Escaping Enshittification
It's getting harder and to avoid large learning model "AI" assistants.
[AN: No pic today because technical issues]
It's getting harder and to avoid large learning model "AI" assistants. Especially since every single tech corporation is cramming them down our throats and into every bit of hardware we own. It's even going into the software we rent. And every online tool that's become verbed in the common lexicon.
I changed from Windows to Linux CachyOS to avoid Cortana. I changed to DuckDuckGo to avoid whatever Google calls its hallucinating slop machine. And recently, my Beloved paid for a membership to Kagi, the one search engine that's actually useful. Because with a membership, we're the customer.
Not the product.
But it makes me worry about the state of things. Google is glorped up with AI hallucinations. Facebook is spamming slop all over the social network. Operating systems are jamming opt-out AI into their works without once thinking of the wreckage that could cause.
Including the ruin it could cause in users who are unfamiliar with AI "hallucinations". People who are more prone to believe all facts come from the computer are more vulnerable to tweaks to the algorithms made by the fascists who own them.
The avenues to escape this sort of nonsense involve large volumes of technical know-how, time, and money. Things not available to everyone. They may not even have friends who could supply even some of that. Hell, some folks don't even know that there are alternatives. Other than "alternative facts".
And in paying for an actually useful search engine, I'm starting to worry that we've successfully gentrified the truth. Everyone unaware or unable to switch things around will have the truth buried under a tidal wave of advertising and nonsensical slop.
That's my worry. The real future will, perhaps, be different. Perhaps people will learn how to tell slop from reality. Perhaps people will adapt to finding the things they want to find. Perhaps people will learn to tell the difference between generated images and images from reality. Perhaps people will purposefully boycott anything that uses the plagiarism machine instead of living artists.
Some of that's already happening, and that's a good thing.
I can only hope that others escape from the terrible products and tools trying to look like the only shop in town. I can only hope that the bubbles burst and rationality reasserts itself.
I just can't help feeling like this particular tech bubble is going to leave lingering scars on society.