I read ‘spam’ and skimmed through ‘Towards a Poetics of Artificial Superintelligence’ on a short-fuse day. I didn’t get much sleep, and my endorphins are depleted. So get ready.
I’m so tired of this class. I’m so tired of reading overly-decorated borderline-nonsensical speculative bull. I’m so tired of strongly non-technical people trying to wrap their heads around technical things they don’t understand by getting farther away from their origins and deep into imaginary worlds built by their misinformed minds. It’s fine to infuse technology with humanity—that’s the whole point of designers being involved in tech. But here’s the thing: in order to truly understand the ethical, social, political, or personal implications that new technology can have, you need to at least have the curiosity to find out what makes it tick. Delving into paranoid conspiracy theories and finding answers in poetry are the diametrical opposite of that. From my experience in the industry, designers are usually high-horse individuals with zero insight into how things actually get built or work. They regularly impose their self-glorified vision of the world into people they apparently see as lesser beings, namely, engineers. You, through your self-pleasing poetic and fully debased approach to “understanding”, are helping perpetuate this.
Maybe you didn’t realize that this class has turned into InfoWars. I get it: you’re scared of the future, mainly because you don’t understand it. You fool yourselves into thinking you do have a grasp on it because someone on the internet seduced you with their linguistic flourish or their cheap antiestablishmentarianism. In an effort to seem like you know what you’re doing, you have people shout their paranoid nightmares at us every week, effectively transferring your insecurities into the minds of gullible barely-graduated and clueless 22-year-olds. You make us read and “engage” with their writings by having us write about them, and then—I can’t speak for other sections but at least in mine—have timid, weak, and barely critical discussions about them, effectively performing a clever strategy of indoctrination disguised as critical thinking. (Is this unintended? I should at least hope so.)
You don’t have to be so pleased with your poetic interpolations, your own misguided interpretations, your very loud alarm bells screaming at us every Thursday. I freaking get it. You’re scared of the future. You’re scared of what’s beyond you. And you’re very sure it matters, so you’ll do your best to transfer your insecurities to us. But I’m done. I mean, I’ll keep writing these things and showing up because I have to, but just know that you’ve lost me.
Maybe you think I’m wrong, that I’m not getting the whole point of the exercise. Maybe you’re reading this in awe at the kind of critical thinking that you’ve been able to summon through your methods. I just don’t care anymore.
PS: Sorry for demeaning your work. I know this class probably takes a lot to build, and I can’t even aspire to reach the scale of your mental library. I just needed to vent.
