{"id":4667,"date":"2026-06-19T02:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4667"},"modified":"2026-06-16T16:20:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:20:55","slug":"dont-get-on-the-rocket-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/06\/19\/dont-get-on-the-rocket-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Get on the Rocket Ship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to Marisa Kabas in her newsletter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehandbasket.co\/p\/hating-ai-is-good-actually\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Handbasket<\/a>, 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:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Where is it going?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Is it going someplace we (as a society) need to go?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Is it going someplace I want or need to go?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Who\u2019s driving it?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Who\u2019s paying for it?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Who\u2019s making money off of my trip?<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Why do you want me to join up?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And those are just the questions that came to mind off the top of my head.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d have the same sort of questions even if he was using a real life example \u2013 like a job offer \u2013 instead of the rocket ship metaphor.<\/p>\n<p>You pretty much never want to just jump on board. And, no, it\u2019s not about what \u201cseat\u201d you\u2019re going to get. It\u2019s whether you want to go at all.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s whether we as a society want to go there at all. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There are lots of problems with what gets labeled AI. While none of what\u2019s 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\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anildash.com\/2026\/06\/15\/indie-ai-takeover\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Anil Dash is arguing for indie uses<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>Cory Doctorow, whose next book, <i>The Reverse Centaur\u2019s Guide to Life After AI<\/i>, sets out how to be a good \u201cAI\u201d critic, had a nice piece this week on <a href=\"https:\/\/pluralistic.net\/2026\/06\/15\/vernacular\/#hypercardian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AI and Amateurism<\/a>, which strikes me as similar to Dash\u2019s thoughts. As he points out:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe technology I&#8217;ve championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But those things and the other stuff \u201cAI\u201d is actually good for aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>Brett Scott wrote a good essay about two and a half years ago entitled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.asomo.co\/p\/tech-doesnt-make-our-lives-easier\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tech doesn\u2019t make our lives easier. It makes them faster.<\/a>\u201d It\u2019s still very relevant, especially since it is not only about \u201cAI\u201d and other digital \u201cimprovements\u201d being forced on us, but also about cars as compared to earlier forms of transportation and why going cashless isn\u2019t a good solution. (He thinks using cash is like riding bicycles \u2013 the more efficient way to do things.)<\/p>\n<p>I particularly liked this observation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[T]he global capitalist system doesn\u2019t 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\u2019re not in charge of how it will be used systemically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We need to keep asking questions instead of jumping on the ship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[681],"class_list":["post-4667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4668,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions\/4668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}