According to Marisa Kabas in her newsletter, The Handbasket, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt ran into boos when he told University of Arizona grads that so-called AI was their future whether they liked it or not. The lines she quoted from his speech that really got me were these:
When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on. Graduates, the rocket ship is here.
What reality does that man live in? I mean, if someone offers me a seat on a rocket ship, I have a bunch of questions before I take them up on it, like:
- Where is it going?
- Is it going someplace we (as a society) need to go?
- Is it going someplace I want or need to go?
- Who’s driving it?
- Who’s paying for it?
- Who’s making money off of my trip?
- Why do you want me to join up?
And those are just the questions that came to mind off the top of my head.
I’d have the same sort of questions even if he was using a real life example – like a job offer – instead of the rocket ship metaphor.
You pretty much never want to just jump on board. And, no, it’s not about what “seat” you’re going to get. It’s whether you want to go at all.
It’s whether we as a society want to go there at all.
There are lots of problems with what gets labeled AI. While none of what’s been lumped under that name is actually intelligent or going to develop into something that can think, some of it is apparently useful for some complex tasks, if used properly by people who know what they’re doing.
Anil Dash is arguing for indie uses, just as an example of things that could be done on a small scale, which makes a lot more sense than this relentless promotion of something controlled by a few billionaires with some significant ulterior motives.
Cory Doctorow, whose next book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, sets out how to be a good “AI” critic, had a nice piece this week on AI and Amateurism, which strikes me as similar to Dash’s thoughts. As he points out:
“The technology I’ve championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users.”
But those things and the other stuff “AI” is actually good for aren’t profitable on a scale that will pay off the absurd sums of money being invested in it. So people like Schmidt have to keep stuffing it in places where it is of no use and demanding that people use it.
Brett Scott wrote a good essay about two and a half years ago entitled “Tech doesn’t make our lives easier. It makes them faster.” It’s still very relevant, especially since it is not only about “AI” and other digital “improvements” being forced on us, but also about cars as compared to earlier forms of transportation and why going cashless isn’t a good solution. (He thinks using cash is like riding bicycles – the more efficient way to do things.)
I particularly liked this observation:
[T]he global capitalist system doesn’t care whether or not you want to use the technology, or whether you believe it should be used to save your time. You will have to use it, and you’re not in charge of how it will be used systemically.
We need to keep asking questions instead of jumping on the ship.
Great piece. I definitely feel I don’t have control over the tech in my life. All I can do is not go online (but I need to read the news and of course Treehouse) or put my phone away (but I’m waiting for a text from the plumber). Sucked in.
I want to use tech; I just want to use it on my terms, not theirs. I’m getting nostalgic for the tech of the late 90s, when the big question was how anyone was going to make money out of all this. I wish they hadn’t figured that out, so that now making money is more important than making decent tools for people to use.
One more question: are plans in place for what we’ll do when we get where the rocket ship is taking us? I understand the “hey, it’s a rocket ship! Space! Let’s go!” enthusiasm–but “let’s just see where we go” is, for want of a better word, stupid if we as a society want to survive long term.
The whole monetization thing has screwed up what has always been an appealing possibility and turned it into a fairly stupid cash cow. And a not very efficient one.
I knew there were more questions. That’s a very, very good one and applies absolutely to both so-called AI and any actual rocket ships.
The AI thing got scary when they had to admit that it would displace millions of people from their jobs, Also, creating it will use a ton of our water and energy. And you’re right, not knowing how it will wind up affecting our lives is the most disquieting part of this adventure.
It’s supposedly displacing people from jobs, but it can’t do those jobs, which means many services will get drastically worse. It’s a somewhat useful tech innovation that can be a useful assistant for some people, but it is not what it’s touted as being and those things won’t pay off enough to meet the fantastical claims being made. So they’ll shove it into everything and nothing will work even as well as now (and now is not great, as you’ve probably noticed).
I got so mad the other day when I had some mild issues with my New York Times subscription and the only way to complain was via an “AI” chatbot. I can’t even email with a person, much less talk to one, and of course the “AI” can’t fix it.
As somewhat of a NeoLuddite, I have been skeptical for a long time of such rah-rah thinking about technology: “It’s new, so jump on it blindly!” There are always costs, and we need to be thinking more about what we’re losing. Thanks for your posts!
The Luddites were right, as Brian Merchant explains so well. See his latest newsletter: https://open.substack.com/pub/bloodinthemachine/p/understanding-the-luddites-in-the.
I’m a little obsessive on the subject of so-called AI. I don’t think a mild innovation in software is the dawn of a new world, but the broligarchs are trying to bring it on even if their tech is insufficient for the purpose.