Refuse to Participate in the A.I. Economy!

There is a reason (besides old-school curmudgeonliness) I avoid using generative AI chatbot tools to help write articles, or even to help craft a search inquiry. That reason is summarized in last week's Economist, about how the use of AI tools drives down overall Web traffic. Web traffic has declined 15% overall from January to June of this year, and useful sites like tripadvisor have seen drastic downturns in traffic. The Economist predicts that extensive AI use will kill the traditional Web, which is where all the real data resides. Instead, people will rely on AI-driven summaries that don't cite the background information, and sometimes contain "hallucinations" dreamed up by the A.I. tools. I should add that a second article in the same Economist, in the Science section, cites a new study from MIT that people who regularly use AI tools show profound drops in their own creativity - due to what is called "cognitive offloading."

There is a moral imperative here for not using a tool that is as clear as the moral imperative to not use streaming apps like Spotify because you are bankrupting musicians. When you use any chatbot type of generative A.I. tool, you are bankrupting the original sources of information on the traditional Web, as you make yourself stupider.

Luckily, The Economist tied this all together with a third article in their culture section, telling us it is up to each one of us to minimize AI dumbing down by going analog as often as possible. Purchase LPs and cassettes, analog film, and printed books, newspapers, and magazines. Refuse to be a participant in the AI transformation of the culture. Keep the true sources of art and power alive.

The DIY Underground Lives!

 Now that federal funding for NPR and PBS is gone, and Stephen Colbert has been cancelled, it's useful to remember that people of integrity have always taken more news, music, video, and visual arts cues from the underground. That is not to say that mainstream culture is devoid of anything interesting. We will continue to hear Tiny Desk Sets and World Cafes from time to time. It's also true that news heroes like Rachel Maddow and Amy Goodman can get things wrong.

But arts on the edge and news made for the samizdat community have been giving people sustenance for more than a century. Perhaps the arts and news we find best will make their way back to the mainstream in a future era. For now, be proud of Do-It-Yourself culture. Support DIY house concerts, small labels, and news distribution that relies on verifiable facts (no conspiracy-theory podcasts, thank you very much). Samizdat culture lives. The underground is alive and well.