AI (And Its Corporate Cheerleaders) Ruin Everything

AI sucks. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be a ‘neutral’ technology and that it’s the people who use it who make it a problem, but let’s be real here: The current model of artificial technology and the agendas of those pushing it as the new norm is rooted in pure capitalistic greed. It’s another way to eliminate thousands of people’s livelihoods, further dilute artistic and creative power, and line the pockets of the handful of executives who think that basic human rights are an impediment to their annual bonuses. We’re seeing this in play throughout the writers’ and actors’ strikes. People in my field have been screaming about the mess it’ll create for years. Now, we’re just being waylaid by AI jackassery on a daily basis.

Let’s start with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Both unions are fighting for, among other reasons, reliable regulation of AI in their workplaces. They don’t want humans replaced with machines, whether it’s a writers’ room or a bunch of CGI extras reused for dozens of movies. The studios have refused to play ball on this basic issue, which reveals their intentions for AI in the near future. This week, Reuters reported that the Walt Disney Company has created a ‘task force’ designed to study the use of AI, and how it can be applied across the organization for ‘cost cutting’ measures. You know what that really means, right? It means even more layoffs, which is saying something for a company that’s been sacking its employees left and right since its acquisition of Fox. The Reuters report does not suggest generative AI is being used to write screenplays or create movies, but its intentions are still stridently anti-human. A source told the site that Disney wants to use AI to deal with digital effects. Interesting that this comes out the same week that Marvel’s VFX artists announced plans to unionize.

You don’t have to look far to see how AI has ‘disrupted’ industries and how the results are, to put it mildly, shit. Gizmodo Media, the soulless hellhole that owns legendary sites like A.V. Club, has started using AI This comes after the company strip-mined one of the best pop culture sources in internet history to its barest parts, sacked all the writers who made it special, and turned it into yet another Wikipedia copycat content mill. So, seeing disclaimers on their articles that note the use of AI was no surprise. All you had to do was read the ‘work’ to know that a human didn’t come up with it.

NOT satire. NOT an ironic headline. @TheOnion, WT actual F. Sickening. Saw you go from scrappy Madison paper to more self-aware city paper before screwing over employees, nixing the print version, changing owners, screwing over more employees, & becoming pure corporate grossness. pic.twitter.com/9LH9UoslYM

— tammy golden (@tammygolden) August 8, 2023

G/O Media has published another round of AI-generated articles today, against the wishes of the union. As a reminder, if you see “bot” in a byline, don’t click the blog. A few to watch out for are:

— GMG Union (@gmgunion) August 7, 2023

The movie industry is on strike because of the impact of AI, and so of course the AV Club is now doing this to preview coming releases pic.twitter.com/O2ZGACJWNW

— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) August 9, 2023

The Onion AV Club published two articles written by AI yesterday. It's basically intern-level work, although presumably a human description of The Meg 2 would have mentioned the shark. https://t.co/mDSuWjE3UQ

— Dan Brooks (@DangerBrooks) August 8, 2023

That’s what AI gets you: a blurb of The Meg 2 that doesn’t mention the shark. It’s almost beyond parody.

Terrible things come in threes, so we end this piece with Prosecraft. Created by craven loser Benji Smith, the site was, according to him, a tool ‘dedicated to the linguistic analysis of literature.’ Using AI, the site created statistics for individual books with details like word count, ‘passive voice’, verbs, etc. To nobody’s surprise, the site required stealing a crap-ton of books to ‘train’ this AI, then offer a service based on data from copyrighted works without the permission of any of the authors involved. It’s scammy, gross, arrogant, and reduces art to a bunch of data for corporations to steal. So, typical AI stuff, really. Authors pushed back in ferocious style, and Smith quickly closed the site, issuing a not-very-good apology.

Ten years. @benji_smith has been working on this novel-scraping piece of shit for TEN. YEARS. And he thinks the problem is that it’s “not the right time”. https://t.co/4ph9gPdCuR

— Kaite Welsh (she/they) (@kaitewelsh) August 7, 2023

this massive database he had access to and train it on our work that he probably pirated. Is Benji the biggest threat to authors out there? No, looks like he was pretty small fry. But he didn't realise he should ask permission & it's indicative of how most the tech bros view art.

— L.R. Lam Updates & RTs: DRAGONFALL out now 🐉🌩️ (@LR_Lam) August 9, 2023

I love how the soulless trolls behind Sudowrite, Prosecraft, etc. thought they were just going to profit off merrily scraping prose without permission. The author backlash is a joyous and amazing thing to see.

— Nick Kolakowski (@nkolakowski) August 8, 2023

Smith has not responded to questions over whether he plans to delete all of the data he collected, or how he acquired access to these books in the first place. Claiming he only used books whose texts were ‘easily discoverable’ online seems suspicious and made a hell of a lot of people wonder if he’d pirated them.

All of this is a reminder of why AI sucks, and why its biggest corporate cheerleaders should be viewed with intense suspicion. Where are the ‘improvements’ to our lives with a technology that is being used almost exclusively to put people out of work, but only after stealing all of their labour to process for prompts? Seeing sites like the A.V. Club be sapped of the personality and passion that made them so special in the first place is a true loss for countless people.

And at the end of the day, AI still needs humans. It still needs people to write the prompts and people to create the work for it to plagiarize with impunity. So many of the most infamous ‘cost cutting’ measures only result in further financial stress because, shock horror, your audience doesn’t want you to treat them like fools. They don’t want slop. They actually care about art. We know that tech bros, Hollywood executives, and Apartheid Clyde’s Pick Mes are all willing cultural vandals, but I wonder how aware they are of the unavoidable reality that they’re 100% disposable. You think Bob Iger can’t be replaced at the drop of a hat? What happens when plagiarism suits are filed (and they already are being put forward)? What about when the AI gets super racist, because it has a habit of doing that? We know how this ends. It isn’t pretty.

Art matters. People matter. Join a union. Screw AI. Fuck the executives.