Bursting my AI bubble
I’ve been having some thoughts about AI since moving to spain and reading Super Lemon’s post today inspired me to try and write them out and explain them to myself.
I feel like I’ve been in an AI bubble. Not the hype bubble that keeps growing and I just want to see burst. Instead, I’ve been part of a bubble of people that are openly cynical, dismissive, and (imo) justly critical of the technology, its development cycles, its uses, and its impact and consequences. I grew accustomed to being part of a network of people who openly mock the notion that AI is going to deliver us, or that AI is the future and that adoption is inevitable and you don’t want to be left behind. I was happy to be in such circles where this kind of stuff feels like common parlance and theres no need to explain. I’m guessing that academic contexts, specifically humanities faculties, tend to have that bend, although I’m sure its not always the case.
But after moving away and making new friends in my new local gaming club, I was surprised by how much people used genAI for their trpg and larp work, how everyone gets excited to make AI art of themselves for larps or to advertise the game events. Many of them get surprised or defensive when people express disapproval at these practices or suggest other ways to produce art for events.
And they are fun folks, and I’m happy to have people to play games with and have a good time, but it made me realize how “shielded” I had been from how omnipresent AI has become in society. And how socially alienated I feel from people that use it so nonchalantly. It feels like a tidal wave that feels pointless to confront, but it means that there’s this gap of kinship that I experience there.
I’ve been lucky to find an Erasmus internship at a startup that wants to build a boardgame and the folk there are really cool, focused on regenerative solutions, circularity, and well-being. But they are also business majors that always pass everything through AI to optimize, summarize, ideate, align, simplify, etc. our mood boards and vision boards tend to have AI images that help “visualize” where were trying to go, and I have a hard time reconciling this focus on sustainability and regeneration with this casual everyday use of AI. Again, these are great folk, and they are nice people to work with. It is definitely not a toxic work environment. But it just signals towards this gap in kinship where I just don’t feel I’m gonna get very close with people who don’t “get it”, because this not getting it for me is not just an opinion about AI, but a solidarity and awareness of its social impacts, the economic structures that sustain it, and the future that it supports and enables.
I’m not gonna pretend I’ve never used AI or that there is absolutely 0 utility to it. I have allowed myself to be persuaded to try it in these contexts, but I haven’t enjoyed it. It feels distasteful and I remain resolute to stay as far away from it as I can.
Once again, I feel like moving away made my bubble burst, and quite honestly, it makes me feel a lot more alone to see what’s outside of my AI critical bubble. I wanna crawl back in. But I guess I have to reckon with the fact that this is reality, and that most people seem to enjoy and support AI.