Science

Malicious AI is a bullshit framing to avoid responsibility for irresponsible use of junk ai. And a way to offload it on people who use AI without even knowing that.

I am fully aware as of this date and call bullshit on mal ai. Mal humans otoh…
It’s not even AI. Call it what it is.. junkware thay disrupts human life and sets off a cottage industry of worthless AI associated professions at the cost of real if low reward ones.

Ed Zitron, Matt Stoller, Nathan Robinson and Yasha Levine aside tech criticism much like tech fawning is a worthless junk industry that would not have existed without the fanboys and fangirls. None of those people exploits it.

The most honest article I ever read on police reform in The Jacobin acknowledged that sadly these cancers on human society(any corruption or other hateful crap) launch other cottage industries (which are often redundant and pointless. There’s nothing Haidt ever says that someone didn’t say earlier/better and with fewer fallacies).

Zuboff is insightful but like all ex-fangirls seems incapable yet again of telling charlatans from real critics or real change (my beloved Lina Khan). She probably wouldn’t have had access to see all she saw without that. She was useful up to a point but she blurs many lines. Google and Facebook are not the same. If you don’t use social media cynically (not cynical of humans but of the mode) that’s not about connection. Thats totally different from a tool people used to use as if it is private completely.

Levine is golden. The guy can do no wrong in my eyes. He always reminded me of one of my favorite colleagues. The type of person even a weary cynic like me considers a pillar of society. Well okay I am not a cynic about oblivious randos who I wish would either not be fed junk info nor be exploited. I liked being an oblivious rando ;-/.
Oblivious randos also worry me. Will they like South Park’s Cancelled lean in to the spectacle or be sane and flee..I would recommend fleeing where you can pull it off.

As the type of person who dislikes filing complaints flight usually seems like the best option at first. But that usually means you get dissected and the wrong people (typically other semi oblivious randos) get blamed rather than who I would blame which is the type of person who is bright enough to never let me know who they are.

Sorry..open rumination. I have to file complaints that almost certainly involve AI and I would like to do it inconspicuously on the one hand, but on the open enough web otoh that in the name of further “democratization” theatre more randos are not dragged in as if it is something mysterious rather than the reality that tech is being deployed undemocratically and sleazily even in democracies.