Author: Spencer Allen

Artificial Intelligence has been on everyone’s minds lately and the vast consensus is that AI is evil, job-stealing technology that needs to be stopped.

I cannot understand these opinions, especially from progressives. Is AI not the very definition of progress? For now, AI cannot create, it can only synthesize from what has already been made, so, if you are truly creative, you should have nothing to fear… right?

Let’s discuss the different kinds of AI, as only some types are actually problematic. AI tools are something most of us use every day. If you have a Google Pixel phone, (and you should) Every time you take a picture, an onboard AI can make it the best version of that picture it can be. There are many more examples, but just know that this isn’t the kind that most people take issue with, nor will it be discussed here.

Next is generative AI. Public enemy number one. In my earlier post, titled AI art: when will we learn, I talk about artists being accused of using AI, why it might scare us, and some potential cultural ramifications. I won’t go over those points again, but, the actual generation of images merits more discussion.

Is inspiration theft? Can robots be inspired? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Is an AI being fed image data to generate a new image considered theft? with my personal feelings leaning toward AI sympathetic, I see it as the same thing as a human taking inspiration from art and generating their own art. If that’s theft, let he who has never been inspired cast the first stone.

Side note: As an Aspie, I have always felt akin to robotic characters. Perhaps this affects my judgment in this area. I’ll probably write more on this later. At any rate, as the line between human and robot blurs, we will all need to ask ourselves these questions sooner or later.

AI and Automation and UBI

In discussing this subject further IRL, I’ve heard it said that AI and automation are broadly doing the same thing, i.e. doing work that people can do, only more efficiently. There are differences, mainly that AI takes the jobs that automation should allow us to do more of. Automation is a deeper topic, and more thoughts are provided in this post, but I’m pretty much pro-AI and pro-automation.

AI and automation both give us choice, that’s the basic service they provide. As a creator, the choice between taking out a loan to hire artists to illustrate a card game or getting it done for cheap by an AI. As a consumer, the choice between the speed and precision of robot-made fast food, or the personal touch and warmth of a human-staffed diner.

UBI is the foil to the undesirable aspects of automation and I believe it’s the foil to AI, as well. If companies start using AI instead of hiring workers, we need checks and balances in place so that change can benefit everyone.

No, the jobs created by AI will not be as plentiful as those taken by AI, but, in my view, if you have the kind of job that AI can replace, it’s probably soul-sucking just like an Amazon warehouse job. If you’re a digital artist, worried that AI might steal your job, expand your horizons. Adapt or die, this is nothing new.

People get upset

People get upset when AI art wins an art contest, but, it isn’t the AI that entered. It was a person with a vision that AI helped bring to life. AI art wins a lot of contests these days. Mostly because it’s novel. But even projects like this video that Corridor Digital put out are called “soulless” and “without a shred of artistic integrity”. AI was only used to enhance the visuals, while the script, idea, acting, music, and the rest of the project were all done by hand. Human hand, if you must know.

People get upset that all AI artists have to do is type a few words into a computer to achieve their results. Do you mean like a writer does? Isn’t that what most jobs are these days? Am I going insane?

People get upset that AI steals jobs, but what of the people who have newly minted AI-related jobs? Do the jobs created by the new AI gold rush not count? Who deserves to have a job and who doesn’t? A writer deserves a job, but an AI integration specialist, trainer, programmer, or other related worker does not? I have a friend who trains AI for work, and they are so ashamed of this that they won’t mention it publicly. But don’t they have a job because of AI?

Here I am, virtually arguing for robot rights, of all things, in 2024 while others try to stymie the flow of changes AI will bring, new jobs, opportunities, choices and all. I thought I was supposed to be scared of change. Maybe I’m not conservative. Maybe I’m the most progressive person I know, after all.

Seeing ≠ believing

As generative AI improves, the fear that we will no longer be able to tell what’s real and what’s not grows with it. Even since my last post on the subject, Sora, the new most realistic AI image and video generator, has been unveiled. It’s quite good. I think we’re past that point.

You can’t stop it, but complaining doesn’t help, it might take your job, but it might give you a new one, you think you prefer pure human art, but AI gets better every day, you believe seeing or hearing proof of actions committed to be empirical evidence, but that’s no longer the case. AI can aim for you in video games and summarize blog posts like this. Maybe I should be more worried.

It’s scary to think about, but the time for thinking is over. It’s reality. Let’s do what we can and stop trying to change what we can’t. Good luck out there.

This post will act as a glossary entry, explaining my thoughts on automation and UBI to link back to when I reference them later.

Some jobs really suck for people to do, warehouse, production, and food service jobs come immediately to mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to just have robots do these jobs? This is the question that automation answers. With our technology, it is possible to have robotic drones fulfill most of these roles, and imagine the possibilities when they do! Imagine when McDonald’s no longer needs human staff and can be 1/3rd the size! What would we even do with all that space? More housing, perhaps?

(I understand that this sounds like just deleting jobs for people who rely on them, but that’s where UBI comes in, bear with me.)

But don’t some people actually like working these jobs? Of course, automation won’t be so ubiquitous that ZERO food service jobs are left. There will be diners that proudly proclaim that all the cooks and waitstaff are human if you prefer that sort of thing.

QUALIFIERS: I have worked two production jobs, one for a big company, and one for a small company, and my first job was partly warehouse-based.

UBI: Universal Basic Income

Imagine if the government paid for all your basic living expenses! Just enough to cover rent and groceries each month, but nothing more! Tier 1 of Maslow’s, that’s all we’re asking for! Might they finally put a cap on rent? Who knows! Might you laze around now that you don’t need to work to survive? Probably for a little while, until you discover that life can be about more than work! Remember, when I say work, I mean working to live, not working on hobbies.

Imagine the meaning that could be created in your life if you didn’t need to spend 1/4 of it working a job you don’t like! The new hobbies, friends, creative outlets! This is the beauty of UBI, and it goes hand-in-hand with automation. With just a percentage of the money megacorps like Amazon will save by switching to robots, who don’t need to be paid, these programs could be implemented in tandem. How do we get the money from the big corporations? I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

The ELEPHANT in the room

Of course, the obvious problem is that one exclusively costs companies and the government money and one exclusively makes them money, so the difficulty lies in implementing both of these systems in tandem. There will most likely be a time after automation is implemented and before UBI that will be really bad for the working class. This is the gap that we need to figure out how to close. If done correctly, these systems will start a new cultural revolution. This I know.

I have a few questions for readers who feel they can share unique perspectives. I usually try to provide answers, but these are things that I’ve been wondering for a long time, without coming to any meaningful conclusions. Philosophy should be a conversation, and hopefully, these questions inspire some.

Question 1:

The theory of evolution is the Darwinist theory that all life came from the sea, and has been evolving for millions of years to become what it is today, including humans.

My question is this: If you believe that humans evolved in the same ways as other creatures (In this case meaning without divine intervention) and natural selection selects for traits that will continue the existence of the species, why did we evolve sentience? I.e. why did we gain the ability to create nuclear weapons, burn holes in the ozone layer, melt the ice caps, and destroy the very planet that sustains us?

I want to make it clear: I do believe creatures mutate, and that sometimes these mutations are beneficial, this is called evolution. I do not deny that evolution occurs. But, I wonder why a random mutation would result in the ability to destroy on the scale that we can and have, let alone the ability to blog.

Question 2:

I think the default political state, or the political leaning that humans are born into, is conservatism, and conservatism is the state that most people return to later in life, due to any number of factors.

If we could ask a baby what its political views are, (and could communicate sufficiently to understand the answer) we would see them as conservative. If we could thaw a caveman out of ice and catch him up to speed, his political beliefs (or lack thereof) would seem, to us, conservative.

As children, we don’t understand that things are wrong with the world or want to change them until we’re older. Some things do need to change, while others are better off staying the same.

Maybe you lean left in adolescence, but eventually, get tired of the constant forward momentum. This could explain why conservatism is popular among people of graduated age, who grow comfortable with how things are.

After all, progressivism is a lifelong game, an ever-evolving play. New rules, new lines, and new actors every day. What’s progressive today is conservative tomorrow. I can’t blame anyone for bowing out.

A few questions, then:

1. Do you agree? Please share any opposing viewpoints.
2. What are the implications of living in a system that favors one side in this way? (Most public office and decision-making positions are held by older and “more experienced” people, who tend to be conservative, we’ll come back to this)
3. What can we do to get more young people into these positions?

Question 3:

Is it possible to be racist against white people? I understand that not everybody is on the same page regarding the answer to this question. The key to unlocking the answer lies in how we define racism. I would define racism as discrimination against a person or group based on race or ethnicity, with no exceptions and no leeway.

How does someone who believes white people cannot be discriminated against define racism?

I often think back on times when I should’ve said something differently or made a joke I didn’t think of then, and I can confidently differentiate between things I said and things I should’ve said. I know what I said and didn’t say. But the question is: Would I even be aware if that stopped being the case?

Memory is so fallible. Every time you recall something, its shape subtly changes in your mind. And not just in advanced age. Every single person has an imperfect memory. So, when will I stop being able to remember what I said and didn’t say? I guess that’s one of the reasons I started this blog.

Assurance. Proof I was here.

A while back, I overheard someone say that, in Denmark, there is no wage gap, comparing Denmark to the USA and placing this great country of ours in a not-so-favorable light. This got me thinking, as most things do, about the nature of social issues, and how most Americans seem to have some vision of a Utopia, some paradisiacal locale that just so happens to not be These Here 50 Nifty United States of America.

Now, I would be remiss to type a proverb here about green grasses elsewhere and leave it at that. We need to look at what I believe Denmark has to trade off to accomplish this. (By the way, Denmark does report having a wage gap, and the very existence of wage gaps is a hotly debated topic that I’m sure we will discuss at some other time.)

To be clear, I believe that The United States of America is the greatest country in the world. By far. Did I say she was perfect? I did not. Do I believe she’s perfect? No, but I think that she is the best country there is. She has her problems, but those are for leftist blogs to discuss. Today, we discuss the social trade-offs that are being made and how America can be the country to rise above.

Denmark, Japan, and Perfection

Some countries are doing certain things better than America, but there is some slack created in other areas that we need to be aware of to paint a complete picture. I like Denmark, but they lack diversity something fierce. Denmark is overwhelmingly white. Perhaps this lack of diversity contributes to the country’s balancing of complex social issues like education, gender equality, and crime rate. I bet living in an ethnic echo chamber does wonders for your race-related social justice issues. Again, I like Denmark, but it cannot be overstated that they have problems, too.

Let’s look at Japan, probably the country most fetishized by us in the West. They have strong anti-individuality sentiments, in complete opposition to our values of American Exceptionalism. Stratospheric expectations for youths lead to a high suicide rate for students. Declining birth rate, dormant tourism industry, and stagnating population, too. Not even Japan is perfect.

America and Perfection

What’s ironic about this is that people in these (and all other) countries consider The United States to be the promised land. The grass is greener here after all. That’s why America is the melting pot of the world. That’s why we’re the best!

No country is perfect. Neither Denmark, Japan, nor The USA, but America is the one place that can become that country. We’re still ironing out the kinks, but we’ve got advantages no one else has. Let’s not forget that in the big picture, America is still young. We can learn from other countries, see their blunders and solutions, and approach our problems with youthful vigor, insofar as a country can have vigor.

We have diversity, we have fresh eyes to view world problems with, and the fighting spirit of every nation behind us. Our future is helmed by people from every place, race, and creed, and this, our designation as the melting pot of the world, is America’s greatest strength.

Race is the outward physical appearance of a person. In other words, race is how a person looks. Ethnicity is the cultural background of a person. In other words, everything else. If you had to choose only one of these things to define people by forever, which would it be?

Defining people by race is an outdated practice that I’m surprised we haven’t dropped yet. It evokes segregation. A hundred years ago, we called people whites and blacks, now we call them white people and black people. A poor excuse for a language reform and hardly a big enough change to convince anyone that we’re over the “Us vs. Them” mentality.

The root cause of bigotry is ignorance. Sexual orientation, race, religion, political leaning and other characteristics seem to be superfluous when exhibited by people that we love. You wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) stop loving someone just because of these things. And how do you learn to love someone? By getting to know them.

It’s easy for us to believe that there’s a white vs black struggle because we believe that those two groups actually exist. They do not. (I’ll explain)

I am white. Spaniards, The British, Australians, South Africans, and many other groups are white. But to group us together under the banner of being white and assume that we have anything more in common than skin tone would be a blunder. Now, it is possible that we do share a level of privilege not enjoyed by other groups, but a key step to undermining this cultural principle, which would be to the benefit of the whole human race, is to stop reducing people to their races.

Ethnicity is a more useful tool in categorizing people, and reflects who a person is or might be more handily than race ever could. Once we stop thinking of people as either being one of Us or one of Them, we can start thinking of everyone as a unified human race comprised of many beautiful and varied cultures, each with our own strengths and weaknesses, weaknesses that can be covered and made up for by cooperating in full with the rest of humanity.

To stop using race to define people is a step towards world peace.

There is nothing that all peoples of color have in common, so calling them Them is a great way to breed misunderstanding, ignorance, and fear. Educate yourself on the cultural backgrounds of people so that you can more accurately understand social issues, discuss world politics, and better appreciate all our places on the world stage.

This will be the first in a series of posts where I break down my interpretation of certain concepts by more well-known philosophers, as such, here is what this post will be to be referred back to in the future: I will discuss my own thoughts and feelings on the subject matter and what my takeaways have been. I may even entirely misunderstand the concept, but if I feel that I got something profound from it, that is what I will talk about.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is no doubt my all-time favorite philosopher (as you may be able to tell from the name of this blog), and The Heaviest Burden (shown in its entirety at the top of this post) is a large part of why, along with his theories of an overman and his biting cultural critique. I had always heard from people that Nietzsche was a nihilistic, doom-and-gloom kind of philosopher, but in all my readings of his work, I felt that it conveyed hopeful tones and messages; inspiring words for individuals who are struggling not to be overwhelmed by the tribe. He is not well enough accredited in my opinion; people rarely realize how many of his quotes are used daily with no citation of Nietzsche anywhere to be found. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” “God is dead” “…when one gazes into the abyss…”

Digression and gushing aside, The Heaviest Burden, found in his book “The Gay Science” (Alternatively translated as “The Joyful Wisdom”), is such a passage as has indeed, as he puts it, lain upon my actions as the greatest weight. What habits would I have to make or break to even be comfortable repeating this life countless times? What past mistakes would I have to make peace with? What future planning would I need to put in place? I think about these things just shy of daily. And remember, being comfortable is only the first level, the first step in the journey proposed by Nietzsche’s demon. The goal is to be happy, nay, overjoyed at the prospect.

I know that this passage is only hypothetical, but I believe that it is an important thought experiment that should be considered with some frequency. Nobody wants to die having lived a life full of regrets, but I believe Nietzsche’s proposed situation takes this fear to its logical extreme. What if I had to live this life infinite times? Not just one regret-filled life, but countless? It makes one shudder.

I have shown this philosophy to many people, many of whom would look for ways out, “I would kill myself to shorten the suffering as much as possible”, many of whom mistake the scenario for a choice, a would-you-push-the-button sort of scenario whether they would cost not to accept the fermions demon’s offer. Most people just don’t get it. I may have explained it poorly or not provided enough context. Or maybe, just maybe, the mind refuses to entertain this thought on any level deeper than the surface. Suicide won’t change the outcome of you living infinite times the same events, and the demon isn’t offering anything, he’s explaining.

Life is hard, but we can do it. You got this, I got this. Good luck to us on living a life that we’d be happy to repeat infinite times.

This post was inspired by an event from December 2022, when artist Ben Moran was banned from r/art, a general-use art-sharing forum, for posting an image that too closely resembled art generated by an AI. for more context, plenty of articles go into specific detail about the event, but that will not be my main focus here. I want to talk about the fear of technology that has gone a bit too far.

AI art is just cool. We are at the stage of human development where we are not just creating media to entertain ourselves, but we are making things that are making things that entertain us. We have gotten so good at amusing ourselves that we’ve streamlined the process to this degree. AI art is a symbol of the progress we’ve made as a species. In my mind, it’s a beautiful thing; in concept, if not always in practice.

But it can also be a scary thing. This is not lost on me. If your livelihood were dependent on you crafting something that was being systematized into processes that a computer could do faster (and sometimes better) than you before your very eyes, I can see how that might worry you. Before long, it will be impossible to tell if a human or AI created a single image. But arguably, we’ve already reached that point; so if you’ll pardon the cliche, resistance is futile.

NFTs scared us, and in a world where the armies of people promoting and trying to make a quick buck off of a volatile and nature-harming fad have all but been beaten back, perhaps we’ve become a little overzealous in our attempts to battle the forces of technological advancement.

Maybe more cultural emphasis will be placed on physical mediums, like painting, in the coming years to reflect our need for tangible proof that the human element was involved in the creation of art (at least until robots have been taught to cross that bridge).

A common argument against AI art is that the AI is shown images that were created by “actual” artists that it will then use to generate its own image. This is, in essence, like saying that taking inspiration is wrong. The AI is essentially “inspired” by what it is shown, but so are human artists. After all, artists don’t invent every color they use, every technique they employ, or every tool they put to canvas.

Maybe the next time we see new technology, we will be better judges of the actual harm it can cause, and we can skip the step of harming real people in our efforts to crusade against it.

A slogan or tagline is a phrase that is used to draw people in, to invite people to buy a product, attend an event, or join a cause. The problem is, by nature, they have to be bold, flashy, and catchy to work. In making a catchy slogan, you sacrifice clarity and honesty for brevity. An example: You want police reform, and you need support from others who have become disillusioned by policing practices in this country. A problem arises: You need a catchy slogan. DEFUND THE POLICE seems to do the trick. “Defund the police” is an anti-police slogan through and through, but the issue is this: That’s not actually what anybody wants. It sounds nice, it sounds bold, and it’s easy to yell, but what you really want is better training and vetting processes for police officers. Unfortunately, “We want better training and vetting processes for police officers” sounds pretty pro-police in my book.

We want the police to be better, not worse. The desired outcome is for things to improve, so why do we seem to think that defunding the police is the path to that goal?

BLM: Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter, so what can we assume the point of the movement is from just the slogan alone? Nothing at all.

Kill all men: This is obviously more of a joke slogan, but again, if we look at it on the surface, we don’t know why this slogan exists. We’ve entirely given up on clarity and traded it for conciseness, to a fault. There are plenty more examples, but I think I’ve made my point. Even legacy slogans like “Yes We Can” have room to be improved in the meaning anything department.

With all this in mind, I propose a new slogan: Use Better Slogans.

Get better at saying what you mean. Improve your vocabulary so you can convey your message with the brevity you seek without sacrificing meaning and clarity.