Joe

So, no, what I wrote above isn’t actually about owning this schmuck on the grounds of “AI” actually having the power to eliminate jobs. As I’ve said time and again, “AI” is merely a permission structure for antilabor decisions that businesses wanted to make in the first place.

This demonstrates how artists actually work: through relational thinking, discerning, critiquing, connecting as thinking, feeling people. I know where every reference comes from. When artists take from each other with acknowledgement, responsibility, and respect, we make each other stronger.

Buy local

Are "AI" system really tools? I was on a panel on “AI” yesterday (was in German so I don’t link it i this post, specifics don’t matter too much) and a phrase came up that stuck with me on my way home (riding a bike is just the best thing for thinking). That phrase was AI systems are just tools […]

I wondered if "AI" systems are "tools" and realized that structurally they are not. They are makeshifts.

https://tante.cc/2025/04/27/are-ai-system-really-tools/

"had no mental health problems" lmao
ChatGPT users either start with them or develop them through use. The phrase feels redundant

1970s shot of a TV screen

1950s/60s? shot of a TV screen. Female presenter

1950s/60s shot of a TV screen. Unknown guitarists

Blurry pink shot of a TV screen. Women in evening dress

🧵Thread. I collect photos that people took of their TV screens (in the days before video) because they wanted to capture a historical moment, or at least something that meant something to them.

Generative AI, in both form and content, and whether looked on favourably or critically, seems to embody a collective hopelessness about the prospect of human learning and creativity, if not human knowledge altogether. It’s as if climate change had fans.

that users could prefer a generated simulation to actual old clips for nostalgia purposes clarifies how nostalgia is about consuming "decontextualization" in itself — nostalgia negates history under the auspices of longing for it

people who make and sell nothing love co-opting the titles terminology of those who create tangible, useful things/objects/places

the idea that some videos are intrinsically interesting to watch (regardless of whether they have any reference to events or things in themselves, any kind of auratic appeal) feels like it can't survive generative models, which makes all forms of mere seeing trivial

I mean this in the most appreciative way: it's like someone went to another planet and took pictures with a Gameboy camera. Love it.

Strangely enough, Zapdos is an OG crypto bro and that's his real voice.

How can anyone see these people talk and take them seriously.

Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!

for a longer explanation firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

miniature seascape painted into a photograph of a man in front of a frame (which holds the painted scene), with brish and easel in hand

miniature seascape painted into a photograph of a man in front of a frame (which holds the painted scene), with brish and easel in hand

miniature seascape painted into a photograph of a man in front of a frame (which holds the painted scene), with brish and easel in hand

miniature seascape painted into a photograph of a man in front of a frame (which holds the painted scene), with brish and easel in hand

In 1887, Ivan Aivazovsky gave each of his 150 birthday guests a tiny seascape—painted onto a studio photo of himself, brush in hand before a once-blank canvas. At 10.6 × 7.3 cm, each is almost 1/1000 the size of his masterpiece The Ninth Wave. Read more: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a...

Can Artists Stop the AI Slop Machine? A recent workshop in Manhattan's Lower East Side challenged the notion that the takeover of machine learning is inevitable.

Silicon Valley’s tech barons have predicted that AI will raise unemployment to 10 to 20% within the next five years. But the advancement of machine learning may not be inevitable. And some artists are hopeful that they can still stop it.

Actors, performers, audiobook narrators, voice actors — if you have stories please share them at AIKilledMyJob@pm.me.

Artists Against Generative Al 15 AGAINST Andrew Unferdorfer • 14h • G A Redditor caught this. Looks like a possible instance where a translation bot fabricated pro-Al misinformation and that got picked up and amplified as real news. The misinformation states that ChatGPT was used by the creators of KPop Demon Hunters to help them write the song "Soda Pop". Problem is, when somebody went back to the original source in Korean, IT DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT USING AI OR CHATGPT! The article was translated with Al, and it looks like the Al itself made up this complete lie, and the truly terrifying thing is how nobody questioned it until this one person went digging for the truth. We launched the OpenAl Korea office yesterday! Fav moment from the launch celebration was hearing singer/songwriter Vince share that ChatGPT helped him write "Soda Pop" from KPop Demon Hunters! It apparently gave him ideas to make it sound "more bubbly" OpenAl 코리아 Tweet's now deleted, but here's a bit further down the web of this: The original article this was sourced from, from Korea JoongAng Daily, says this: "Prior to the unofficial event, producer Vince also spoke with Business Director Oliver Jay at OpenAl's official launch event. Vince stated, "We sometimes use ChatGPT to generate inspiration when producing K-pop," and also mentioned that Al technology is already being utilized in K-pop." The thing is, that's only in the English translation. The Korean article it's translated from doesn't mention KPop Demon Hunters using Al at all. So, how did it get there? Well, the English article, as confirmed by a note at the bottom, was translated using generative Al. So, since different language versions of the article contradict themselves, there's a nonzero chance that this entire debacle is an Al hallucination ITSELF, spawned from an Al translation

Interesting regarding AI and Kpop Demon Hunters 1/2

I really really think it's important to not get too caught up in the failure of the demo and recognise that the demo was of a person asking a robot how to make something that tastes good

"The Printing Press Democratized Knowledge": When Slogans Masquerade as History — Sonja Drimmer The phrase is said so frequently it seems, like the mechanism it celebrates, to mechanically replicate itself.  It's become a favorite catchphrase among tech boosters of any sort (see my post on...

What, exactly, does this string of words mean? Why does everyone who stands to profit from selling "AI" love to repeat it? And what's the value of slogans that masquerade as history?

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN REASON FROM JUDGMENT TO CALCULATION

I finally read computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976 classic “Computer Power and Human Reason.”

This book deserves a massive revival in our current age of grotesque and largely thoughtless AI creep into everything:

AI ad - chess loss

man how are you not embarrassed that this is your ad campaign

In my view, rather than lionizing these studies as heroic achievements, those responsible for conveying their results to the public should see them as opportunities to question what the computational sciences are doing when they appropriate the study of art. And they should ask whether any of this is for the good of anyone or anything but Al, its most zealous proponents and those who profit from it.

Recently some historians cheered a study that ostensibly showed how AI can reconstruct ancient inscriptions—this is different from bad AI! they said. Then the AHA put out guidelines for AI use in the profession & everyone is mad. I warned about this years ago. theconversation.com/how-ai-is-hi...

This is why the tech industry uses terms like "use case" or "product/market fit".

It's all based on the idea that something already built deserves to exist in anticipation of a use for it being found.

That is the opposite of design.

5/x

LLMs can easily simulate the social-media behavior of "normies" if by that is meant what a statistically average or essentially predictable post might look like; what is fading from social media is inscrutable intentionality, the gratuitousness that characterizes freedom

This is a laundry list of rhetorical strategies to defend the adoption of a given technology for the purposes of advancing an ideology & economic regime: inevitability, unquestioning praise of “innovation,” buy-in from concerned stakeholders, assurances that partnership is not capitulation. 1/n

It may become harder to believe that the content of any particular instance of reading and writing is important for its own sake, or should be dealt with through those outmoded means—i.e. it will be harder to take content seriously when reading/writing since the artisanal process will be the point

The photo above is on the header of the X account associated with The Velvet Sundown. While there aren't any extra fingers or other telltale "this is AI" signs in the image, it feels AI. Like the music, it's hard to explain the difference between a human face and an amalgamation of millions of human faces, and it's hard to explain the deadness in the eyes of AI "people," but it's there.

"vibes" against AI make human capabilities into some mystical inexplicable magic, doomed to be undermined when inevitably the "vibes" no longer can tell what is "real" and what is "AI"

Something really important about organizations’ decisions to adopt AI tools which people need to understand is this: it often comes down to a room of a handful of people who are simply uninformed and think it’s just a new norm they’ll be left behind on if they don’t find a use for it in their work.