We resist the Robber Baron Class!
We stand with torches and friends
outside AI temples of power.
Origin story: As the .AI domain gold rush began, my son and I began riffing on URLs to buy. I have a few good ones. I wasn’t sure, but when I found CR8V as the acronym for “creative,” I was encouraged.
The name became the title of my initial book about the Creative Resistance AGAINST AI and AGAINST the corporatization of our planetary resources by a greedy class of billionaires.
Next, as my science fiction project began to grow and evolve into a world-building narrative, CR8V was the easy tag for the resistance fighters, led by my son, Json.
His real name is Jason, but he’s a coder. He does not have a cat named Algo. When we were imagining male names, while my son was still in his amniotic sac, Jason became the frontrunner. Jason and the Argonauts was the initial reference. And the XTC song of the same name.
In the gold rush, 2m jolt awakening of my mind spent another $200 on the Artist’s Way URL.
We’ve got to survive as humans by the creative, artistic human traits that AI cannot mimic or replicate. There is no filter yet for “humanism,” but the powers that be, *are* paying humans a slave wage all over the planet to code, label, identify, and sort through all of the incoming human scrape. Human scrap. Human detritus. Human text messages. Old voicemails and thumbnails hidden deep in the recesses of your mobile phone’s memory.
The hacker group Anonymous has released a Russian phone cleaning script that helps you get rid of any spyware on your phone. OH, and do get a Faraday bag now. Tracking your every move is part of the plan. Your phone, your car’s advanced safety features, all create an invisible fence for humans. They don’t need to restrict your movement away from your backyard. They want to catch you in the act of *anything* they need to bring you in for questioning. Hasn’t happened to me, but I’m ready for it.
So far, we’ve got a url, that became a book, that was inserted as a nice brand for a science fiction book about the AI takeover happening in real time.
Finally: My purchase of Artistsway.ai and associated brands was to not only preserve the amazing work of Julia Cameron, but to honor her method and practices, and… (Yes, and) to include AI as a teacher, as a source of inspiration for those not graphically talented.
For 90% of the people using AI, the consumer public, the hilarious dog and cat videos. One is circulating now of a famously aggressive female rap star, and the memes are hilarious. The AI SLOP is hilarious. That’s what most humans think of AI.
Here’s the problem for the AI data center apocalypse: all the AI models in the world are trying to find the critical use case, the killer app, for AI. Something that will get us hooked, like the iPod for music, the iPhone for mobility and tethered information, and here we are. What are the robber barons working toward? I can assure you, it’s a lot more like Mr. Mars and Twitter than it is about Mackenzie Bezos funding the humanitarian efforts with her evil ex-husband’s wealth. The ultra-rich are no friend of mine. They are like the “meths” from Altered Carbon.
Then we’ve got the Blade Runner and Altered Carbon universes that propose a terrifying extension. Here’s the issue. We’re not *far* from losing complete control over the
- tech and compute
- water and electricity
- geopolitical sovereignty
- economy of the people, not the Rocket Billionaires(tm)
The bigger risk, in my opinion, is the loss of agency, the lack of creative ideation, shown by the vast number of humans on the planet. Schools are so focused on STEM now and career-direct college degrees. We are losing both Liberal Arts, Art, and Journalism to profit-by-any-means.
The tech companies self-funding, and cross-funding, cross-committing to AI for Profit have no care about the wellbeing and happiness of the proles.
I use the 1984 term for proletariat. A nice term for the rest of us. The workers. Those outside the temple of power. The profit motive of the AI arms race is misguided and wrong.
AGI, Artificial General Intelligence
At first we talked about AGI, artificial general intelligence, close to Rachel in the original Blade Runner. (Read the short story by P.K. Dick and don’t forget Burroughs.) The corporate overlords have decided that AGI, to them, is not sentience, as we feared from Robocop and Terminator. AGI, as defined by the ruling class, is funding and actively, consciously architecting the collapse of the Earth’s sustainable environment. The hope of the Zucks and Fucks building survival bunkers on exotic islands is that they will survive the upcoming ring of fire and destruction already showing up in our environmental disasters, upping their energy and cause for alarm.
AGI is an agentic system creating 1,000,000 in revenue without primary human guidance or intervention. So the robot will define success as the ability to make money. Um… That’s part of our humanitarian problem. Profit is not a humanistic value. Survival is. Profit is the only thing that matters to the Rocket Billionaires after dominance. Someone wants to win. Anthropic making 5 billion in rev while losing 80 billion in the same quarter. It’s no better at OpenAI, the leading indicator, where stupid mobile-ready ads are tagged on the end of my “free” inquisitions.
Free AI is what the people want. AI that establishes a dominant ruling class, untouchable by politics or state-funded military. How much armor do you think Bezos, Musk, and Zuck own? Look at their boats. Their yachts have extra boats for skiing, surfing, and jet skiing. I experienced the Succession class wealth in the first 8 years of my life. (My childhood home on Lake Austin is for sale for 23 million dollars. Still on the market, however.
I don’t want me and my rich friends to be the winners. I want everyone to win. I am concerned about the East Side, not just the West. Our western values have run amok. The money has corrupted the very system we’d hoped to be protected from: robber baron class warfare.
Wake up, humans!
We’ve lost most of the battles to this point. The WAR for our minds, computing dominance, and global resource allocations is now in the hands of eight men. 8 men. It’s as bad as any Bond movie. Lex Luthor is alive and ugly, and planning for his own global takeover. There are several of them, not all of them old white men, but all of them old men.
What about my kids? My kid’s kids, or the kids of your kids? Isn’t that important to you, personally? And what about bigger than just you? Don’t you want everyone to thrive? Or just your tribe?
Tribalism is making a comeback. I don’t think we’re headed for a Steven King’s “Stand” model, but we’re not far from it, should the midterms be hijacked by Starlink, or the billions, billions used to elect the red hat leaders again.
Another requirement: Kill Citizens United, the Electoral College, and put in term limits on all government work, and … and this is the biggest one the democrats ever tried. Universal Healthcare for every American citizen, and some grace on the care and support of non-Americans who contribute so importantly to our economy.
I know my perspective is of a middle-class white guy from tech and money. BUT: here’s the pivot: I was raised by three women and two shitty men. I learned to be a hippie from my hippie sister. I believe in the good of people, and will work to liberate all of us from slave wages, healthcare lock-in, and abusive corporate employment exploitation.
I’m even working on a class action lawsuit against Amazon and Whole Foods Market for their UPT (unpaid time off) scam. Google it. They are not working for humans. Mackie had his heart in the right place when he relocated to the Original WF on South Lamar. I was there. I was a believer. A community for hippies formed in that store and coffee and lunch times on the side porch, outside.
I still love John Makie, the visionary of food. He’s since become a bit of a corporatist, trying to defend what’s happened to his organic food movement. He’s pivoted to health and well-being. A ghost of his former GAIA products and services plans. Mr. Makie, please wake up. Bezos has gutted most of the human community experience that WAS WHOLE FOODS. Now, it’s just a fancy corporate grocery store with a lot of wealthy and healthy people looking to extend their reign.
Let’s rein them in.
AI needs to be slowed way the hell down. Humans need to be given all the facts to determine how to proceed with the lighting-round mistakes we’ve already seen AI make. The swarm and content theft from Reddit, the latest “what the fuck did the robots do now.”
When I worked as a cashier at WFM in Bee Caves for nearly a year, I wrote a book, The Happy Cashier, about my mindfulness and contemplative approach to surviving a tedious and thankless job. The only thanks were for the amazing humans I worked with. And some of the stupid idiots in charge. Here’s that book.
I was assigned to the “self-checkout” on occasion. I called it “dances with robots.” At the time I was hired, Amazon and Bezos were still trying to get you to authenticate your existence through their biometric handprint readers.
First off, it freaked everyone out. “I’m not giving more of my personal data to Amazon.” Mostly, however, it didn’t work. The readers were operational about one out of four days of my employment. The machines have been removed and are gathering dust in a warehouse in Amarillo.
But he’s not done trying. At the “mothership” downtown, they’ve been trying to introduce self-checkout shopping carts. Just set your phone down here on this pad, and you can scan and check out without a human.
No human interactions required.
Well, if you’re an awful human, like Musk or Bezos or Zuck, you deserve to be infamous. So you can’t eat in public at the newest trendy place. Right. You can’t, and fuck you and your blind eye.
I’m wrapping up. Sorry for the rant. CR8V.AI is part of the resistance. Human-powered resistance. Our plans are for free-to-use platforms for all artists. Of course, there are a lot of barriers and pushback. Julia Cameron has been invited to participate. At 80+, her admin said, “We appreciate your work, and your desire to include Julia. She is not able to participate at this time. Good luck.”
So, we’re semi-blessed by the author of The Artist’s Way, which I would put in the high school curriculum for all humans. The joy you had at recess. The imagination you had in your youth. We were filming movies in 7th grade. Designing science fiction book covers, with a lot of “top secret” “for your eyes only” messaging. What were you excited about as a kid? A new bike? A new record album, played back on your best friend’s turntable.
“Live and Let Die,” by Wings in my best friend Johnny B’s living room. We picked up the needle and played it over and over. Singing and playing air guitar. Then, as humans, he and I did it. Felix Culpa.
Get your energy aligned with your creative purpose. The goal of finding creative work that also provides a living wage is a bit more of a struggle in today’s economy.
But if Mr. Mars had invested in Artistsway.ai rather than buying Twitter to warp and damage our democracy… If Alex Jones really paid for his lies. Joe Rogan is now coming to terms with the failure of his schtick. “Joe, you can’t play both sides. And fuck you.”
There are too many charlatans to list. Steer clear of the Rocket Billionaires. Find alternative platforms for your content. One that does not MONETIZE your creativity without sharing any of the revenue with you.
Get HIGH ON MIND: Find your creative human spark again.
We’ve got ideas and people, humans, who want to collaborate and celebrate your human creativity. And we’d like you to join us.
Your email address will add you to our invite list. Let us know what you are most excited about in the comment window. Do something. Be human. Be creative. Learn to paint or play the flute. Do something human. Something the AI will never get. Feel the feelings AI can’t put a number on.
Get high on mind with us. High on your human mind. High on life and creative expression, not drugs or alcohol. I get blitzed when my writing is going well, or a friend calls to work on a joint project.
What lights you up?
If we gave you a corner of the web to share your art, where zero of the rights are transferred to us in the uploading process. Zero. We like the Mastodons and BlueSkys of the world. Not so much Threads, and all the platforms META is scooping up, and … ready for it?
Sucking up all of your human creativity, memories, and writing. Sucking up all the human patterns they can digest. The biggest issue the Rocket Billionaires have with AI is that they are running out of training data. All the FREE APPS are mining your data. Mining your human life. Trying to simulate and replicate you. For now, they are just stimulating your ego or your sexual desire to extract your response, your chats, your phone calls, your location and telemetric data.
I’m going to try an experiment. Today, for one week, my phone goes in the Faraday bag I’ve had since the No Kings protests began. I was still working at WFM. A sticky note on my ID badge was the only solidarity I could show. My manager, a service-worker lifetime mid-manager, was told by his boss to take off the stickie I had given him.
Creative Life is Learned
Last historical metaphor for today. When I was growing up as a young creative, I had a lot of inspiration. My mom and sister were both artists. My best friend’s dad was an architect and his mom an amazing artist and calligrapher. Their house was even more creative. Most of them had bins in the “rain room.” The trays or boxes of art supplies were sorted and well labeled. In their house, we could destroy the rain room, a screened porch off the back of their house. It mimics my screened porch now. I am creating a new rain room
As the technology arrived to change our approach to creativity, we humans adapted. In college, I couldn’t afford the latest version of Photoshop, which did not kill photography, by the way. The pirate’s code became: use pirated software to see if it speaks to you. If you like it, use it, or, most critically, profit from the use of the app, you must buy a legitimate copy.
And until Adobe went to the evil subscription model, making Adobe products the Creative Office that you pay for every day. I’ve switched. I use LibreOffice and GIMP. Today, AI platforms, even ChatGPT, are adding photo and video editing capabilities. Soon, Microsoft and Adobe will experience a dramatic decline.
We’ll cover Spotify and the DMA that protected podcasters but opened streaming music with very little or no compensation for the musicians.
For today, we’re building and expanding our vision as rapidly as our team can manage. We’d love your email address to keep you in the loop and provide you with the first set of INVITE CODES when the platform is ready. As a pre-launch founder, you will have unlimited access to all of the features as they become available. A beta tester, if you will.
Let’s keep our human minds high by limiting AI and enhancing human imagination and creative drive. It’s a foundational need for humans. It’s how we connect. Storytelling. Visuals. Music.
Find what makes your human mind light up, and don’t let the Zucks and Fucks of the world suck it out of you for their monetization. Demon-itization.
Cheers,
John McElennney
CXO – artistsway.ai
Just your email. We’ll be in touch.