The first ten minutes I spent on social media this morning made me feel all kinds of things. Why is it that people who routinely use LLMs are so loud and brash and proud, making these tools appear as essential and inevitable?

A post by a dev whose app I use said something along the lines of: "no use exercising your coding skills, AI is too good now, you can't compete with it anyway".

Another post by a user on an instance I try to engage with wrote - literally: "tired of overthinking every decision?" and then disclosed he had created an AI that will "run a weighted decision matrix so you don't have to." In all seriousness.

What is this dystopian world where human qualities are devalued, critical thinking is discarded and surveillance capitalism is ignored at the altar of AI worship?

If they are loud and proud, maybe so I can be too... but in the opposite direction.

This weekend I will start the MIT's Missing Semester class (the 2020 Lectures, so pre-AI) because in this brave new world hyping up techno-fascist LLMs, knowing the basics of code are essential IMHO.

So my March "project" will be a deep dive in MIT's Missing Semester and my April project will be off-grid mesh radio communication.

What about you, what are you doing to resist?

Special props to @emilymbender @cwebber and @tante for being outspoken on these issues... you're my beacons of hope

#NoAI

@elena one other comment. I come from an art background. I have been drawing since I could hold a crayon. While I studied computer science in college, I also minored in fine art drawing. All of my kids have been interested in drawing to one extent or another. They do it for fun, even if they have other interests.

My youngest, 15, is very "talented" in that they have probably devoted the most time and effort into improving their skills. They will spend hours drawing alone in their room...

1/

@elena or on the couch. They have shown remarkable improvement over the years, but they are still not satisfied with their output.

Anyway, they've recently had some peers ask them why they even bother struggling to get better at art because AI will just do it better and take all the art jobs in the future?

Their response is that they make art and struggle with it for themselves. The struggle is part of it. They can see and feel their own growth. Those peers can't comprehend it.

2/2

@GreatBigTable The part with those peers is so sad.
But I adore your youngsters' response and how strong they are! 🥰

@elena