A lovely day is arising in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and another Fun Friday.
Rebecca Solnit commented on her Facebook feed today that “…AI has come for me too”, with lots of AI posts using her name and mimicking an article from 2008 entitled Men Explain Things to Me to snatch attention, hits, and money. Whether it works or not, I can’t really say. Facebook has a lot of cash sitting around to pay off bot farms, I assume, in lieu of the appearance of activity.
But what I found interesting is Solnit’s reposting of some selections from that article I had forgotten. As a well-heeled tech idiot held her and her friend captive with his “intellectual” rehash of “the very important Muybridge book that came out this year”, which was Solnit’s book by the way, so I’m sure she knew of it, she continues:
“He was already telling me about the very important book–with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority… So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, “That’s her book.” Or tried to interrupt him anyway. But he just continued on his way. She had to say, “That’s her book” three or four times before he finally took it in. And then, as if in a nineteenth-century novel, he went ashen. That I was indeed the author of the very important book it turned out he hadn’t read, just read about in the New York Times Book Review a few months earlier, so confused the neat categories into which his world was sorted that he was stunned speechless–for a moment, before he began holding forth again. Being women, we were politely out of earshot before we started laughing, and we’ve never really stopped.”
I’ve worked in Silicon Valley for many years. I’ve had my writing on operating systems explained to me many times by eager men enthused by “that OS article”. I’ve had my technology explained to me by eager investors who “really got it” (Narrator: They didn’t really get it). I’ve even had lawyers suggest that my patents weren’t really my patents and should be assigned to someone else they like better and for no other reason than that it would make it more “salable”. Note in the last case they damn well knew my name was on them, and also that patent law frowns on this sort of thing, but oh well. Remember kids, don’t let your attorneys pretend they’re businessmen – they’ll come a cropper every time.
So this is normal operating procedure in Silicon Valley and always has been.
But what I found most amusing is you could describe the current AI nonsense in exactly the same words. AIs are the very model of the Silicon Valley elite with too much money and too little curiosity.
- AIs don’t read the books they talk about.
- They insist on your attention under false pretenses.
- They drone on and on, precluding interruption.
- They mash facts and fiction into an incoherent babble of words.
The only difference between the two is sometimes one can embarrass the elite. Sometimes.
Evolutionary essentialists often claim our only purpose is to reproduce ourselves. Looks like Silicon Valley has found a new modern means to do so. We are the Innovators!
I’m going to read a book and enjoy the day. You should too.