@aesthr I would say that social media, like Mastodon is also an anti-social technology. As it adds deeply crude simplifications of human interactions, which don't exist in that form outside of the Internet and computers in general.

You can't block people that easily and perfectly in the real world for example. It's even to some degree a sign of a functioning democracy that you can't and you have to interact with people outside of your own echo-chambers.

Let's not fool ourselves, AI is just another anti-social technology and deeply against being human, but there is an existing growing list of such technologies, which people accept and do nothing against it.

@aesthr I promise I am not.a mindless tech booster. But I have noticed the same effect with any information artifact. We use them to replace human interaction with mechanically scaled messaging.

A formative experience for me: in an earlier phase of the internet, I dramatically reduced the flow of new people to the physical meetings of our university’s computer club – by documenting some things too well.

@aesthr

It is just a tool, tools are non-human

@aesthr Great way to put this!

I've said in the past that people who see this technology as empowering and argue that without it they wouldn't be able to finish a project that requires drawing or writing well, or writing code: why not ask a friend for help?

Ah, they're all busy toiling under capitalism? Well there's your problem.

@aesthr Generative AI is nothing more than the sum of all the content collected across the internet over the past 30 years. And if you feel offended and think you had nothing to do with it, you’re wrong - you did, and you still do.

If you feel betrayed by the platforms you used and trusted because they sold your content and you never got your cut, then you should admit they were never planning to serve you for free forever or pay you for your passion - this is still capitalism.