Research Director @ART+COM | Independent writer/theorist | Keynote Speaker | Innovation and Strategy | #Luddite
While the crowd at #sxsw2024 booing a sizzle reel of people either promising the beauty of the future #ai will bring or claiming it to be "without alternative" is funny and went viral for all the right reasons (https://lnkd.in/efsV8-V4), this event speaks to a deeper shift in perception. As Brian Merchant writes (https://lnkd.in/ewficDJp): "For the buzziest tech of the moment to get shouted down at *SXSW* speaks volumes about the scale and nature of the animosity generative AI has amassed. The tech is seen, here, as exploitative by tastemakers and *by technologists*." But I'd go further: It's not just the public perception that #OpenAI has been trying to plant in our collective understanding is falling apart due to the actions of that strange company, I think the actual narrative of "AI" is untangling. Because where are all the promised gains in efficiency? Where is the better world? All we see is a wasteful technology that's propped up by VC and Microsoft money that's easily detected as a way to further centralize our digital infrastructures while laying our digital spaces to waste. After having played with ChatGPT many people don't really integrate it into their practices because these systems are just not that good and if you care about quality anything after "quick sketches in the beginning of the process" is unthinkable. Some systems labeled "AI" today will stick around. Especially the non-generative stuff (for image processing, object detection, pattern recognition in data streams, heuristics to detect errors in work products, etc.) but a lot of the #genAI field is just spam creation. And it's actually making some - especially creative things - harder to achieve. Famous film critic Roger Ebert once said "The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before." and the booing is people coming back to realizing this simple fact. You are not creative and then create something, you become creative by working on something, creativity is a byproduct of work. In this way #AI is deeply dehumanizing: Making the spaces and opportunities for people to grow and be human smaller and smaller. Applying a straitjacket of past mediocrity to our minds and spirits. That is what is being booed: The salespeople of mediocrity who've made it their mission to speak lies from power. The lie that only tech can and will save us. The lie that a bit of statistics and colonial, mostly white, mostly western data is gonna create a brilliant future. The lie that we have no choice, no alternatives. #Luddism is back, baby.
Paul Hart
7mo
This would have been better without the woke comment at the end. Sounds like it was written by AI. Pity.
Sean Kempton
7mo
This sort of reaction is seen by AI supporters as proof of the power of AI. After all, if the creative people didn't feel threatened by GenAI then they wouldn't be bothered - or might even be supportive themselves. Unfortunately however the AI supporters are not entirely misreading the room. It is true that there is a feeling amongst creatives that something essential is missing, but that thing is not easily describable, and not easy to build an argument around. Certainly not any argument that the AI supporters might be convinced by. That thing is the magic that they, as creatives, bring to the table - it's their USP, and so they are also annoyed that that thing, that makes what they do valuable, is being seemingly completely devalued by the people who tout the thing that doesn't have it (whatever 'it' is) as 'the future'. The good news for the creatives is that they are right. That special thing that AI is missing really is important - and not only that, AI, from where it is now, has no way of duplicating it. AI won't go away - it does have uses - and it may even help you, like many of the other tools you use. But it is so far away from replacing you that it can't even see you from where it is
Brian Jackson
7mo
Another analogy is nuclear energy. The initial hype in the 1950s led to reckless expansion of unsafe plants, followed by a backlash led by the Greens that is ironically worsening our current carbon catastrophe. In a counterfactual world, the first 20 years of nuclear technology would have gone slowly, with a primary focus on safety and control, and then I bet we'd be in a much better place today. You could tell a similar story about the dumpster fire of Facebook/Instagram/X/Tiktok. When technology and safety and regulation don't co-evolve from the outset in a balanced way, long-term progress ends up being restricted.
Chuck Welch
7mo
Ha…the marketing industry claiming ‘authenticity’ yesterday is championing the ‘artificial’ today.
Lisa Baird
7mo
i love everything about this post. so well written. « the actual narrative of ‘AI’ is untangling » « while laying our digital spaces to waste » « if you care about quality, anything after ‘quick sketches in the beginning of the process’ is unthinkable » « Famous film critic Roger Ebert once said ‘The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before.’ and the booing is people coming back to realizing this simple fact. You are not creative and then create something, you become creative by working on something, creativity is a byproduct of work. » 👈🏻🔥
Michael Mennies
7mo
These posts are going to be very quaint in the near future. AI will be as big as shift in human civilization as agriculture and antibiotics. This is actually the beginning of the real Information Age, where all human knowledge that can be digitized can be digested, analyzed and synthesized by computers. It is not possible for us to even imagine the vast changes that are coming to us in every aspect of our lives. It is obvious this is going to shake up our entire economic system, but it is unclear what the result will be.
Sergio Mucino
7mo
Not to mention the fact that these companies have built their empires on the stolen work of countless people. With total impunity and without consequence.
Douglas Rolim
7mo
Enough with the soulless and empty #AI narratives. Time for those involved to show the so-promised "better world" plan and some accountability. The only conclusion we can get to this point is about military. So far it's only been about hype and inflated valuations, much of the same outdated and exclusive (as in excluding others outside of the "clubhouse") business model of Silicon Valley.
Marketing & Brand Leader | Brand Strategy | Revenue Acceleration | Go-To-Market Leader | Storytelling | AI Strategy & Execution | Builder | Change Management | 3x American Business Awards Winner | Speaker | Advisor
7moJürgen Geuter very distinguished and crucial points. The reduction in the space to be human and especially the point of how silly humans are to blindly be led by a technology that is not being truthful as to who the benefactors really will be. I’d like to hear your thoughts on how the 2nd order thinkers can use AI or not use AI to propel or increase creative authentic human expressions. The tech seems to be here to stay.