I used to enjoy AI a lot, and I still think the technology is really cool, but lately I’m beginning to despise it. It spreads and nestles itself into every corner of our life, and it rots whatever it touches, be it the humans that rely on it or the projects in which it’s used. I see so many open source projects that are tainted with it, it’s almost impossible to avoid it. It’s sad. The generations that will grow up with AI will be fucked.

The generations that will grow up with AI will be fucked.

Eh. That’s something every single generation before us in at least the past 150 years has been saying about other new society-changing stuff. They’ll be fine, society just changes.

Generations that will grow up with social media will be fucked.

Generations that will grow up with internet will be fucked.

Generations that will grow up with video games will be fucked.

Generations that will grow up with computers will be fucked.

Generations that will grow up with morning-after pills will be fucked.

…

…

What about Cambridge Analytica, the mental health impacts, the addiction, … we’re still learning the social impact of social media — especially capitalistic social media. To pretend we aren’t is just plain ignorant, no? You can’t say people are fine when you don’t even know how they’ve been affected.

I’m not saying everything is lovely and we are at the peak of civilization. I’m saying that every form of progress comes with challenges and downsides, and this saying of “Next generation will be fucked” is a cognitive bias every generation has had for a pretty long time.

They also have positive sides.

I don’t know if I expressed myself that poorly (I was pretty tired after all), but I did not mean at all that there are no downsides to any of these. I meant that despite these sayings, every generation so far has ended up as fine as the previous ones.