ChatGPT cannot imagine freedom or alternatives; it can only present you with plagiarized mash-ups of the data it’s been trained on. So, if generative AI tools begin to form the foundation of creative works and even more of the other writing and visualizing we do, it will further narrow the possibilities on offer to us. Just as previous waves of digital tech were used to deskill workers and defang smaller competitors, the adoption of even more AI tools has the side effect of further disempowering workers and giving management even further control over our cultural stories.
As Le Guin continued her speech, she touched on this very point. “The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art,” she explained. “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” That’s exactly why billionaires in the tech industry and beyond are so interested in further curtailing how our words can be used to help fuel that resistance, which would inevitably place them in the line of fire.
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The stories and artworks that resonate with us are inspired by the life experiences of artists who made them. A computer can never capture a similar essence. Le Guin asserted that to face the challenging times ahead, we’ll need “writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.” Generative AI seems part of a wider plan by the most powerful people in the world to head that off, and to trap us in a world hurtling toward oblivion as long as they can hold onto their influence for a little longer.
As Le Guin said, creating art and producing commodities are two distinct acts. For companies, generative AI is a great way to produce even more cheap commodities to keep the cycle of capitalism going. It’s great for them, but horrible for us. It’s our responsibility to challenge the technology and the business model behind it, and to ensure we can still imagine a better tomorrow.
I’m saying that your interpretation of post-scarcity is either flawed, or an interpretation so far from the original meaning that it is no longer useful for discord.
Post scarcity in it’s most basic definition is a theoretical economic scenario where most goods can be produced in an abundance with little to no human input. This does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services
Your interpretation doesn’t meet the basic definition of post scarcity. Simply because “most of the internet runs on a free software stack” doesn’t mean anything you are doing is helping people get the goods they require to survive.
Now we can get the leftist interpretation of post-scarcity. Simply because an open source software completes with a monopoly, doesn’t mean you’ve created post-scarcity. Microsoft still exist, it’s still undeniably a monopoly, it’s still profiting off of aspects of the open source software that replaced its licensing monopoly. You haven’t changed the hierarchy of of power, nor do you have any more control over the distribution of capital.
No, I said the way you predicated a retort was pedantic. This whole line of questioning is an attempt to substantiate a fallacy of false dichotomy. I don’t have to have a better plan of action to criticize a false claim.
Again, I think you keep trying to hyperfocus on a few worker collectives in a service industry that has nothing to do with fulfilling peoples material needs. We were discussing AI that was according to you going to replace artist… I don’t see how a couple unnamed software workers collectives are really going to help artist meet their material needs in the foreseeable future, nor do I really see how it pertains to the original argument.
Ahh yes, I’ll allow us to stop talking about the argument in hand. Look at this non sequitar instead…
I give up. I can’t believe this is an argument made in good faith. If it is, I think I will need to provide you with definitions of too many notions for it to ever be a worthwhile effort and literally none of my retorts and questions get addressed. The confidence with which you push misconceptions makes me really sad that you promote my political side.
Please inform yourself better on the various subjects touched. About free software, about workers-own cooperatives today (e.g. Mondragon), about communes existing within the capitalist system today (e.g. Longo Maï), read a bit more on post-scarcity and really, really, please stop telling people that the progress they promote is useless unless we abolish capitalism first. That meme is tiring and hurting. With that mindset we would never have had women’s right or the civil rights movement.