I thoroughly recommend reading all of Cory Doctorow's recent speech on AI skepticism, it's crammed with new arguments and interesting new ways of thinking about these problems pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop…
I often think "oh, god, not Cory again" and just can't read his stuff due to the over-the-topness of it. Then I see a recommendation like this and start to read and remember that he really is a great writer even if I don't like the tone. Thanks for boosting this one.
> here's what I think art is: and [...] an artist, who has some [...] irreducible feeling in their mind [...] infuses that feeling into some artistic medium. [...] And the idea is, when you experience this work, a facsimile of the [...] feeling will materialize in your mind.
This is really great. It plainly explains why bad art is not simply poor mastery of the medium, it's art that attempts to communicate an ugly idea.
He makes it clear that if we let AI run rampant, we'll be living in a society that does not centre people anymore. "AI hucksters ... want us to think of ourselves as enemies to the workers." This is why I'm alarmed when my country's government says things like AI is inevitable and therefore we want to educate our young people in how to "use it". They're imagining that these kids are going to have jobs where they're using AI as a tool, and some of them might, but mostly they won't have jobs at all.
Very interesting takes, but not sure I agree with the central thesis.
The Machiavellian plot to produce reverse centaurs to fuel the illusion of growth is too Bond-villainy. I don’t believe in clever people making evil plots. I believe in the banality of evil, stupid people making dumb decisions for dumb reasons that happen to produce evil outcomes. People like Zuckerberg and Bezos are in my view not bright enough to be that intentionally evil.
"The fact that every AI created work is in the public domain means that if Getty or Disney or Universal or Hearst newspapers use AI to generate works – then anyone else can take those works, copy them, sell them, or give them away for free. And the only thing those companies hate more than paying creative workers, is having other people take their stuff without permission." I hadn't realised this. I hope this inability to be a "work" protected by copyright applies in UK/Europe as well.
Nobody can predict the future because then if we saw the prediction we could change it, and then you'd have to predict a different future. But what if you predicted the future, but nobody (or not enough of the right bodies) believed you? Then they would continue on the predicted path, and you would have predicted the future. Welcome to my TED talk...
Simon Jones
in reply to Simon Willison • • •Paul Hoffman
in reply to Simon Willison • • •Joshua Barretto
in reply to Simon Willison • • •> here's what I think art is: and [...] an artist, who has some [...] irreducible feeling in their mind [...] infuses that feeling into some artistic medium. [...] And the idea is, when you experience this work, a facsimile of the [...] feeling will materialize in your mind.
This is really great. It plainly explains why bad art is not simply poor mastery of the medium, it's art that attempts to communicate an ugly idea.
Simon Willison
in reply to Joshua Barretto • • •ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘
in reply to Simon Willison • • •"AI hucksters ... want us to think of ourselves as enemies to the workers."
This is why I'm alarmed when my country's government says things like AI is inevitable and therefore we want to educate our young people in how to "use it". They're imagining that these kids are going to have jobs where they're using AI as a tool, and some of them might, but mostly they won't have jobs at all.
Joeri Sebrechts
in reply to Simon Willison • • •Very interesting takes, but not sure I agree with the central thesis.
The Machiavellian plot to produce reverse centaurs to fuel the illusion of growth is too Bond-villainy. I don’t believe in clever people making evil plots. I believe in the banality of evil, stupid people making dumb decisions for dumb reasons that happen to produce evil outcomes. People like Zuckerberg and Bezos are in my view not bright enough to be that intentionally evil.
jtonline
in reply to Simon Willison • • •James Tweedie
in reply to Simon Willison • • •I hadn't realised this. I hope this inability to be a "work" protected by copyright applies in UK/Europe as well.
2¢
in reply to Simon Willison • • •Doctorow writes:
"A human mind is not a word-guessing program with a lot of extra words."
That's a pleasing idea. Is it axiomatic or is there unambiguous evidence backing the assertion?
Because I don't know that it's not mere hubris.
Dan Neuman 🇨🇦
in reply to Simon Willison • • •