Nothing Draws a Crowd Like the End of the World
Artificial intelligence is a brilliant toy and a useful tool. It is also a debt-fueled $725 billion buildout, sold on the end of the world and metered to the American ratepayer.
I should disclose at the outset that I am not a neutral party. I’ve used these systems nearly every day for the past several years, and not grudgingly. A large language model reviews my code before I’ve finished my coffee. It has drafted my correspondence and debugged my thinking at two in the morning, and it absorbs the most bizarre of my interests with the patience of a saint and the slight sycophancy of a maître d’ who has already seen my credit card. I started using it in 2022 to create derivative art — some ugly, some beautiful, and some in between.
I love AI in the way an unrelenting autodidact loves a thing that never gets tired of its questions. This is my confession.
♦
The confession continues behind closed doors. The tech industry might be burning billions, but reading the rest of this essay won't cost you a dime.
Please sign in or subscribe for free to read the rest of the essay.