As I'm finishing up the copyedits, I'm reminded that I haven't flogged this in a bit: BLOOD IN THE MACHINE is out in September, and up for preorder. It's about what happens when tech titans are given too much power, which seems relevant now:
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Brian Merchant
@bcmerchant
Tech columnist, LA Times. Author, BLOOD IN THE MACHINE (2023), THE ONE DEVICE (2017). Editor, TERRAFORM (2022)
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I was juuuuuuuuuust talking w the 11yo about the Luddites and how we need to read more about that movement, and well wouldn't you know it--
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Not great! The web is already becoming polluted with AI generated dreck. Another good reason for one of the tech giants, perhaps the one with the market lead in search already, to focus on tools that might help us sort through it rather than doubling down on the dreck generation
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I went on a quest to find out if AI is already secretly writing a lot of the stuff we read online. I found more than I ever imagined.
From recipes to grill reviews to horoscopes, human writing is fast becoming the exception on the internet, not the rule. washingtonpost.com/technology/202
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If we can take any solace in this at all, let it be this. Buzzfeed died as it lived: doing numbers
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Today is the last day of BuzzFeed News. I wanted the last word on it to be from the people who worked there. Here's the final post, the Oral History of BuzzFeed News: buzzfeednews.com/article/buzzfe
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Well this just made my day, nay my MONTH, and if you've read Fight Like Hell or any of Kim's indispensable labor reporting at all you will have a good idea of why
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Despite some encouraging movement on other fronts wrt the tech sector, like antitrust and the Su nom with regard to gig worker rights, it's a worrying sign that the Biden Admin is approaching AI like this, and letting industry set the terms of the debate again
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I saw someone noting this, too—where were groups like , who have informed and critical voices to share. Where were labor unions, music industry and trade groups, artists, illustrators—the WGA, maybe? That seems relevant about now
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Biden's AI summit seems to have been a lot like if he'd invited the CEOs of oil companies to the White House and then asking them what they think is needed to protect the climate
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Convening the individuals and companies who stand to profit most off of AI and then asking them what they "think is most needed to protect society" seems to have it exactly backwards
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Artificial Intelligence is one of the most powerful tools of our time, but to seize its opportunities, we must first mitigate its risks.
Today, I dropped by a meeting with AI leaders to touch on the importance of innovating responsibly and protecting people's rights and safety.
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Just to drape an extra layer of cynicism atop the pile here: Much like companies trying to gin up AI hype, making the case that the thing you are "the godfather of" (and directly worked to create) is now simply too powerful is one way to cultivate a sense of your own import
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The media is obsessed with the story of Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” who left Google to warn us about his life’s work.
But Hinton isn’t worried about the immediate harms of AI. He’s distracting us with sci-fi fantasies and we should ignore him. disconnect.blog/p/dont-listen-
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An update: I tracked down one of the teens. After Eric jogged off, his buddies erupted in laughter, but something didn’t sit right. He looked at the joint in his hands, and shook his head. He swore he’d do better and got to work. He’s now the conductor of the London Philharmonic.
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Today on my run up through Central Park in Harlem I saw four teenagers smoking weed. As I passed them I shouted in a firm but friendly voice: "Smells like failure!" and kept going. I said it as an act of love, honestly. I hope that at some point one of them might think about it.
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The standoff has made it clear that, at the very least, studios plan to use AI as leverage against writers
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ICYMI: here’s my dispatch from the writers’ strike jacobin.com/2023/05/writer
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Not hyperbole, either. A real animosity for text generators there, and a real understanding of how they're going to be used against them by studio execs.
Was a great chat; will include in the next column
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Just got back from a WGA picket line in west LA. Asked the writers about AI, and the first thing I heard was "Fuck ChatGPT."
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OpenAI is driving AI closed
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Hey, ! Which picket line should I go to in LA? I'm on the west side.
And anyone want to talk about the (very good) language proposed about AI in the contract?
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anyway don't listen to me, go post, go have fun on the hellthreads -- it really is fun, and fun to be reminded of what an ad hoc good vibes online community can be -- but I have a sneaking suspicion I am right about this one
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As it is, Bluesky's ambition is to build a decentralized protocol so more people can make their own social sites—and that's great! But people love the wild community that's sprung up already, and as far as I can tell, it has little vision for how it plans to support it
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No one wants to hear this, and I hate to be the buzzkill, but no one seems to be asking the hard questions about how Bluesky plans to conduct itself as a company. Is it seeking venture capital? How will it generate revenue? What about moderation, IP, governance?
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My takeaway: Bluesky is fun, but it's unprepared for what's coming. It's currently fueled by nostalgia for the heady days of posting in the early/mid aughts, the good fortune of getting some of the best posters online onboard at the same time, and the collapse of Twitter
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The right has strong-armed the most mainstream of American media to both-sidesing a cold blooded murder as "a defense of disorder" twitter.com/AP/status/1654
This Tweet is unavailable.
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hmmmm seems there is a connective tissue between those cheering for writers to be replaced by algorithms that generate derivative content at the press of a button and those cheering the vigilante murder of poor people who make them uncomfortable in public spaces
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NEW: For the last 22 years, Clarence Thomas, who is 6 inches shorter than previously reported, has at all times occupied an $8 million state of the art animatronic bodysuit fully owned and operated by Harlan Crow, who has remotely controlled his every bodily move and action
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WGA on strike in Greenpoint. One notable chant: “When they say AI / we say bye-bye.”
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Not to be hyperbolic, but this WGA strike is the canary in the coal mine. If we don’t stop this industry from insane automation and devaluing wages that’s a wrap. That’s dystopia.
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Not surprised to see that Lindelof is walking the walk here, considering he made the best new show about how to engage with exploitative AI (shut it down)
latimes.com/business/techn
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Spotted on the picket line outside of The Culver Studios in LA today: Damon Lindelof walks by with his sign that reads, “Alexa will not replace us” #WritersStrike
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“I’ve had a couple of higher-level people ask, if a strike does happen, how quickly could they spin up an AI system to just write the scripts? And they’re serious.” & I looked into the A.I. question during the writers strike:
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Having one's concerns about AI being "more existential" also tends to make them *less actionable*. Hinton's critique may cause some chin-stroking at Google, but likely little else—the issues raised below, meanwhile, Google *could* actually address, but simply does not want to
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I am floored by the idea that automating discrimination, building tools for social control, and entrenching mass surveillance is not "existential." But ghost stories and scifi fantasies are. twitter.com/xeegeex/status…
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An AI should be quite good at things like analyzing market demand for projects, managing budgets and operation costs, and optimizing finances—funny how no one ever suggests using AI to replace studio executives
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oh no. a writers strike. whatever shall we do. if only there was some kind of machine that could endlessly pump out textual content so we didn't have to rely on these flaky humans,,,
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Can't quite believe I'm writing this: Today, 150 African workers behind ChatGPT, TikTok and Facebook voted to unionize at a landmark meeting in Nairobi.
These AI workers are invisible, underpaid, and the backbone of the tech in all our pockets:
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ha just in case it was not clear I in no way actually feel sorry about this; things of this nature happened all the time—I am however sorry for the great journalists & staffers who’ve done invaluable work in spite of the constant utter chaos of management
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There's only one explanation for the change of heart here: Elon read my column and simply found it so convincing he had no choice but to adjust course. Happens all the time
latimes.com/business/techn
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to the great credit of derek mead, who was EIC of motherboard at the time, and rocco castoro who was VICE's, they never flinched and supported the story regardless. good times
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Can't help but feel partly responsible. Years ago, I wrote a story about Amazon using more fossil fuels than other big tech cos; we published it on Motherboard. Turned out Vice was about to close a multimillion $ deal w Amazon the same day and they walked
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this exactly
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I’m curious if in a year or two we’re going to see a wave of articles about companies quietly rehiring the human workers who were going to be replaced by AI.
The hype always gets covered, but when the hype fails to pan out there’s much less coverage.
arstechnica.com/information-te
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There's going to be a ton more announcements like IBM's, so get ready, and see it for what it is: a move by management to shore up power, and to keep its workforce feeling precarious.
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Finally, think about who an announcement like this serves—IBM's executives, and that's about it. They just won themselves some leverage against their workforce with a threat that automation is looming, and a promise to investors that they're getting "more efficient" (they won't.)
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*and* they'll have to navigate a freshly automated inter-office system where core HR needs have been handed over to AI text generators. Unless they are big fans of things like automated voice menus and inscrutable online portals, this is bad news too
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