KatFeb 21, 2023

#ChatGPT and its ilk are effectively a large-scale DDoS attack on not only specific tasks (such as teaching, software maintenance and fiction editing) but on human creative inspiration, sense of self and ability to make meaning of the universe.

notice how they are
- creating work for us rather than saving us work
- automating inherently energizing and rewarding tasks such as making art rather than tiring and tedious tasks such as filing taxes
- flooding social networks with generated content that makes it harder to connect with real humans and build community
- distracting us with questions like “what if this machine is sentient?” which keep us from noticing and acting to prevent the suffering of actual humans

that thing where all search engines have become basically unusable because they’re stuffed full of AI garbage? i fear that’s about to happen to everything.

i don’t believe this is necessarily intentional, but no machine that learns under capitalism can imagine another world.

Show threadKatFeb 21, 2023

i hope, though, that this exponential flood of inhuman content will finally make it impossible not to see that we all have inherent value regardless of what we produce or consume.

care about the world because caring matters. make art because it matters. *you* matter. each of us contains infinities the machines will never understand. don’t let them try to tell you that you can be replaced; you can’t. none of us can.

always ask yourself who benefits from your apathy, your overwhelm, your exhaustion, your loneliness.

Show threadKatFeb 22, 2023

still trying to figure out the right way to say this. in recent decades it has become easier and easier to fall into the trap of "i don't need to make this particular art, someone else has made it better than me". to get demoralized by comparing to the work of others.

art-making AIs extrapolate that feeling to encompass the entire universe of potential art, so you can no longer avoid facing down and overcoming that fear. it's the Library of Babel, no longer the suspicion but the certainty that anything you could say has been said before.

of course it's always been a lie; you have to make the thing anyway. the thing is particular to you. the thing is *specific*, as each of us is specific.

we're all Pierre Menard, rewriting Don Quixote. which was Borges' point even then.

Show threadKat

in a moment of lovely synchronicity i rediscovered this David Byrne quote today.

"It can often seem that those in power don’t want us to enjoy making things for ourselves—they’d prefer to establish a cultural hierarchy that devalues our amateur efforts and encourages consumption rather than creation."

Feb 23, 2023 at 12:00amWeb
Show threadSatchel 🎲💼Feb 23, 2023
@kat I feel very strongly that this is true, and that the #TTRPG, as an artform, and a hobby, is a bulwark against it. Replaying games are folk art! We do them in our homes, for ourselves, and we have maximal fun as amateurs! That's why everything #DnD brand is so horrifying, nowadays. It's become voraciously commercialized.
Show threadAbandoned AmericaFeb 23, 2023
@kat God, what a good quote, and so very relevant to what's been on my mind today. Thanks for sharing it
Show threadnickFeb 23, 2023

@kat I particularly love "This might sound like I believe there is some vast conspiracy at work, which I don't, but the situation we find ourselves in is effectively the same as if there were one."

Which reminds me somehow of Stafford Beer's "The purpose of a system is what it does".

Show threadJens AytonFeb 23, 2023
@nickzoic @kat I think this is extremely important. People tend to assume that a pattern that isn’t a conspiracy is random and dismiss it as pareidolia, but emergent social forces are more powerful and inexorable than overt ones
Show threadCool Grey MatterFeb 23, 2023
@kat They DO want us to create, only so that they can profit from our creativity.
Show threadSusan DyeFeb 23, 2023
@kat thanks for sharing this perfect quote. It's spot on and a theme we often talk about at home. Making anything, however modest or imperfect matters!
Show threadRobertJacksonFeb 23, 2023

@kat

Precisely! "Big Guitar" is real and puts off beginners with all sorts of technicalities that are just obstacles.

Make and play!

Show threadDMX2022Feb 23, 2023
@kat wonderful，let‘s go out to create something for ourselves。
Show threadStevens R MillerFeb 23, 2023

@kat

I like his thinking, but not his focus. Most of our money is not spent consuming art. It is spent consuming houses, cars, gasoline, food, and health care.

Also, I don't think "the state" is his real opponent. It's our own willingness to let things like food and health care continue to be treated as commodities (things you can decide if you want to buy, provided you have enough money) as opposed to essentials. We could change that, but we don't.

Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Feb 23, 2023

@kat G. K. Chesterton made a very similar point 120 years ago:

"A person could dance without being a dancer; a person could dance without being a specialist […] In proportion as Mr. McCabe’s scientific civilization advances […] the more and more “well trained” […] become the people who do dance, and the more and more numerous become the people who don’t. […] That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacement of five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for money."

Show threadSimon I Groove musicallyFeb 23, 2023
@kat How Music Works is a genius bit of writing. Byrne is a hero of mine. The audiobook version is so, so worth it.
Show threadMisterMakerFeb 24, 2023
@kat Doing hobbies is motivated by the businesses that wants too sell you stuff for this hobby. But it's demotivated by the businesses that want you to work for them instead of yourself.
Show threadDanette 🐬Feb 24, 2023
@kat that’s a great quote. I feel that. Thanks for sharing it.
Show threadbenjohnFeb 24, 2023
@kat I’d really like to read that piece in full; it’s a view I’ve also got. I think we’ve taken music, especially, from a participatory group activity and turned it in to a spectator sport. Would be interesting to know the anthropology of this.
Show threadbenjohnFeb 24, 2023
@kat same can be said probably of sport itself. It’s gone largely from something we join in with and do together for funsies, to something we watch. … This elevation of the elite is probably okay in isolation, but the way it seems to crush our participation sucks.
Show threadLot⁴⁹Feb 24, 2023
@kat 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 is a remarkable book. Lives up to its title.
Show threadBridgetFeb 24, 2023
@kat not just music, literally everything has been devalued or discouraged unless it can be monetized
Show threadAdam - The Funny BrainFeb 25, 2023
@kat it reminds me of the "Against Creativity" book by Oli Mould, so much of our artistic worth being moulded by what sells instead of the act of art for the soul or fun of it. :) I really recommend that book, and really really need to read "How music works"
Show threadKarawynn Long 🦊✍🏻🏳️‍🌈😷♿Feb 25, 2023
@kat paging @pluralistic
Show threadLoki_ChristMar 1, 2023
@kat he Needs Attapulgite & Zaffer alike if he wants you to Paint something Neat: #West_Side:
Show threadClive WeeksMar 1, 2023

@kat

@kat
Wise words. Thank you David Byrne 🙏

Show threadAndrea Magnorsky 😹 🦙Jun 17, 2023
@kat I am totally feeling that, thanks for sharing
Show threadIan RobinsonJun 17, 2023
@kat @TommyW That’s a fab book.
Show threadLaura G, Sassy 70’sJun 17, 2023
@kat oh, that is such a great quote!