THEFT IS NOW LEGAL
AI corporations are putting all their chips on railroading legislators around the world to prevent regulation of their industry long enough so they can figure out a way of making their businesses profitable, no matter what the cost to culture, society, the planet, or even to the precious economy they claim to love.
Unfortunately most politicians, like most CEOs, are easily bamboozled about new technology and the utopian claims of tech-fantasist snake oil salesmen like Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
OpenAI is not going to create a super intelligent god on earth, it’s going to basically make a new version of Google, another fucking advertising platform, and they’re going to destroy the internet and human culture in order to do so. As a proposition that doesn’t sound worth it, but if you frame it as an inevitable fourth industrial revolution that will solve every problem from cancer to global warming and provide unlimited amounts of everything you could ever want, then politicians start to lap it up.
I don’t have room here to explain all the ways that this technology is a dystopian nightmare, but one thing I learned recently made my blood run cold. ChatGPT 4.0 was trained on almost all the available data on the internet. For OpenAI to create more advanced models than this, it needs more data. So their plan is to release wearable AI devices that record everything in your vicinity at all times. A 360 degree surveillance state with everything you say or do fed into machines designed to replace you? Sounds great!
We need leaders to stop drinking the tech-bro jizz-Kool Aid and bring forward stringent regulation on the theft and abuse of creative work by these massive corporations, before we’re so drowned in slop that we can no longer do anything to stop them.
The above is a photoshop collage I made for the Apocalypse Museum at Glastonbury in June. If you’re an artist or photographer and would like to protect your work from AI scrapers and help corrupt their ‘training’ (read: theft) data I highly recommend using Gaze and Nightshade developed by Shawn Shan at Dartmouth College. Similarly there are versions for musicians called Harmony Cloak by Syed Irfan Ali Meerza and Poisonify by Benn Jordan.
AI OVERVIEW
Small addition to a Google AI Overview bus stop advert featuring some genuine responses that have been given by this ‘service’.
“AI” is a problem looking for a solution it can make more complicated. Nobody wants this stuff inserted into every crevice of their digital lives. LLMs have some limited use cases sure, but no “inevitable” revolutionary technology in history has required this level of foisting on the public.
It’s very reminiscent of Meta’s long-running ad campaign for its multi-billion dollar VR Metaverse (right), which would fantasise about ways in which it might be useful or popular, one day!
If it was that useful I would use it, and big tech wouldn’t feel the need to hit me over the head with their pipe dreams about how these products could one day be useful and even profitable.
It’s quite likely that one day a more advanced “AI” technology than this will change the world. But its obvious to almost everyone that right now, in the present moment, its just getting in the way.
NEW SHOP BITS
I have two new offensively warm garments in my shop, perfect for summer! An ACAB hoodie and a reprint of my old Eat the Rich ‘sweatshirts’ (aka jumpers). And a new postcard (below) for tourists to this particular part of the world.
If there’s one thing government ministers love it’s corporate gifts and freebies, (which some people rudely refer to as ‘bribes’,) so hopefully this offer of a FREE FLIGHT to the International Criminal Court at The Hague will get their attention. You can download the print file for free from my website.
And below, as a little bonus, a fake screenshot I made to wind up zionists so much that they accidentally start boycotting brands on the BDS list.
HELL BUS AT GREEN MAN + FORWARDS
This month was quite tricky to get much work done with the Hell Bus appearing at two festivals on consecutive weekends. But the reaction was so nice it makes it well worth it. Forwards was once again fantastic with a great crowd, and it was the first year the bus was at Green Man, where I got to see Underworld and Stewart Lee, two all time faves. It also had some of the funniest, smartest kids I’ve ever met. (But I’m biased because they loved the Hell Bus) There’s no way I was as funny or switched on at 11 as some of these kids, but maybe that’s because I was born in the 80s so I had lead poisoning!
That looks like that’s it for the Hell Bus this year, although it may potentially come to Manchester in October TBC. More info on that next time if so!
2024 + 2023 PATREON ZINES
As a thanks to my Patreon backers I send them all an exclusive annual zine documenting all the work this support has helped me make through the year.
If you’d like a copy, just sign up for £3.50+ a month on my Patreon, and I’ll send you a copy of my 2024 AND 2023 zine (while stocks last!)
Patreon is the only way to get these zines. But there’s no minimum subscription, you can cancel anytime!
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