I was just informed from my boss and HR that my entire profession is being automated away.

[highplainsdem]

11. Thanks for posting this, usonian! I skimmed some of those replies. Very different tone from what

I'd see all too often on Reddit early last year, where fans of AI were dreaming of spending a few days or weeks learning to be "prompt engineers" immediately making salaries well into 6 figures. And where copywriters and others who were already losing their jobs to AI were taunted by AI fans telling them that meant their work was inferior and they deserved to lose their jobs. The AI fans kept up with that delusion even when copywriters explained their old bosses or clients admitted the AI output was inferior, but said they couldn't ignore the cost savings.

On Twitter, I've seen even teachers who once thought AI would help them finally start to realize that the ultimate goal is AI completely replacing them.

And on Bluesky, I just saw John Scalzi (science fiction writer and former SFWA president) post about Harper Collins, a major publisher, having made a deal with an AI company.

See these Bluesky posts

https://bsky.app/profile/scalzi.com/post/3lbaipqnr7c2f

https://bsky.app/profile/scalzi.com/post/3lbaips3i3s2f

and he linked to this, by Drew Broussard

https://lithub.com/harpercollins-is-selling-their-authors-work-to-ai-tech/

On Friday, author Daniel Kibblesmith posted a series of screenshots on Bluesky in order to share a concerning email he received from the agency who’d repped him on his children’s book Santa’s Husband: the book’s publisher, HarperCollins, was offering $2,500 (non-negotiable) for the right to use the book in an AI training deal that they’d signed with an anonymous “large tech company.”

Kibblesmith told them no in clear and immediate terms, but here are the screenshots of the offer—they’re worth reading for yourself.

To call this bleak is an understatement. “And of course there is concern that these AI models may one day make us all obsolete” is a truly absurd line to hear out of a publisher engaged in actively feeding one such AI model and I’m struck (to put it gently) by the classic union-busting energy of “These terms have already been negotiated… and agreed to by several hundred authors, so individual negotiation at this point isn’t possible.” And a $2,500 flat fee—per title, so really it’s $1,250 to Daniel and $1,250 to his illustrator on this book—is an insultingly small amount for *checks notes* the entirety of your intellectual property to be chewed and regurgitated ad nauseam for as long as there’s a greedy capitalist there to push the “generate” button.

-snip-

Generative AI is ALMOST ENTIRELY about stealing humans' work and knowledge so the companies producing the AI models can profit from that theft by selling mimicry by AI of that work and knowledge. There might be a few people and a few uses that are more altruistic. But what's behind the genAI bubble (with countless billions of investment capital that otherwise could have gone to better use, and with companies trying to add AI to every device possible, and to habituate people to AI slop everywhere) is the aim of getting rid of those pesky human creators who want decent compensation and recognition and even respect that their already wealthy overlords don't want to give them.

And every person who goes along with this - who lets the corporations think their AI slop is just fine, or who amuses themselves playing with AI because wow it makes them feel creative and smart so who cares that it's based on theft of other people's intellectual property by a company that doesn't give a damn about anyone - is just hastening this atrocity.

If people are forced to use genAI for work or even school, they may see no choice. But they're being coopted into a capitalist process based on theft and intended to replace them as well. Silicon Valley's new dream, as Sam Altman has said, is a billion dollar company with no employees, just the human founder/owner/CEO assisted by AI.