this makes me angry. This is beyond some fool me twice type shit. We seem to be stuck in some form of Winner's "Technological Somnambulism", once again "willingly sleepwalk[ing] through the process of reconstituting the conditions of human existence." Unable to just say no or stop on a national, institutional, or personal level.

I should say here, that my issue is not with those who are being forced to use this tech at work. Neither is it with those who have no other option or even those who are caught up with the forced adoption imposed by so many apps and services. My quarrel is with those who have enough privilege of time, knowledge, and agency to do better. I speak of the Hank Greens of the world; the ones who think they are too smart to become addicted and believe that their particular usage is moderated and appropriate. I take umbrage with the various institutions who gallantly left Twitter after Musk brought it but now use the products of, or worse partner with, the 'good guys of AI' who rent Elon's colossus data centers; the foundations who promote permacomputing but don't leave space in their Alternative AI open calls to actually refuse this extractive technology; and the art spaces that pre-end AI with some positive term like 'Small' or 'Queer' and then hand money to artists who fine-tune existing large and entirely normative models. I am angry at the universities who start Feminist AI Labs (a contradiction in terms), write papers on the harms of AI and then discuss the best AI workflows in staff meetings. It is with those in government who talk about divesting from Silicon Valley, of worker rights and the environment, yet place AI and Data Centers at the center of their K shaped growth plans. My indignation is aimed at those who are willfully choosing to use, or worse promote and normalise, this deeply troubling and in no way 'inevitable' technology.

Some will say that I am oversimplifying this, that this is not a very nuanced take; or that it's not that deep, or if it is that deep, who am I to cast the first stone? But to me it does seem that simple. Yes, there are many things that make up the fabric of my life that I am not proud of, but — again — why should I actively introduce a new perniciousness in? As Thomas Dekeyser would put it, I'm Techno-Negative on Gen-AI. To me there is no reformist position of "Yes, but". There is simply a resounding "No". I don't want to come to talks on "How to use AI Ethically" talk or a panel on "Better conversations about AI", unless outright refusal is taken seriously. I'm struggling to see how this is a dialectic. I don't believe any amount wishing or engagement will mean you "can fix her". I don't see a way to moderately use this technology, without normalising it or causing it become inevitable.

In his semi-controversial essay, "Why I am not Going to Buy a Computer", Wendell Berry says 'I do not see that the computers are bringing us one step closer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, family, and community stability, good work.' Does AI bring us closer or further away to these things, or whatever matters to you? What affordance is it giving us — separate of the factory's ideals of speed, efficiency and frictionless — that make us OK with an Effective Altruist Accelerationist gaining capital, influence, and power; another data center being built or standardising AI relationships as a solution for atomisation.

I get that for real change we need some kind of mass movement, that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and that we all just trying to get by in an increasingly hostile world. However, change has to start with ones own choices, obviously some consumption is more ethical than others and every day we avoid doing things that would benefit ourselves that we know would harm others or the environment. If we can boycott Israel, choose to be vegan and stop listening to Kanye, we can refuse Gen-AI. If we have the capacity, we should exercise it. Every day we delay is another day for Gen-AI to become deeply embedded in our routines, pension portfolios, education systems and as a form of life — as hard to shake as fossil fuels, smartphones, and industrial agriculture. Let's not allow ourselves to become addicted to/dependent on something we will come to regret, and managed without less than 4 years ago — yes chatGPT only launched in 2022. Where Gen-AI presents as consumer product, we can choose not consume it; where Gen-AI use is mandated — in work or education — we should collectively come together to fight its implementation and normalisation.

The best thing is you don't have to do this alone. Around the world Luddite Clubs and Permacomputing chapters are popping up as more people take issue with this techno dystopia around us. Here you can find community, solidarity, and support on these topics. And if you don't have one in your area, consider starting your own — like Sevgi and I are doing in Rotterdam. Or just talk to those around you about your misgivings. I am sure others will share your concerns. Bond over this, and feel strength that if others are willing to forgo this prescriptive technology, that maybe you can to. And for those who still want to use Gen-AI, believe this tech can be made ethical or disagree with me for any other reason, get in touch. Maybe next newsletter we can have a Wendell Berry style discourse.

That's All,

Angry Fred Out.

p.s. For a related and less angry read -> https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/six-problems-with-talking-about-the-ethical-or/ or for as an angry but more cited read -> https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13675494261468636