| it's not a matter of what's complicated, it's a matter of what it replaces. the quote isn't reflecting on what's easiest to solve, it's reflecting on the impact that it has on culture as a whole. a tangible impact of the current generation of AI tools is they displace and drown out human creations in a flood of throwaway, meaningless garbage. this is amplifying the ongoing conversion of art into "content" that's interacted with in extremely superficial and thoughtless ways. just because something _can_ be automated doesn't mean it _should_ be. we actively lose something when human creativity is replaced with algorithmically generated content because human creativity is as much a reflection of the state of the art as it is a reflection of the inner life of the person who engages in it. it's a way to learn about one another. in the context of the broader discussion of "does greater efficiency everywhere actually have any benefit beyond increasing profits," the type of thing being made efficient matters. we don't need more efficient poetry, and the promise of automation and AI should be that it allows us to shrug off things that aren't fulfilling - washing dishes, cleaning the house, so on - and focus on things that are fulfilling and meaningful. the net impact of these technologies has largely been to devalue or eliminate human beings working in creative roles, people whose work has already largely been devalued and minimized. it's totally akin to "where's my flying car?" nobody actually cares about the flying car, the point is that as technology marches on, things seem to universally get worse and it's often unclear who the new development is benefitting. |
> just because something _can_ be automated doesn't mean it _should_ be.
I guess agree to disagree on that. If a machine can do something better that a human, then the machine should do it so that the human can focus on stuff that machines can't do as easily.