My coworkers an incredibly excited about the potential of the various algorithms that many tech companies have been incorrectly calling “artificial intelligences.” I’ve argued with them about the definitions, the massive number of ethical issues involved, the fact that they’re actually useless if you’re trying to create something, and how they’ve essentially become a fad since now anything that needs to be sold to the public is described as somehow using AI or an algorithm even when it doesn’t really make sense. All I’ve gotten for my effort is the official title of team luddite. Apparently no one cares that almost all of these algorithms are built on theft or that they’re already being used to take the jobs of artists. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of them even think that’s a good thing, given how they all seem to be falling into the same side of the issue as every single shitty techbro who thinks that artists are snooty, stuck up, smugly superior, and need to be taken down a peg. I’ve tried to explain to them that capitalism and modern society have been devaluing art and artists for so long that it’s almost impossible for someone to make a consistent living in any art career without more luck than is fair to need for the category of jobs that produces the entirety of popular culture.