You're in love with the future, I don't know why.

I just wanted to get some general thoughts out on this stuff, I think. AI and large language models are being pushed heavily by companies. Yet looking at the actual data, is it actually improving our lives? Making them better?

No. The technology only serves capitalism.

"Luddite" is so often thrown around as an insult, for someone who refuses to learn about new technology or use it. What did the Luddites actually stand for, though? Their arguments against mechanical threshing machines were that clothes would be faster to make, sure. But the quality would drastically drop; it would not improve working standard for the people who actually made the clothes.

They were right. And what's more, it's a perfect analogue for AI. LLMs speed up small tests, summarising, notetaking, transcribing. But workers are expected to produce more work in the same amount of time as a result.

AI and LLMs serve corporations, not people. By improving productivity at work, companies can cut out "redundant" roles. The people that remain will then have to work harder and faster, spinning more plates and changing context and tasks more often. They want staff that can do more with less, that can "hyperscale". This increases profit for the business "for free", and gives them further potential for growth. The worker never benefits from this "revolution" in technology. Profit concentrates at the top.

Now, let's look at LLMs and generative AI that's targeted at individuals. ChatGPT. Gemini. Perplexity. You're promised knowledge and ideas and creativity at your fingertips. But these tools at a new, opaque layer between you and your access to information. Why look at ten sources when ChatGPT can select the "best" one? Critical thinking? You don't need that when perplexity is quietly weighing up pros and cons on your behalf. Sure, you'll check its references at first, but as the LLM is correct most of the time, you'll stop "wasting" your energy and start accepting its output at face value without doing your due diligence.

You begin to lose important literary and research skills.

When you're not practicing thinking skills, those neural pathways begin to weak in favour of others. They atrophy much like a muscle does. The AI begins to do the thinking for you. You're now considered "augmented" by your "second brain".

Congratulations. You now have brain rot.

LLMs are opaque in how they're trained, their weighting for sources and biases. This is something you can theoretically unpick and unravel if you have access to the model. But that's Intellectual Property, you see, and you can't just have access to that. You wouldn't know if your chat bot started to favour certain news outlets than others. If it started being more sympathetic and less critical of pro-business ideas. Praising some politicians than others. We only see this in X's "Grok" chatbot just because of how blatantly evil it is in its design.

LLMs have a scary position in being able to influence a large part of the population--without them knowing. We are already influenced by social media, by the news, by what we consume. This is another, further, insidious step deeper.

Generative AI--"gen AI"--is deceptively evil in its own unique way. Companies offering tools to make music, images, videos, voiceovers, writing copy... they are targeting wholesale. By disrupting creators' livelihoods, it cheapens labour and also reduces the time and energy that artists have to actually work and hone their craft.

Art is inherently political. Art puts an opinion forward. By trying to kill off art, you are making a clear attempt to reduce political dissent. This is a victory for the imperial capitalists.

AI is not about making our lives better. It's not about liberation of the pencil. It's not about improving working conditions. It's simply about control.

The title of this essay is taken from the song "My Computer" by Everything Everything, from their album "Raw Data Feel". In the album they explore AI and technology and its effects on society. Link