The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists.

– The Butlerian Jihad, by Harq al-Ada (Children of Dune, 1976)

It seems the classics really are coming back. After 9/11 and Covid it was 1984 and A Brave New World. Now with the advent of AI we’ve added the Dune series, Terminator, WarGames, and even the Matrix. The joke has always been “be careful, don’t give them any ideas.”

It’s not a joke anymore. Oh, we still say it, but the humor is gone.

Technologists are currently in an arms race to create machines in the likeness of a human mind. They are telling us “Here, use this instead of your brain. For the cost of a few (hundred thousand) tokens, we’ll do the thinking for you and the result will be so much better.” They ask us to give up little pieces of ourselves to use, or unbelievably train, their machines. They straight-up tell us that the whole system will work better if we give up our conscious elements to their for-profit company.

Beyond even that, a large swath of your friends and colleagues are voluntarily giving their minds to the machines because it’s convenient, because it tells them how smart they are, and so they don’t have to work as hard.

A few examples from my own little world:

• Lazy developers seeing AI use as a path to doing less work.
• Paycheck developers doing what the boss told them.
• All of the C suite is enjoying that the work is going faster right now (who cares about the future, right?); and I think they feel like it peels back the black box of IT just a little bit because they can be “developers” now too.
• Your stereotypical narcissistic managers are loving the sycophantic nature that companies have built into their AI in order to keep people coming back. They get a dopamine rush from the “That’s an amazing idea, boss!” attitude the agents have.
• Political climbers and “insert a role here” wannabes are using it to misrepresent themselves as having more knowledge or skills than what they truly possess.
• And, of course, there are always the true believers and trend chasers of every fad that think anyone who doesn’t buy in 100% is the crazy one.

Sitting in the same folder as this post is the original draft of my thoughts on AI. It is full of frustration, sure, but still is a fairly even-keeled piece on “AI-brain’’ (or AI psychosis) and its effects.

The even keel is now gone, but attempting to pull out the useful bits from that draft, I realised the following about AI use today.

I feel like what is causing a lot of AI-brain is a little bit similar to telling a lie. When you tell a lie, you first get a rush - you’re off the hook, they bought it, how smart are you. As time wears on, though, in order to not get caught you have to keep perpetuating and believing in the lie indefinitely or everything comes crumbling down. In the same way, all of the groups I mentioned have gotten themselves to a place using AI where the only way to not get caught, shown up, or called out is to keep using the tools that created their lie in the first place.

But what happens in a year? Five years? What happens when people have been living the lie for so long that they no longer can remember how to troubleshoot, program, write, research, or even think? Or, as we are watching in real time, losing the ability to discern what the real truth even is?! I am already seeing signs of that in some of my coworkers. Without their AI advisors, they seem to be unable to process information, and just nod blankly or use buzzwords until they can get to a device and ask. What happens when the technologist’s companies take their toys from the sandbox, make them prohibitively expensive, or shit the internet simply goes down?

I don’t want to live that lie. The constant onslaught of AI and the persistent attitude that I must accept our new overlords without question has changed my attitude considerably from my original post.

I’ve been radicalized. I do not accept my new overlords, and I refuse to hand them my brain so that they can profit off of it.

But how can you fight back against a now omnipresent entity? A few steps I’ve taken:

• I try very hard to avoid AI generated books, media, music etc. Let’s face it, this is an impossible task these days, so it is more of a “it’s the thought that counts” thing.
• I avoid the AI “features” on websites unless their value can be proven as more than a gimmick. Summaries, assistants, searches, etc. If I can find an alternate way I will try.
• I’m moving back towards owning physical media. Just recently I bought a turntable. Hopefully playing amateur audiophile will be calming and fun in addition to “sticking it to the man.”
• Most importantly, I’m using my own words. Both in code and in my emails, texts, and posts. My true, authentic voice is what got me to where I am and engendered the trust of people that I am proud to hold. Why is Claude’s voice suddenly superior? And how does reading an extra four paragraphs of generated text get your point across better?

I want stop and acknowledge, though - I am a little bit of a hypocrite. I do use AI from time to time. But as a tool in my ever growing toolbox. It functions well as a fancy auto-complete, it can find emails on the barest of clues, and it can help dredge up how to perform complex maths.

Does that little bit of extra functionality justify giving my whole identity over to AI? Not at all.

Does it justify extracting water from an already strained aquifer with a river going dry, and electricity from a system that isn’t prepared to handle it? All so a corrupt Republican can line his pockets? Absolutely not!

What about driving people crazy with a constant 60 decibel drone? Nope.

Or laying off thousands and thousands so that CEOs can claim later-proven-false efficiency gains and…line their pockets? Still a no from me, dawg.

To quote another piece of timeless media that is known for putting the practical and realistic ahead of saving a buck on computer “magic.”

Yeah. Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.

– Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

We in the USA have been taught that “progress” means constant, never ending growth, no matter the cost. This narrative is especially pushed in technology. The larger and more global my experiences get however, the more I challenge that notion, that just because we can means we should. Sometimes what’s good enough is good enough, and the technology we have is already overwhelming. What really matters is that us humans are happy, housed, fed, love and are loved, and can express ourselves in wonderful and creative ways.

If AI can be proven to do all that, then let’s talk. Until then, I refuse to live the lie just to get ahead or make my life a fraction easier.

I’ll do the work, thank you very much.