Against AI

f*** useless AI

In a world where we can outsource productivity to technology, the people who reap the biggest rewards aren’t those who work the fastest.

They’re the people who make things that are wonderful, original, weird, emotionally resonant, and authentic. As our feeds become flooded with instant, AI-generated content, the most dangerous thing you can do is pl... See more

Sari Azout • The End of Productivity

I mean, we can’t out-AI an AI.
But we can out-human it.

Now is a time to lean into our humanity.
Yes, we can both do pattern recognition, and AI does it faster and more astutely.
But it can’t feel.
It can’t create the unknown.
It can only regurgitate.

These are the cracks in the pavement where living things sprout.
Where what is innately beautiful — life —

When it comes to AI, we need to aim higher than the question: “What if you could press a button to generate an essay?” AI can produce infinite amounts of content; quantity is its game. Quality, intention, taste, originality, vision—that’s where we come in.

Our interfaces should facilitate prose-sculpting, meaning-architecting, memory-augmenting, and

Sari Azout • The End of Productivity

Tech optimists keep promising us we’re just one innovation away from magically enhancing our capacity for connection and meaning. Meanwhile, the messy, unoptimisable business of being alive remains stubbornly resistant to algorithmic solutions, reminding us that our limitations are the very features that make our existence worthwhile

-Kai, Dense Dis

A less cynical way to think about the postmodern tech revolution is that it hasn’t completely subsumed the real, brilliant, chaotic world, but merely emphasized it as vital and precious. Artificial intelligence, in my view, continues this tradition. The only singularity it can truly achieve is one that understands humanity at its most inhuman (and ... See more

Haley Nahman • #138: Do you pass the Turing test?

An over-dependence on artificial intelligence is often just lethargy disguised as efficiency, and the “outsource everything to AI” crowd ignores the fact that the work is often more valuable than the output.

I have two predictions regarding the broader use of AI as a crutch:

First, folks who are willing to go out of their way to add a human touch to... See more

Jack Raines • The Purpose of Things Isn't to Stop Doing Things.

so true - we can’t outsource effort - because effort creates art, true meaningful work, and progress

In the face of ever-improving generative AI tools, you have to translate your own life context — experiences, rawness quirks, humor (eg. my affinity for awful dad puns) — into the creative work. Because if you are only expressing what can be “seen”, technology has it covered. But what can be “felt”? That is still uniquely ours.

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