The Library

Aside from a very few (mostly conceptual works of art) I am unapologetically pessimistic about the role of AI in art and in society in general. There I said it. I will not bore you with my list of negatives right here but at the very least consumer level AI *is* just the entertainment division of the military industrial complex (to paraphrase F. Zappa) Critical tracts dissecting intelligent artificiality and the 'tech arms race ' excite me and this one by Karen Hao looks promising. Arriving in May

'I argue that the only way to fully understand the far-reaching implications of the AI race is to recognize companies like OpenAI as new forms of empire. 

Empires of old seized & extracted resources, and exploited the labor of the places they conquered to drive their own expansion & advancement. All the while, they justified their conquest by calling it a civilizing mission and promising to bring the world boundless progress...  (continued below)

The notion of empire and colonialism wrt AI is incredibly apt. I haven't seen much talk about this book here, but it's all over my bluesky feed (go figure) 

As i seem to be surrounded by unbridled and unfounded AI optimism, I'm going to spend most of spare time in July digging more deeply into the other side. 

Will definitely read Empire of AI and wondering if there are any other recommendations?