You Can't Fight Progress?

I'm one of those people who is deeply unhappy about this whole AI business. I don't use any of the new robot tools and I make a point of boycotting anyone who does. With some (few) exceptions, I don't support creators using AI in their writing... and I don't mean getting AI to write, but also image generators and other such. I always stand in line at the human cashier at the market, and so on and so forth. It's a matter of principle, as I see it.

But maybe I'm wrong.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday in regards to AI and ChatGPT. Now, I've had many, many conversations with people over the past year trying to convince me to get on with AI, which I'm adamant against.

But this person yesterday said something that shifted my perspective. They made an analogy with social media platforms like Instagram, and it was a penny-drop moment for me. For the longest time, I resisted using Instagram. I still refuse to use TikTok. But eventually, I started doing IG, determined not to become a bimbo posting pouty selfies, but instead use it as a marketing tool for my writing.

Which is going so-and-so. I could devote more time and energy to marketing efforts, so that dwindling success is largely on me, rather than on the platform itself. I have found some readers through Instagram and am networking with other creatives, which is alright.

The point is now, when someone says to me, oh I don't use Instagram as a matter of principle, I think well, you're robbing yourself of a resource. I'm talking about creators and entrepreneurs here. I don't think Instagram is a resource for people not using it to market something, I think it's a time-waster.

So then, this person argued to me, why do you refuse to see AI the same way?

Naturally, my response was the AI takeover. Which some people joke about, but I don't think it's a joke. See, so many people use their brains so sparsely, give them something to automate those few thoughts and they're toast.

Then again, they're probably toast anyway. It's extremely grating to thinking, smart individuals to see all these people behaving like a lost, feeble herd. And we start thinking that if I boycott AI, if enough like me boycott AI, eventually we'll be able to save the idiotic majority from it.

Hardly the case. Look at the pandemic. Look at the money and public interest channeled into unjust conflict ("unjust war" is, after all, an oxymoron). Sadly, we do not live in the age where the good intentions of the few will save the ignorance of many.

As this person pointed out to me, AI is probably staying, whether we like it or not. It was a good point. After all, my diligent "boycott" of Instagram didn't stop my friends making pouty faces for it, did it?

If you can't beat them, join them?

That's a depressing thought, and I'm aware of my own arrogance here, but I don't think that's the case. Maybe some people could use AI as a tool. It's sad, of course, because we all think we're doing that. Every knobhead sourcing porn through ChatGPT or whatever thinks he's ahead of the pack, somehow.

Inevitably, though, some must be.

It got me to thinking, am I depriving myself in refusing to use AI? Perhaps, if I devoted some time and money, maybe, to properly "learn the ropes", I could use AI to a great advantage. Automate some shit that's taking up too much time. Figure out marketing - haha.

Depriving myself, maybe. But at what cost? Perhaps the battle wasn't for the sheep, at all, but for the independent thinkers. Perhaps in thinking that I can outsmart AI and use it to do my bidding, I'm swindling myself. And still, I've a nagging feeling that with each new automation, we're trading a little more of our humanity away.

After all, depression and anxiety are at record-breaking highs in this century. Why? Arguably, we're more than well-off. We've already managed to automate so much of those "boring, mundane" tasks that were cluttering up our life. We've got machines to cook and clean for us. We've got immediate access to 24/7 entertainment. We've got a cheap jet to take us to wherever we want to sun our bellies this season. It's a golden age, baby.

Yet, we're more anxious and more unhappy than ever before. Naturally, this sort of stuff wasn't discussed "back in the old days", so we can't know. But of all the people I talk to, young and old alike, all of them are suffering, lonely, depressed, anxious about their productivity, terrified, and confused in this golden age of ours.

On the other hand, you've got all those mundane things we automated making a comeback as "therapeutic hobbies". That's right, gardening and moving about the place are therapy! Taking time to cook something or clean something is now mindfulness!

Hell's sake, weren't those the ones we worked so hard to get off our plates?

Something's not right, man, and it seems to me, the more we stray from the boring, mundane shit, the less human we become.

I can be quite arrogant, so it's tempting for me to say "Oh, I'll learn to use AI to my advantage. I'm not like the others".