I've spent the last few years trying to explain the myriad of ways the technologies currently marketed as "AI" (large language models in particular) are dangerous. I've also spent that time trying to push-back against the development, deployment and adoption of these technologies. In both efforts it feels like I've accomplished nothing, and it's clear now that I am not going to be able to stop this and the harms that come with it.
On the upside, there seems to finally be a growing awareness of the harm, there's even been a few books published on the subject, so I no longer feel like I am completely alone or simply imagining things.
But as satisfying as that validation is, it doesn't appear to have any impact on the outcome. The forces behind the implementation of these technologies are not affected by logic, reason or compassion. They are only motivated by profit and hatred for their fellow humans. Over the years I have found no viable strategy to stop these people, and even the greatest minds that are currently bent toward that problem provide solutions that are only viable in the fantasy-land of a functioning democracy and/or do not cut deep enough to excise the forces that will inevitably lead us right back to where we are now.
As you can imagine this has left me quite despondent. If I can't change this, I thought I could at least avoid contributing to it, but that too is becoming impossible...
Every word I publish here feeds them
Every line of code I share feeds them
Even the essential communications I use for employment feed them as they masquerade as proxies for my co-workers.
A few days ago I was ready to give-up. Cornered by both the work I love and the work I need to survive, there seemed no way to live without contributing to this technology that is destroying humanity in spirit, body, mind and habitat.
Then out of the blue I woke-up this morning thinking about Soichiro Honda, and the stories I'd heard about how Honda Motor Company came about. I wasn't sure if the stories were completely factual, but the inspirational parts seem pretty close.
Soichiro was selling car parts to Toyota when his factory was destroyed during WWII. He sold the remains to Toyota and started a new concern building bicycles. The part I can't confirm is that the reason for this was that bicycles were not only easier to manufacture than automobiles, but they were also more useful navigating around Japan after the destruction wrought by the war. Soichiro's bicycle designs evolved into motorcycles and then into automobiles, but always maintained the traits of their origin as well-engineered, efficient machines.
Decades later the oil crisis of the 1970's would pull the rug out from under the U.S. auto industry whose primary approach to selling cars had become increasing power output year-over-year through increasing engine displacement which in turn increased fuel consumption. In an environment where fuel became scarce, the more fuel-efficient Japanese designs became appealing to the American market, and within a decade replaced U.S. automakers in their own market to a significant degree.
I often compare contemporary computing to U.S. automakers during the 1960's and 70's. Despite gains in reduced power usage per processor, datacenters consume more power now than ever before. The "cloud" has made "throwing hardware at the problem" the default solution for making any piece of software faster. Contemporary "AI" products have radically accelerated this problem to the point where companies are convince utilities to bring long-dead nuclear reactors back online and draining local power grids to feed this insatiable beast.
So maybe "AI" is The Bomb.
Maybe "AI" is the bomb that finally levels the mountains of enshitification that pass for contemporary computing.
Maybe "AI" is the bomb that leaves us with no option but to pursue forms of computing that are well designed and energy efficient.
Maybe "AI" is the bomb that destroys the racism and misogyny that science and engineering are rooted in and allows for a new science to grow in its place.
If so, then now is a good time to be working on a bicycle for the mind so that it is ready to be used in the aftermath.
This work is what will sustain me personally through this apocalypse. I cannot stop it, I cannot stop those who insist on inflicting it upon humanity, but I can, at least for now, work on something we might use to recover when the old gods die so that we don't fall back into the trap of recreating them.