It is interesting that the word “cybernetics” doesn’t really come up anymore. I think the optics of calling a system “AI” is less jarring. You have the AI over

It is interesting that the word “cybernetics” doesn’t really come up anymore. I think the optics of calling a system “AI” is less jarring. You have the AI over here and then you have the totally unrelated thing that it is controlling/curating/producing over there. It makes AI seem like your new future robot coworker. But the real state of affairs is that whatever AI touches must “be touched” in return. The “abyss stares back” and all that. Think about how recommendation systems control the majority of how people interact with the internet. How auto-moderation causes people to self-censor. How you talk in a weird stilted way to Siri to make sure it understands you. How sure are you that your sexual desires aren’t the result of billion-dollar porn AI digging its claws into your little hapless lizard brain? The reality is that we are more free in some ways and less in others, so I don’t think that TK was right (certainly blowing up buildings isn’t a way forward!) But there is definitely a part of me that wishes to be entangled in as few giant black-box bureaucratic power structures as possible.