When tech evolution is accelerating beyond any human power to politically influence the course of our development, and that evolution is instead being driven purely by the dictates of capital, which preys on the weakest aspects of the human condition, reducing us all to our lowest common denominator… “biological conservative” really loses its sting. Rachel is mobilizing this term as a slur, because there was a time when simply calling things you don’t like “conservative” worked as a deterrent (instead of, you know, reasoning). Some people will stay lost in those times. Everyone else is tuning in to the fact that capitalist AI is not “progress,” but simply a new way to make one person do the work of several hundred others who are forced into even more precarious forms of work. The fact that this is lost on so many “critics” today shows a stunning separation between them and the concerns of most working people. The solution is not to be anti AI or automation, but to put the possibility of harnessing these powers towards collective development, by phasing out the least dignified forms of labor, abolish bullshit jobs, and redistribute the rest of the work that remains so that we can move into a post-job-centric society where our timenergy can be put towards discovering and cultivating talents under the mentorship of others in institutions that do no serve profit, but which prioritize our human potential as an end in itself.

The people raging against AI art aren’t raging against AI art. They’re raging against the unnatural because they’re biological conservatives who can’t comprehend a world in which anything unnatural has positive attributes. They are nature fetishists and nothing more. I guess I’m back.

May 8
at
10:38 AM