Intellectual Diminishing
We cannot continue this charade of machine learning masquerading as artificial intelligence without breaking parts of our society permanently. It frightens me greatly.
As capitalism is stretched to its utmost extreme, those without the means to insulate themselves from the consequences are forced to work and live and raise their children in this new ever-souring arena, this era controlled now by failed adult-children; if not a failure in their professional lives, a failure in their personal lives, a social failure certainly and a moral failure undoubtedly. Mewling insecure men and women who have found themselves in the pilot’s seat of society will twist the air-frame to its limit to meet nearly impossible profitability goals to disastrous effect.
It is understandable that elements of the bourgeoisie that spin their wheels in high places such as Google, or Goldman Sachs, bend the gravity of life to submit to their investments. Is it not the nature of these scorpions to sting even when being held afloat by society?
So, I wonder, what is the excuse of so many universities? These many obvious elite-making institutions, its leaders such as Andrew Perlman, dean of Suffolk University Law School and an advisory council member of the American Bar Association, “we will be worried in the future about the competence of lawyers who don’t use these tools”. Is this what he really wants, a society not just financially beholden to corporate interests under the guise of ‘modernisation’ but mentally beholden as well -- or is this just his desperate clamour for people to not impede the inexorable march of ‘progress’? Is his portfolio dependent on the success of these tools or is that too diminishing to his intellect and whatever personal machinations he’s accidentally revealed?
And what about anecdotal exclamations of the vast swathe of academia being forced to funnel student’s questions to tools such ChatGPT? What skill needs to be taught and developed to ask a question made to conform to the limitations of these tools? You’re not waxing eloquent on the minutiae of a life experience, you’re attempting to coax an advanced auto-complete to perform work for you inefficiently and many times incorrectly. Why clip and blunt your own thinking to fit within those rigid confines. Who are these professors so blind as to bend their knee to administrators who have clearly compromising capital interests at the heads of so many universities? Who does this help aside from those corporations who want so badly to bring workers in developed places low? It feels as though the third-world is not enough for these insatiable appetites, it feels as though this is an anticipation for the ‘not enough’ times where no labour is cheap enough.
What exactly are we building here, what kind of society are we striving to create? These tools are not even good enough as a replacement for the ‘least skilled’ white-collar worker. What firms have not seemed to discover is that the eradication of the ‘least skilled’ workers will percolate upwards and prevent the nurturing of the group of workers that enable their firms to be ‘cutting-edge’. We will reach a nadir eventually where those societies foolish enough to depend completely on these barely useful tools will have their countries be ever less competitive in the global arena -- the generation of skilled workers from the top bourgeois families will not be enough as a replacement.
The only solution is to socially isolate and excise those who build these tools and especially those who advocate for their use. No matter if those who advocate are companies, or functionaries in government, or an entire political party. This concept of an assistant can be used responsibly but it is not now, and it is not in its current iteration. It is a cancer that must have its spread halted by any means necessary.
Seeds of that kind of resistance are already sown and evidence of its growth lie everywhere on the wider internet. Artists and professionals of all stripes that value themselves and can cut through the murky waters made by these ‘AI’ advocates disavow their use, but this is not enough.
There needs to be a more concerted effort to punish companies that force these products without consent: for those places with a still functioning legislative branch of government they need to force the government’s hand to stop the madness.
Tags: Politics, Technology
