The crypto trend brought some utter shit to my LinkedIn inbox. Jobs at stock traders using knock off cartoon characters as currency. They said that blockchains, and ledgers, and decentrialisation.
Then came the metaverse. Not that I ever got a job offer from Meta, but I was always impressed at the amount of absolute bollocks they pedalled. They said that it was the future of human interaction before they even shipped legs.
Now we have artifical intelligence. Google has abandoned search in favour of AI, data centres are popping up everywhere, and everything seems to come with it included. They say it’s the future, and if we’re not on board we’ll be left behind.
Some tech companies have came up with a groundbreaking use of AI - generating fake AI influencers.
By my own admittion, I’m a bit of an AI sceptic. I use it for coding, both in work and on side projects, but I don’t use it for making crap pictures full of wonky perspectives. At the lowest level of bits of AI that I see absolutely no point in, sits AI influencers.
I don’t care about influencers, but I thought the whole point is to use their personality to sell stuff? AI has no personality, therefore, it shouldn’t influence.
Who is asking for a shiny skinned imaginary woman to sell them a monthly mattress subscription?
Slopify
I’ve had a few recruiters hit me up from these AI influencer companies. At no point in the product features on the marketing does it ever mention fraud. As developers and designers our job is to extrapolate out uses for products and plan for those in advance. Have people bought into the hype so much that they don’t see how it’s ruining society?
You could call it a bubble, a hype cycle, or absolute bollocks, but one thing about generative AI is different - it allows people to reframe their version of reality and spread it to others. It is a tool to will into existance something that didn’t exist before, without thought, skill, or nuance.
“What about Photoshop?” you may ask? Then you should read this piece from The Verge.
AI is enabling racists, facists, and Governments to pump out real looking propoganda at an industrial scale and none of them seem to care that it’s unravelling the real world. Tech companies are speedrunning us right into a reality were proof doesn’t mean anything anymore. With a prompt, I can make something that disproves your proof.
Honourable mentions
Sorry for such a horrible post, but it’s something I’ve been mulling over for weeks. I didn’t even do a year in review because I felt so bleak about it. Anyways, here’s some fun stuff:
- 📖 I read Rendezvous with Rama over a few days on various modes of transport. It was incredible. I’m hyped for the film adaption. It also really reminded me of the Outer Wilds DLC. Dark, foreboding, mysterious, and completely alien. I loved it.
- 📺 Fallout season 2 continues to be great. And because of it…
- 🎮 I’ve also been playing Fallout: New Vegas. It’s easily my favourite Fallout. Now that I understand Obsidion games I maxed out Speech first. The weird ways to talk yourself out of problems always makes me laugh.
- 🎮 BALL x PIT is incredible, and addictive. I’ve been playing it so much I’ve been seeing the Tetris effect when I go to bed.
I’ll hopefully find something nicer to write about next time.