I’m remembering a book I read in elementary school that, in hindsight, I’m rather shocked (in a good way, so also grateful) that it was available in our school library. I want to say it was called Weaselman, but I can’t find it by that title. The protagonist is a kid who goes up against a local, & heavily polluting, factory (in the guise of Weaselman). He breaks the law, & puts himself in physical danger, in the process. Guess it’s lost to time…
While I’m on the subject (but off-topic for the thread), we also grew up with this (from Sesame Street):
(puts on self-righteous hat)
To this day, to me, littering just seems such a basic, and one of the most easily avoided, of moral failures.
(There was also the ad depicting the crying Native American, Woodsy Owl, The Lorax book & TV cartoon, Schoolhouse Rock etc.)
But, my goodness, it’s like we (collectively) didn’t learn anything important at all, or didn’t retain what we should’ve.
This is the ai driven dystopia I’ve been fearing moreso than a “skynet” situation. I think what people underestimate is how much we are actually just meat robots that can administer updates to ourselves via words and pictures. Our capacity for self-delusion is limitless.
“There is no world I know that compares with pure imagination…”
I think ordinary people don’t care. Everyone is amazed at how easy something can be done/achieved. I see it from my coworkers and even family members who like AI-generated images to say good morning or something like that.
Even the Workers’ Party has been criticized for its use of AI in its social media communications. In addition to its online presence being considered ineffective by many left-wing activists, the abuse of computer-generated images has been taken as a form of abuse by artists, who have asked whether they are not also considered workers by Mr. Lula da Silva’s party.
I get the impression that AI has captured the hearts and minds of ordinary people with these cheap tricks.
I get that impression too. Most people don’t know about its many downsides (massive energy use, theft from artists and writers and decimation of their livelihoods, degradation of our ability to discern AI crap from reality, and on and on). Some observers seem to think AI is a bubble-like flash in the pan, but for me, it’s hard not to think that it’s one more reason that our future is fucked.
Satire is dead. A friend was telling me a few years ago (I think it was at Cannes Lions) that the most irritating moment of his career was having to sit there and be lectured about ethics by Sheryl Fucking Sandberg.
I mean by heart bled for him out on a junket to Cannes, but still!
