It seems like in the proceeds of building their alleged Star Trek utopia with robots and holodecks, tech bros have discovered that they’d rather be the Borg than Starfleet and have begun shilling the pros of getting yourself assimilated at SXSW of all places.
“I actually think that AI fundamentally makes us more human.”
I think it makes us more brain damaged, with this guy being exhibit A, but I guess you could argue that’s a fundamental human property (unless you count hallucinating LLMs).
Those folks sure seem bullish on artificial intelligence, and the audiences at the Paramount — many of whom are likely writers and actors who just spent much of 2023 on the picket line trying to reign in the potentially destructive power of AI — decided to boo the video. Loudly. And frequently.
Stop resisting the tech utopia they’re trying to build for you, or you’re literally doomers. Never mind that the people building said tech utopia are also doomers, but that’s different, because they worry about the real dangers like acausal robot basilisks torturing them for all eternity and not about petty shit like unemployment and poverty.
Speaking of stopping resisting, another, more critical article about this conference has some real bangers they left out in the other one -- I wonder why. It has some sneers, too.
[…] tech journo Kara Swisher—saying stuff like “you need to stop resisting and starting learning” about AI […].
Yep, that's an actual quote. I'm filing that one under examples of being completely tone-deaf alongside "Do you guys not have phones?".
[…] every company will use AI to “figure out how” to become “more efficient.”
I’m sure the toxic productivity community on YouTube will gobble that shit up. It reminds me of that clown who made a video on how to consume media more efficiently by watching anime on 2x speed and skipping the "boring parts". I guess when we eliminate all human value from entertainment products, that might become a valid strategy.
She really is insufferable. If you've ever listened to her Pivot podcast (do not advise), you'll be confronted by the superficiality and banality of her hot takes. Of couse this assumes you're able to penetrate the word salad she regularly uses to convey any point she's trying to make. She is not a good verbal communicator.
Her co-host, "Professor" [*] Scott Galloway, isn't much better. While more verbally articulate, his dick joke-laden takes are often even more insufferable than Swisher's. I'm pretty sure Kara sourced from him her opinion that you should "use AI or be run over by progress"; it's one of his most frequent hot takes. He's also one of the biggest tech hype maniacs, so of course he's bought a ticket on the AI hype express. Before the latest AI boom, he was a crypto booster, although he's totally memory-holed that phase of his life now that the crypto hype train has run off a cliff.
[*] I put professor in quotes, because he's one of those people who insist on using a title that is equal parts misleading and pretentious. He doesn't have a doctorate in anything, and while he's technically employed by NYU's business school, he's a non-tenured "clinical professor", which is pretty much the same as an adjunct. Nothing against adjunct professors, but most adjuncts I've known don't go around insisting that you call them "professor" in every social interaction. It's kind of like when Ph.D.s insist you call them "doctor".
Galloway knows less about tech than Swisher and supported Bloomberg for president, seriously so insufferable he makes her look good by comparison.
(And when I was an adjunct, I tried to make my students *stop* calling me professor, it felt like lying to accept it.)