Maybe I’m Arty
Anything that requires even the tiniest bit of creativity is an ill-suited task for AI. Generative AI doesn’t have the capacity for creativity. Being able to create is not the same thing as being able to generate. Generative AI can’t have new ideas, so it steals my new ideas and yours too. We could argue about these four sentences, but it’d end up being 37 different discussions about IP and free information and privilege and bias and this model or that training data and capitalism and Tech Bros and governments and so on and so on.
Lately I have been outright struggling to advocate for better technology or more humane systems. I still play my part, but I used to live it. Nowadays I let IRL people say stupid shit about data privacy with nary a word. I have to actively remind myself that we webby sorts of people have literally been fighting against a tsunami of stupid the entire time. Frustrated people bang the words “fuck you facebook!” into their keyboards and find my 2011 post of the same title.
Sometimes I wonder, at what point have you already played your part?
An AI model has been trained on some sort of data, and so have I. My data is fluid, prone to morph and shift and change depending on my mood, my cognitive state, the time at which I drank coffee. My data is haptic, visceral, imaginative and memetic. It is melting cheese in an oven and all the red shoe people showing up at zombie parties with glow in the dark “Happy 2012” glasses. It is memories, experiences and the pebble of sand stuck in the dirt beneath my fingernails.
We are not here to feed the machines with our art and our experience. We are not here to let the machine feed on our souls and twist our behaviours. We are here to become and then to wither away, no more, no less. We don’t become what we were meant to be, we just become.
Several people have asked me to expand my essay about the “Importance of Art Education with or without AI”, in particular to expand the section on AI as a Fascist Aesthetic. That actually sounds like a fun research project for me, but as far as unfunded work goes, I have other priorities that don’t involve me becoming an expert on both aesthetics and fascism. As I said, it’s a research project, and interesting and adequate sources abound. I don’t think that AI can do it for me because despite the web having all sorts of information, AI doesn’t think and it sure as shit doesn’t think like I do.
- Fuck you facebook > https://www.laurahilliger.com/techie/fuck-you-facebook/
- Politicalwave Aesthetic (check out related aesthetics too) > https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Politicalwave
- AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism> https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/
- It is not the tool, it is the artist who sparks the revolution > https://www.laurahilliger.com/writing/it-is-not-the-tool-it-is-the-artist-who-sparks-the-revolution/
- None of this is real and it doesn’t matter > https://www.rawsignal.ca/newsletter-archive/none-of-this-is-real-and-it-doesnt-matter/
Maybe I’m Addled
Madeline Horwath on life under our new AI overlords
I might be pissed off about AI again because brains are deteriorating at a rapid pace and I’m seeing it first hand. People I know who are believing narratives that I find unbelievable. For profit development companies forcing their own negligent values upon an unsuspecting public. Most people hear the hype of AI and don’t, apparently, have enough context to discern that Jesus does not live in the machine. Idk, it’s like all the worst of social media being unleashed on society but decades faster.
We didn’t know, back then, what social media would become. How it would shape us. What it would do to our democracies and our minds. We argued that it would help us create participatory systems and cultures. That technology would, indeed, at least to some degree, save us. We would be connected and able to organise for a better world. Don’t pretend like you never used the Arab Spring as an example of social media’s ability to create change. Yeah, we changed our minds once the science came in, but there was a moment when we were optimistic.
Not so anymore. More and more I wonder if the small wins are enough. In the face of growing animosity towards one another, even in families and friend groups, it seems that the connectivity the Internet has given us is predominantly vapid. Deep seeded consideration for our planet, each other and the miracle of existence is replaced by TikTok trends and AI companions. Our minds are addled by the machine, we know it, and yet we keep coming back. It’s no wonder that young people are so confused (although, to be fair, which of us wasn’t confused when we were young?).
The wildly stupid attempt of some countries and states to use age verification for social media is like trying to cover a shark bite with a bandaid that’s made out of chicken wire. It’s not only stupid and flawed, it’s dangerous too. My simile is stupid and flawed too. I know.
- AI Jesus Chatbots Are Freaking Out Philosophy Professors > https://www.vice.com/en/article/ai-jesus-chatbots-are-freaking-out-philosophy-professors/
- Meta’s flirty AI chatbot invited a retiree to New York. > https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-death/
- Gen Z wants off the grid – half say ditch the internet > https://cybernews.com/news/genz-survey-internet-addiction/
- How Gen Z Became the Most Gullible Generation > https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/23/gen-z-media-tiktok-misinformation-00287561
- Age Verification Harms Users of All Ages > https://www.eff.org/document/age-verification-harms-users-all-ages
Maybe I need help
The narrative that the public is responsible for the decimation of oh so many things – the environment, democracy, common sense – provides an excellent distraction for those who are truly culpable.
A bit negative today, aren’t I? I did not have a good week. How are you?