Entitlement, impunity (and other kicks and giggles of the digital age)

Temperature: a sunny 18/64.4 degrees. It was 21/70 degrees on Friday. So, more like June than the end of September.

Eating: apple pie.

Drinking: This year's Blossa is out, but I'm holding out until the temps go down before giving it a try.

Listening: to Keane play in my head... And if you have a minute why don't we go / Talk about it somewhere only we know?... Yeah, why not, somewhere more private than...all this.

Watching: Season three of Sanditon. That's more like it.

Reading: Just finished The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel, and I can't stop thinking about parallels with genocides taking place right now.

Writing: back and forth with friends and colleagues trying to gather steam, info and evidence to go after AI companies. Turns out we've been feeding the Behemoth, providing both original and translated material. Without consent, compensation, or credit of any kind. The fruits of our labor, our creativity, our imagination, have been hijacked and appropriated by pirates audaciously plagiarizing the internet. Public domain is one thing, but these looters have helped themselves to the intellectual property of others. Because they can. Because who's gonna stop them? Because it's the internet. But machines and their applications don't have agency, autonomy, or rights, so asking whether it's okay for AI to hoover the internet is the wrong question and lets the companies behind them off the hook. Companies run the internet. People run these companies.

Thinking: Is this right? Fair? No, just another demoralizing, infuriating thing creatives have to contend with. Many of us are puzzling over a paradox: every additional word/photo/post/illustration etc. only expedites our extinction. So what do we do? Clam up? Would that help? Should we stop feeding the freebooters, enriching these thieves who take and take and take? And yes we do understand and acknowledge that the arts have always been a carousel of influences and imitation, mirrors, echoes and mimicking, reflections, variations, extensions, extrapolations...but this is something else. These are our words, our pictures, our creations sucked into a machine, munched up and spat out at the other end, and passed off as someone else's product and idea to monetize. (And yes, it makes you take a good hard look at your own practices, past/present/future.) Regulate, or let these companies run rampant. Regulate, or they will keep reaping the profits while letting the rest of us to suffer and foot the bill for any damage done to critical thinking, deep reading, education, democracy, equality and the economy. In other related news, and speaking of moula, some really will do anything for a fee. Since it's not real but a fantasy (their take, not mine), gentlemen, in the spirit of innocent fun and good times had by all involved, I offer you a challenge. I challenge you to deepfake yourself into a SAW movie. You pick which one. You don't get to play Jigsaw or his apprentices, you get to play the victim; all the victims. Why SAW? Why not? It's all make-believe, right? No harm, no foul. [So. Contrary to the current understanding of the human brain and physiology, you have found an audiovisual medium that elicits zero emotions or reactions and is thus completely harmless to the psyche. By god, you're gonna win a Nobel with that one.] Come now, we're all adults here (apart from those who are not); if you can dish it out, you ought to be able to take it.

Feeling: Sweet baby Jesus, you tire me out, the lot of you. Good thing I'm a woman of a (from a? both) certain age meaning a woman of a certain rage; it's really energizing! Zero eagerness to please, follow paths, or be universally liked is quite liberating, and not much of a transition then, mentally, that is. More time on my hands now that the boys are young men, more powers of attention and concentration than most of my juniors possess, more life experience, patience and perspective. That's like the whole package right there, you scoff and snicker, eh? It sure is, innit, a package abrim with advantages, and a biliterate brain on top. Game on, gentlemen. Game on.

[This post was written by a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, bleeding, seething, empathetic human being, not a robot, algorithm, or artificial entity of any sort. If you're an employer/employee/entrepreneur diving headfirst into these waters, giddy with all your new assistant/time-saver/content and value creator can do for you, please remember that what you're consuming may, in part at least, be stolen goods. Hell yes, I'm angry. Aren't you?]