Good Things Come to Those Who Take

Every day, the tech giants (which used to collectively be called "FAANG", Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, but now seem to be whatever startup lucked into a few billion dollars this week) claim to have the thing that will revolutionize my life. However, there feel like there are two distinct fronts right now. One is "how can the consumer be able to access services and features at any time", which manifests as Augmented Reality tech. The other idea is "How can we make it so the consumer has to do as little work as possible (so they can spend more time spending money and making Content™)", which manifests as AI.

To the average consumer, neither tech looks actively harmful, it might look to be fun or even useful. That simply isn't the case though. These technologies will be a force for making lives worse. The problem is, it might not be their lives they're making worse, at least not initially. So people are quick to turn a blind eye, or say it's worth the cost. Tech, as a whole, is on a path that is absolutely unsustainable. We are working people to death for Copper and Cobalt, poisoning their lands at the same time. We are spewing CO2 and also sorts of contaminants at record levels. We're releasing tools that people simply can't be trusted to be careful with, consequences be damned. AR and AI, unfortunately, are the equivalent to throwing a kerosene tank on a fire. We are on the cusp of a certified Very Bad Time™.

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is certainly the quieter of the two sectors discussed here. To put it simply, Augmented Reality is a class of tech for overlaying content and tools over a view of the world around the user. Like much of tech, it does have some very real uses, that society could see a net benefit from. However it is not being sold on that, and will not widely be used for that either. AR will end up being a tool for stalking, surveillance, and content consumption. The most successful products so far in the category have been Apple Vision Pro and Meta RayBans. Neither of which being a commercial success because they weren't meant to be. They are for developers first and foremost, as they need time and access to update their projects and products to work with this new means of interaction.

The use for content consumption is relatively benign, but favors increased consumption first and foremost. Obviously, stalking and surveillance have significantly worse implications. As a proof of concept, we've already seen AR Glasses used for rapid identification of complete strangers and collation of private information. Proof of concepts so easily integrated into a product, just taking bridges between a few services using the Glasses as an input device, will become reality when more widely used. This, in my opinion, will effect women most severely, being used by creeps and predators to easily identify and track their victims. Extending it out further, this could be used to enable a larger surveillance state, decreasing the need for CCTVs when people will willingly wear cameras isntead.

There is a small bright side here, which is that by and large people are generally uncomfortable with cameras when confronted with them. Back during the early days of Google Glass, people were widely called Glassholes when wearing them. Users nowadays of similar tech available still report getting dirty looks from people, side-eyes, etc. The public is not okay with these right now, as a whole. Social stigma is a powerful deterrant for behaviors and will likely be the most significant driver or delayer of this tech.

I do think this tech is on the cusp of a large push, a resurgance. The techology itself has been refined, becoming more sleek and less garish in its construction. It can additionally piggyback off of the success of AI, as Augmented Reality is first and foremost a conduit for other services. If AI takes off, AR can be pitched as a tool for ease of access of tools you use in everyday life. This will be explored a bit further on in the piece.

Aritifical Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has become a catch all for both an extremely wide range of products and also an extremely limited set of tools. AI, as known previously, would describe tools that used some sort of machine learning to augment a product, like smart erasers in Photoshop, word correction on phone keyboards, terrain generation in game engines, and much more. Now as commonly used, it means chatbots maybe a "writing" tool. It has exploded in use and funding in the last few years, primarily because of ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a series of products by OpenAI which was a non-profit, then a "capped-profit" corporation, and now is soon to be a public welfare corporation. They'll be discussed in particular in a separate section.

AI is a cure-all, as far as companies are concerned right now. Every company is proud to announce its new chat experience. They seem to fail to ask the question: why? Why do I need to be able to ask Instagram questions? Why do I need to be able create friends to chat with on every social media platform? Why do I need to be able to ask my University questions that can neither be guaranteed to be right or reliable? It feels extremely obvious that so many companies are eschewing relevant updates to their product in favor of a fad. The big players are already talking about progress grinding to a halt because of currently impossible problems, not to mention there being no fix in sight for their chats just making things up. We seem to be rapidly approaching the ceiling of our current tech, and it will take exponentially more money and computing power to have any chance of moving past. A profound waste of resources for teens to be able to chat with fictional characters and overgrown man children to generate women that will tolerate them.

Things have already gotten worse because of AI. Media platforms are drowning in generated content, slop for the slop farms. Facebook and Instagram are even encouraging it, as whatever gets eyes is good for business when you're a bloated behemoth. Women and minorities are harassed, graphic images of them generated for the pleasure of those cloaked in anonymity. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is rampant, as on the less scrupulous services you can just generate whatever you want, legality be damned. That has troubling implications (which have already been proven) that CSAM is in the training material for the AI models themselves. Abuse goes in, abuse goes out, and the filth gets what it wants. The models have also lead to several deaths, relationship troubles, addiction issues, and more! Tech abides by two rules: fuck you I've got mine, and move fast and break things. Moving fast when it comes to things of this nature means people will get hurt. I can't even come up with a good use of AI. It's all to either generate things people are ashamed of, avoid engaging with creativity, or to attempt to fire people in favor of expensive computers. It's all shit, all the way down.

A Brief Aside on OpenAI

OpenAI is a beast of VC creation. It features drama, intrigue, and lying, like any good company does. It was founded in December of 2015, as a non-profit with $1B dollars pledged by various investors. This is frankly insane on its own, and it just gets worse. I'll direct you to their Wiki page for a more citation-filled list, but here are some highlights.

• Elon Musk was among the founding investors, and was initially co-chair of the organization.
• He resigned from the organization after a failed take-over, citing a "conflict of interest".
• It went from non-profit to a "profit-capped" corporation in 2019, which passes any profit generated over 100x the investments into the company to a non-profit separate from them. This will never happen, for reasons we'll get to.
• During this transition, Sam Altman, the oft face of the organization, said "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" might be needed to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).
• Microsoft alone invested $10B into the company in 2023.
• It has since then acquired several smaller AI startups, each for undisclosed amounts.
• The board of OpenAI attempted to oust Sam Altman in November 2023, however after widespread pushback from involved parties they themselves reinstated him and agreed to resign.
• The US Government has purchased the services of OpenAI for its use in its operatings in Africa, for a price that is redacted but noted to be "less than $15M".
• Its features now include text generation (ChatGPT), image generation (DALL-E), and video generation (Sora).
• OpenAI warns investors on its own website that they "may not see any return" and additionally that "it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a Post-AGI world."
• Their current organization chart looks like this:

This brings to mind a quote from Logan Roy, a character in the show Succession: "You are not serious people."

AR+AI, a.k.a. A Tale of Caution

This brings us to the synthesis of AR and AI, what I think will be a large part of where we see future tech heading. This is speculative but possible in my mind. I see the tech forward companies talking about "the next generation of computing", and how AR will allow people "to seamlessly use and share the incredible power of AI". The technology has advanced enough that the high end models are hard to differentiate from regular glasses or a headband. Regulation on the tech starts quick but is put down by Silicon Valley lobbying. Tech companies will propose uses like being able to instantly learn about the world around you, have a translator instantly on demand! Only it won't be so.

Through paid promotions and FOMO, the technology becomes fairly commonplace. Instead of what was adverised, people use it for what you might expect them to. Blaring videos on public transport, jerking off while driving their self-driving vehicles, and pretending they're paying attention in virtual meetings. There will be a rapidly growing market for grey market software, allowing you to quickly search and find all available information on people you're looking at. People will have a giggle about it because it looks like a silly video game, like Watch_Dogs. Harassment and stalking grows, promiment women's rights groups condemn the devices and the software powering them. The market continues unabated.

Things escalate, software now allows you to generate videos of strangers doing whatever you want on demand. Naturally it is largely used to demean and harass women and minorities. Actual AGI is promised to be just around the corner, investments pour into AI companies. The results never come together. Amazon makes a record breaking investment into these headsets, largely for enterprise use. It enables them to keep even tighter tabs on their employees and punish any deviation from absolute efficiency. Workplace injuries and deaths grow at a truly upsetting pace. The technology and costs start to spread to more major corporations, a widespread movement against them forms. A growing population of primarily men become shut-ins, not seeing another person for years at a time. The US somehow becomes more conservative as a response to all of this.

Granted, it won't be that fast, or that clean. Things never are. But things love to get worse without guardrails, laws, etc. The US Government has been hard pressed to even think about making any, and the companies certainly don't care. If they do, they get pushed out of the market for a scrappier, less trustworthy rival. What can be done?

DON'T TRUST PEOPLE WEARING CAMERAS

DON'T TRUST THE COMPANIES MAKING THEM

MAKE BOTH OF THEIR LIVES HELL

WHEN IN DOUBT, COVER YOUR FACE

oki byeeeeeee :3