Culture

AI and Chatbots: Better Someone To Hate Than A Machine

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

AI and Chatbots are in the news as people want to use them for everything – well at least until reality sets in.  Now I don’t oppose Chatbots/AI or automated help with a humanized interface.  I think there’s potential for it that will make our lives better.  They really are spicy autocomplete and there’s a role for that, even if we all remember how we hated Clippy.

The problem is that there’s too many cases people want to use so-called AI just replace humans.  I think it will go wrong in many ways because we want people to connect to, even if only to hate them.

If you’ve ever screamed “operator” into a phone after navigating some impossible number-punch menu you have a good idea of how Chatbots could be received.

When we need help or assistance, we want to talk to a person.  Maybe it’s for empathy.  Maybe it’s to have someone to scream at.  Either way we want a moral agent to talk to someone we know has an inner life, and principles, even if we disagree with them.

There’s something antisocial about chatbots just replacing humans.  It breaks society and it breaks our need for contact (or blame).

Have you ever observed some horrible computer or mechanical failure?  Have you imagined or participated in the lawsuits?  Imagine how that will go with Chatbots.

Technology gives us the ability to do things on a huge level – but also create horrible disasters.  Imagine what Chatbots can automate – financial aid, scientific research, emergency advice.  Now imagine that going wrong on a massive, tech-enabled scale.  Technology let us turn simple things into horrible crises.

If you have people along the way in the process?  They can provide checks.  They can make the ethical or practical call.  But when it’s all bots doing bot things with bots and talking to a person?  There’s that chance of ending up in the news for weeks, in government hearings for months, and lawsuits for years. 

(Hell, removing Chatbots removes some poor schmuck to take the blame, and a few people with more money and sense might find they really want that.)

Have you ever read a book or commissioned art and enjoyed working with the artist?  Chatbots and AI can make art without that connection.  Big deal.

Recently I read a person grouse about the cost of hiring an artist to do something – when they could just go to a program.  The thing is for many of us, an artistic connection over literature or art or whatever is also about connecting with a person.

When we know a person is behind something we know there’s something there.  We enjoy finding the meaning in the book, the little references, the empathic bond we form with them.  An artist listens to us, understands us, brings humanity to the work we request.  It makes things real.

I read a Terry Pratchett book because it’s Terry Pratchett.  I watch the Drawfee crew as it’s Jacob, Nathian, Julia, and Karina who I like.

Chatbot-generated content may be interesting or inspiring, but it’s just math that we drape our feelings around.  AI generated content is just a very effective Rorschach blot.  There’s no one to admire, learn from, or connect with behind it.

Humanity brings understanding, security, checks, and meaning.

So however the Chatbot/AI non-Revolution goes?  I think it will be both overdone and underwhelming.  It will include big lawsuits and sad headshakes.  But ultimately if there’s an attempt to Chatbot/AI everything, it’ll be boring and inhuman.

Well, boring and inhuman if we know there’s chatbots there.  It’s the hidden ones that worry me, but that’s for another post . . .

Steven Savage

In Praise of Rabbit Holes

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

How many times have you heard someone critique people for niche interests?  Politicians and pundits will mock college students for supposed useless degrees.  Obsessive fans are targets of twisted humor.  If you haven’t experienced this kind of insult, you’re either lucky or boring.

I would like to defend this “going down a rabbit hole” intellectually, academically, and personally.  Instead of some highbrow argument, let’s talk my latest musical interest, and how it expanded my mind and made me a better person.

What kind of music?  Well those who know me would assume it’s either electronica, experimental metal, or parody.  Nope, my latest musical obsession is what’s popularly called “exotica” or “space age pop.”  Yes, I got into the kind of music you associate with 50’s and 60’s cocktail lounges and kitschy bars.

This is going to be a ride.

I never thought about this style of music until I heard of a show called The Retro Cocktail Hour at http://www.retrococktail.org/.  As I’m fascinated by musical oddness, I gave this show a listen and realized I liked this style.  It had a relaxing, moody quality that reminded me of another favorite – lo-fi Jazz.  Since I’ve been trying to broaden my musical horizons by trying new things regularly, I decided to dive into exotica – and got surprised.

Exotica is alive and well these days.  There are bands of older folks who’ve done it for ages, and young bands that have taken to the style.  These performers are all over the globe – the younger performers I found were in Europe.  Exotica, which I’d associate purely with America, was global – and sometimes being made by people who could be my kids.

Exotica also wasn’t just jazz infused with a serial-numbers-removed sound-fantasy of Oceana that I thought it was.  There was South American influence.  There was some African influences.  There were also attempts to add even more sounds from all over the globe.  Over the decades exotica was more of an attempt to integrate many influences – albeit one that could be ham-handed and appropriative (more on that later).

As I learned more about the global reach of this style, I found that exotica inspired or blended into other forms of music.  I discovered “space disco” or “cosmic disco” with it’s powerful, far-out sound.  “Acid Funk” and it’s trippy beats came to my attention.  Thanks to a friend, I found exotica intersects with the music from the Tropicália art movement – an influential and at-times attacked movement I’d never heard of and clearly need to learn more about.

Musical styles weren’t the only thing that exposed me to politics and sensitive issues.  Exotica is inevitably associated with Tiki bars and the cultural appropriation they embody.  As Tiki bars have gotten a revival, there are documentaries and articles noting how these bars, and some of the music, doesn’t acknowledge its use/misuse of Polynesian/Hawaiian/Oceanic culture.  Suddenly my newfound musical interest seemed less innocent.

(And I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier.  This musical rabbit hole required me to confront the insensitivity of me and people I know.)

Now I was listening to these documentaries and reading articles on Tiki bars and their history.  First, I learned about the influences and cultural appropriation, its own rabbit hole of wartime experiences, sexual repression, wild cocktails, and repurposed Asian food.  Then I learned about the revival of the culture in America (and apparently around the world).  These cheesy bars and the culture associated with them has a long and continuing history I’d never seen before.

These issues also included serious questions of cultural appropriation, insensitivity, and acknowledgement of history.

At this point, I began noticing how some exotica bands seemed to deal with these issues.  I noticed some removed “Tiki” influence from their later albums.  Others embraced the kitsch in the first place and probably didn’t care.  Some bands seemed to treat it as an aesthetic, a fantasy world like Middle-Earth, and didn’t worry either.  Finally, some used the midcentury modern art style on their album covers, and avoided (most) inappropriate imagery.

Now our story comes to a close with me listening to a style of music that led me to ask hard questions about history, culture, appropriation, and style integration.  I put more effort into evaluating the morals of my musical purchases and stylistic choices.  A single online recording of a radio show sent me down a rabbit hole that wasn’t just fun, wasn’t just history, but required me to think about ethics.

So that’s my story.  I discovered a musical style I’d rarely thought of, found out more about it, learned about new styles, and ended up facing painful issues of cultural appropriation.   I’m still in this rabbit hole, learning about history, food, style, and historical cycles.

All because I decided to go get obsessed for awhile.

Go embrace your rabbit hole.  You don’t know where it’s going to go, but that’s the point.  Take the journey, and if you keep on it, you’ll grow as a person.

Steven Savage

Neurotransmitters And Cash – The Addicts We Follow

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Anyone politically involved has one or more of those stories about how they became politically aware of something and it changed them.  I’d like to share my most recent as it’s relevant to life and to you, my readers.  It all involves New Age charlatans and the realization some of the worst people we know trying to lead us are also addicts.

If you’re any follower of religious/spiritual happenings, you’re aware what we call New Age has had it’s grifters and criminals.  As I’ve followed the community for the last few years – especially in light of alternate health claims and radicalization – I’ve found the grifters to be awful people. Watching them spew out a book of hack spirituality, overcharge people, and blatantly lie is amazing and terrible.

These grifters also keep reinventing themselves and keep coming back – sometimes a re-invention is where they become a spiritual grifter.  Your failed documentary career can become an “expose” on how aliens are using vaccines to enslave us via 5G.  You can spend one decade fighting Satan and the next channeling Starseeds.  Sometimes I have to check to make sure two separate spiritual conpeople aren’t the same person a few years apart.

It’s no wonder New Age stuff has merged into conspiracy lore and extreme politics.  It’s the exact same thing you’ll see play out again and again in political personalities. The politician leaping from the latest media-made panic to next is no different than internet coemmenter going from libertarian techbro to religious right fundamentalist.  There’s no difference between the newly minded anti-vaxx New Ager and the failed entertainer who pivots to coded racism to get on podcasts.

Grifter of one kind or another, grift is grift.

Now some of these people – perhaps all of them – are awful people.  But there’s something of an addict’s desperation and shamelessness about them.  It’s obvious that some of them can’t stop as otherwise the gravy train ends, but watching pathetic-if-effective-displays of piety or spirituality it feels different.  It feels like there’s a compulsion that reminds me of drug addiction.

First of all, we’ve all looked at a hack writer, posing preacher, or craven politician and known in our heart of hearts we could probably do that con too.  Let me extend that to ask what happens to those that do this and get rewarded for it?  When the cash starts coming in, imagine the rush you get from seeing “I can make money at this.”

It’s probably very easy for even relatively moral people to see a sudden cash infusion and get some kind of high from it.  Remember that great new job you got, and how that higher paycheck felt for the first time?  Imagine that, but with more money and all you had to do was claim aliens are turning our kids gay via video games.

But beyond the high of money, let’s not discount emotional high these grifter-criminals get.

People will agree with the stupidest thing you say.  People will praise your heroism for fighting woke vaccine with effusive internet praise.  You’ll be told you’re a hero for taking Superpac money while making people’s lives worse.  You’ll be courted on podcast and even television.

All other benefits aside, your brain is awash in dopamine and serotonin all because you’re a lying asshole. Want to keep that high? Just keep lying.

Some of the worst people we know, from arrogant hack authors to spiritual quacks to politicians are addicts.  I mean they’re also terrible people, yes there is the desire for power, etc.  But the craven behavior, the rage, the willingness to say anything, the need reminds me of a junkie.

Which even more means that you’ve got to work hard to stop them.  They can’t be shamed, they know they hurt others, and they’re getting a buzz off of it.  Even if you think you can help them, you have to stop them before they hurt others.  They don’t just want the money and power, they want the rush.

Shun them, sue them, vote them out, etc.  Even if they somehow know what they’re doing is wrong, it won’t stop them as they’re addicts and we can’t hope they get better. We have to stop damage then we can see about healing.

Steven Savage