New newsletter, as suspicious of technology as ever
For my loyal supporters on TinyLetter, this newsletter won't be a surprise. TinyLetter is shutting down and thus I am moving to Substack, but my newsletter will remain pretty much the same as always. For new readers, I'll just say that I advocate for a restrictive and cautious approach towards technology. I have a special dislike for AI, which I believe to be one of the worst things humanity has ever created, second perhaps only to our destruction of our precious climate.
And what better way to start this newsletter than by taking a look at a post by Hamish McKenzie. He co-founded this very platform and recently wrote an article entitled "The AI revolution is an opportunity for writers (the human kind)". As you can imagine, I disagree with the very essence of his text.
As many of you know, there are heated debates on whether AI is good for humanity, and whether it will provide opportunities, take away jobs, or a combination of the two. I on the other hand don't take a moderate view towards AI. Every day I grow more convinced that AI is a true scourge on humanity. It's a disease and a harbinger of soullessness that revolts me to the core, and it is something I believe should be destroyed. I won't go into all the arguments here, but if you're interested, you can read my Medium post, How Will AI Destroy Us?
But for now, I'd like to go back to Hamish's article. He talks about a new company called Writer that provides automated writing tools to large companies so that they no longer have to hire human writers. Now, large businesses can produce their consumerist garbage more cheaply. Yes! I suggest that you read his article, because I'm just going to highlight a few points and tell you why he's wrong. Consider this quotation:
Whether you’re for or against this development [of AI] ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s happening. The AI hype cycle may go through some ups and downs, but the new epoch has unquestionably begun.
I disagree with this, and in fact my opposition is the soul of my cause to inform everyone about the dangers of technology. "It's happening", meaning that AI will develop along these lines, is not a certainty. People think so because we believe our society to be invulnerable. But our global, consumerist-capitalistic society is not invulnerable. It can be brought down. A meteor can strike Silicon Valley. A revolution can happen. If enough people resist, AI can be brought down.
But never mind, let's dig deeper into Hamish's text and concentrate on what else he has to say:
While AI will take over the rote and the replaceable, it will give superpowers to people doing original work, while at the same time increasing the value of that work.
Almost everything in this quotation is wrong. First, AI is not just taking over rote tasks. It is taking over creative tasks and fewer people are being hired to do creative work. But what's more so, it doesn't at all give superpowers to people doing original work! If you are working on a creative project and use AI to do part of it, then part of it was created by a machine. Moreover, using AI makes your work more machine-like and it discourages original thinking. And humans weren’t meant to have superpowers. We can hardly handle our existing powers as they are.
If you use AI to enhance your drawing, it might look good but it's not an expression of your soul. Instead, AI takes a few drops of human creativity to power a machine creation that really has nothing to do with you. Hamish is right in that AI will increase the value of your work, but only in the capitalistic, consumerist sense. It might net you some profit, but I for one have no desire to read any article written with an AI-assistant or view art partially created by AI. AI might increase the value of a work in the commercial sense, but it decreases the value of a work in the sense of human connection.
It's interesting that Hamish also says a little later that, "If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, AI will be a jumbo jet." That's a pretty apt analogy: the movement from the bicycle to a jumbo jet is exactly the kind of thing we don't need! We need to slow down and focus on fewer, but more quality productions that are created just by the human soul.
Hamish does say that "[t]his same surge in AI-led content production will simultaneously fuel a tremendous need for cultural connection: real humans in communion with one another." That much I do agree with: people will crave more human connections because AI will take away more connection.
Sadly, it will not be easier to maintain those connections in an AI world, simply because AI will often be the path of least resistance to do anything. Instead of asking colleagues or friends for help, people will ask AI. They will do this even if it's not good for them because we have an instinct to optimize, but this instinct is maladaptive in our world of surplus.
Hamish says something very interesting and compares AI to agriculture:
Humanity has seen a story like this before. Prior to the industrial revolution, more than two-thirds of a country’s labor force had to work in agriculture to be able to feed its entire population. Since the automation of agriculture, that share has fallen to less than 5%. And yet we have abundant food and more jobs to do than ever. Today, many people have the kind of work and prosperity that their great-grandparents could only have imagined.
He is right that we have an enormous abundance, but that is only one side of the coin. But because of industrial agriculture, we also have violently driven thousands of species to extinction, we have destroyed millions of square kilometers of forests, wetlands and other habitats, and we have pumped enormous amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere to a level that is higher than it ever was in the past 800,000 years.
Yes, we have prosperity, but the only reason we do have it is because we are a violent species that takes the shortest-term gains by destroying other life forms. Automation of agriculture? Today this largely consists of using millions of tons of pesticides and industrial fertilizer that ruins the land and the planet. You think that's a good thing?
More philosophically, AI is not the same as agriculture either because it is the first automation of its kind that aims to take over creative tasks, whereas previous automations were all about automating manual labor.
Hamish does say something I agree with:
No matter how advanced AI gets, there will be unceasing demand for human connection. We will want to show each other how we feel as people. We’ll tire of getting what we want, and instead yearn to figure out together what we should want. We will share our hearts and compare our scars. We will long for the sound of each other’s voices, and to shape our own and each other’s stories, in wild and wonderful new ways.
This is true, but sadly, this is not the direction technology is going in. Technology and AI is only getting more efficient at manipulating our basal instincts that increase our addiction to technology. Yes, we will always "long for the sound of each other's voices", but that task will become increasingly hard due to even more advanced technology. Hamish ends by saying,
A hot new startup that is riding the revolution might call itself Writer, but it will never have the writer’s heart.
I completely agree with that, but what does this have to do with the practical, social implications of AI? Nothing. It's absolutely true but doesn't negate the fact that living in an AI world will still be hell. The positive human qualities of wanting genuine connection can thrive anywhere, but that does not mean we should sit idly by and just accept that it's happening.
Instead, I'm using this new issue of my newsletter as a call to arms: if you think that AI is inevitable, you're wrong because you yourself have the power to oppose it. Whenever you can, oppose AI. You can do this by not using automated writing tools at home or at work. Turn off automated writing suggestions if you use Gmail, don't play with AI for fun, speak out against AI at work. If you work in academia, don't work with anyone who supports AI, and don't advance the field either. If you can think of any other way you can oppose the development of AI, then I suggest you do it.
Personally, I don't use any AI writing tools or AI content-creation tools in any of my creative work and I never will! I work for the popular online magazine Photography Life and we have already pledged not to use any generative AI writing programs. Take a stand against AI any way you can and don't fall for the words of those who merely want to play within the rules of our consumerist and capitalistic system!