Mulling over some of my ongoing conversations about AI and its place, and, more broadly, 'digital' and other technologies and their places, I think it boils down to a fairly simple thing: in general, these should be tools for helping people rather than replacing people. 1/2

What is sad about some - not all, by any means - of the current growing uses of 'AI' (I think of it as II (intelligence imitation) is the extent to which these are breaking the promise of technology: rather than removing the tasks that are grindingly damaging, freeing people to less constraining labour, to greater personal creativity and growth, one of the uses is to replace that creativity with something economically cheaper and artistically less human. 2/3

@andrewcusworth sure, it's about corporate and industrial efficiencies i.e. PROFIT

Generative AI though fairly straight-forward for average consumers takes effort, there's a learning curve, you have to be motivated to learn it and advantage yourself with/by it.

I don't see most ppl interested in doing that.

@Zevon I agree, it's about disruption and take-over and breaking one thing to pour money out of another. In terms of average users, I agree with that too. I think, though, there is something strange about seeing adverts on social media and things, offering a sort of 'Get an AI tool to write your book, and then use this other AI tool to lay it out and sell it, with people responding excitedly at the prospect of income from ... what? Perhaps faint hope on their part, but it is ... hollow seeming.