this post was stolen by pirates
Someone sound the alarm - I have a new song obsession!!! "This Song Was Stolen by Pirates" by Karma and the Killjoys is really really good. I will talk more about why it's good in this post, but mostly I'm going to talk about the lyrics (because I fear I am a lyrics kind of girlie).
I'm going to format this like a janky version of Genius, so bear with me...
Steal from the rich, steal from the poor
Yo-ho, and a bottle of rum
Steal from the land, the seas, the shore
Yo-ho, and a bottle of rum
We're starting off strong! As a bit of a spoiler, this song is about AI. It's not necessarily the most obvious right off the bat, but is still deeply relevant. One of my favorite journalists (? I guess? I'm not sure how he'd label himself...) is Ed Zitron, because of his knack for breaking down complicated economics into something at least mostly understandable. A semi-recent and wildly biased write up called The Open AI Bubble does a better job than I can describing just how much fake magical money is surrounding AI - fake magical money that rich people are throwing around assuming they'll get richer. That's a big assumption, of course.
Stealing from the poor is more of what I care about, though. And there are a lot of direct and indirect ways that AI is doing that. One example is AI making people's electric bills higher and threatening more and more blackouts which is especially bad given we can't even reliably meet our current, non AI energy demands.
And this isn't even mentioning the increase in harmful emissions (which, no, AI won't magically offset no matter how much we pretend they might). Our desperate reliance on fossil fuels and oil rigs (and shrinking motivation to do anything about it) will spell disaster, and AI is only speeding up the inevitable conclusion.
Well, the more I take, the more I grow
The more I give, the more you know
More or less, unless you find
Less is more and more is mine
In the name of progress, in the name of man
In the name of I shouldn't, but I certainly can
In the name of art, but the name I forbid
In the name of I didn't, but it looks like I did
Nothing sums up AI better than "I shouldn't, but I certainly can". I do quite like the wordplay in the third and fourth lines. But mostly I am obsessed with the implication of "the name I forbid" and "I didn't but it looks like I did" as it applies to artist credit and compensation. One of the worst things about generative AI in most art forms is how easily it takes advantage of humans creating art, robbing them of their livelihoods. And for what? The "name of progress", of course!
One Youtuber I enjoy watching is Viyaura, a digital artist who's work is recognizable far outside her own social media circle. And, at this point, has been stolen and recycling by AI so many times that sometimes her originals are flagged. A swirl of AI accusations came to a head recently, and she had to make a video defending herself and pointing out dupe products.
One quote stood out to me in particular: "They can, and probably will, generate 50 images in a day. And what can I do about it? And because I design and test [these brush sets]... for like a month to actually make sure they're good brushes, I only come out with a brush set... like four times a year. ... So just the fact that they can pump out like 50 a day based on my original drawings, I just feel a little bit defeated and I just don't really know what to do.". (As a side note, I should mention that Viyaura is not overestimating her impact on the custom Procreate brush space for cutesy drawings - I absolutely believe they are not only using her art in the pool of the entire internet for training, but also specifically prompting AI to match her style. The Glossy Jelly brush set is everywhere.)
I am not a liar, I am not a cheater
I am not a fake or fraud
I am just a humble servant of my masters
But one day you'll call me god
Did you know that AI and large language models are liars, cheaters, fakes, and frauds? This is not a conspiracy at all, Open AI has done their own research about this! And sure, they're trying to fix it, I guess, but it feels like too little too late. Who are the masters? Who decides what is a lie? Who writes history, and who gets ignored?
Will we call AI god someday? There are plenty of scifi movies that think so.
Seas ain't been breezy and scurvy left you queasy
It's not lemon squeeze-y but I make life so easy
When the seas run dry and the temp's too high
Apocalypse is nigh, now it's just you and I
I've stolen your art, I've stolen your time
I've stolen your skin now I wear it as mine
You fed me your heart, you fed me your soul
I am the whale that will swallow you whole
This verse is what inspired me to write this post, because I just got so excited by it and wanted to say something to someone. It bares, completely vulnerable, truths of the time we're living in. The seas have not been breezy, everything #sucks. But let's waste water ("seas run dry") and add to climate change ("temp's too high") and maybe that will help! Ugh.
And it does devolve a bit into speculation, but as a whole our ability to distinguish AI from human gets weaker as time goes on, so is it that far fetched to feel like AI has donned the disguise of humanity? I personally love the allusion to some of the most infamous serial killers ("I've stolen your skin, now I wear it as mine") and the Job/Moby Dick/Pinocchio reference to 'big whale that eats me' is always fun.
Artificial intelligence
Unholy reverence
Deliberate negligence
Righteous malevolence
AI is so bad, it must be on purpose, right? It's ineffective at the majority of tasks people brag it can do. It's killing the world, adding to wealth inequality, stealing people's art, eroding what it means to be human, infecting our communication styles, rotting our brains, and all for what? Medium-bad output that, by definition, could never be better than mediocre? A chewed up and spit out understanding of the world?
UGH! Anyway. Love this song.