I am not an artist
I am not an artist.
Is that supposed to make my opinions on technology more valid? More respected?
I am an engineer. Will it change how you perceive my judgments?
What I am witnessing is the wide-scale deployment of technology so anti-consumer, so anti-human that it paints every day in a dark pall.
They say it is consumer preference. But those making the decisions own and operate all aspects of our lives. Total control of the fishbowl. There is no preference, just what they choose to push to market.
Surely it is simply consumer preference to have our lives - our clothes, our food, our experiences, woven with synthetic plastics. To be lied to, to communicate with machines impersonating you, to interact with merely a compression of the sum of past works.
I do not make this next statement lightly and understand the weight of it. The only English words I find to explain the rampant objectification of artistsâ work, the violation of their intentions, and abuse of their rights, is the Rape of Art. Something that belongs to someone else has been ripped away from them and used in grotesque ways outside of the ownerâs consent. A total violation, objectification of another human, for personal pleasure. Itâs appalling. Itâs abhorrent. It is a rot in our very lives.
A tool that generates music, stolen from countless human-made songs? What do you think music is?
A tool that instantly modifies an artistâs work into what you want to see? Twists and distorts their work to be a reflection of your desires? What do you think art is?
Fake music, fake art, even fake correspondence! Nothing you will ever interact with will be intentional. Just a blurry sum of the past. Deceptions and the most statistically likely output.
I am not an artist. But my disgust is born from being human, not from fear of losing my socioeconomic standing. How can you not feel it too?
In fact, I think I am selfish. I selfishly want to live in a more beautiful and intentionally crafted world. I want the artists and tastemakers in the world to be rewarded. For any technology to be deployed, it must solve for creating a world worth participating in.
I want those who fill our communities and our world with color to be rewarded. I want to live in a world forged by the truly innovative - that means those who see this technology for what it is. The growing plasticization of our lives. Innovation only in the sense it is a new and creative way to milk the worldâs population like the cattle they see us as.
I want to break out of the fishbowl created by the unimaginative, the spineless, and the cruel. They present this technology with smiles on their faces. That itâs for our benefit. Itâs for progress. And that only increases my horror and disgust with their deranged villainry.
What do you think being human is?
Individual people are behind these features and tools being pushed. People who may even be your neighbor!
And the spineless, the cruel, the unimaginative, who use and push this technology will continue to be rewarded. Those who wish to not degrade every aspect of our lives will have the fire lit and grow underneath them as theyâre forced to compete economically against those profiting and setting new prices of everything.
It will become a luxury to live in the world of the intentional. For you to be seen and treated as human in the first place.
The people in charge of these technological âadvancementsâ are not innovative. Their only true talent may be their ability to sleep at night.
The use of this technology is not victimless. It is a grand violation of other human beings, their works, and the sanctity of their personhood. Some may laugh at this, insult me for using certain words, and dismiss it all as not that serious. It is serious. You should feel the weight of the crime being committed. But you first have to see that other people are living human beings in the first place.
The consumer applications of this technology have been a criminal experiment using the lives of real people as test subjects. It must be terminated immediately through whatever pressures are possible.
This text that I have written with my hands, from my gut, are probably career suicide in an economy that rapidly seeks to demean consumers. And it is with that, I publish it with pride.