A short elegy for the Action of Thinking.

[temris]

This won’t be really cohesive. I’m just really angry at rich people, generative AI, and why the new generation feels like doing anything but actually using their minds to think. For once.

Ever since returning to being a more active person of society (i.e. attending university after years of a self-induced reclusive lifestyle), I’ve had many instances that reminded me of why I went away from everyone in the first place. Maybe it sounds high-nosed, like very much petty complaining. And mostly, it probably is, but this society and where it’s headed makes me lose all hope.

I’m so tired of generative AI.

I probably voiced this out loud many times, but day by day, the hatred I garner for it grows stronger. Because I have to share the classes with kids who think they’re outsmarting the teacher by using AI for literally everything. I have to hear teachers encourage the use of AI lest we stay behind in “scientific developments”. (Though, I think this is more of a conduct pushed by the deans to be more “modern” and “with the times”.) I have to hear people say I’ll be useless in just a few years.

Then you ask yourself, why am I working so hard?

Firstly though, I need you to understand where these people are coming from, why they are so nonchalant about this. Unlike US American schools, we don’t write essays a lot for classes like you do, most likely the ones we write for are only for Turkish class – or its high school equivalent, Turkish literature. But I think nowadays they must have completely stopped it, because I see them give their papers, all of them 17 or above, and you’d think they’d just arrived from elementary. How can you not have learned paper layouts and margins, paper layouts in your years of education?

Now at my university major, we have two or three classes where we have to use the littlest bits of creative thinking, and I’m not exaggerating it at all. It really is the bottom of the bottom; and even then, they still don’t want to do it SO MUCH that they detest even hearing about it.

So what do they do?

These little rich kids think they’re outsmarting the teachers, using AI for writing their dialogue. And my God, it was so freaking obvious it was AI that I wish the lecturer also picked up on it.

The homework was to create a dialogue, and these two idiots (and their two other friends actually did the same as a duo, and their dialogue was also similar) DIDN’T EVEN PREPARE FOR IT BEFOREHAND and read it through their paper. Would it really kill you to just TRY? TRY A LITTLE BIT.

I hated every single second of having to listen to the AI’s dialogue. So dread of any emotion other than what’s capitalistically pleasing: It’s happy, every line is affirmative, because anger, annoyance, it’s what advertisers don’t like – AI can’t do it!

I don’t remember it exactly, but it went something like this:

A: Hey, I just moved here. What’s your name?
B: Hello, I’m also new. I’m B, what’s yours?
A: Oh, I’m A. So what’s it like here.
B: I think it’s quite nice. What do you like?
A: I’m into this, this and that. What about you?
B: How nice, I also like that. I also do this. You can do this in there, how about that?
A: Oh, that sounds nice. Do you also do this?
B: Yes, I do. Do you also…?

The lecturer said nothing, of course. She’s kind of an old-head, and that’s why she probably didn’t even notice that those other two (they’re kind of like a 4-friend group) did a NEARLY same dialogue (they literally just change the setting). So yeah, they passed, while me and my partner practiced our dialogue ahead – not to mention writing it took us like two days. (It’s just 3 minutes of speech, by the way, to paint the picture. That’s how much we cared for it, even if it’s the bottom of the bottom homework like I mentioned. And this is the third time we’ve been assigned this type of homework. The first time, we prepared for three consecutive days for a two minute speech.)

Then you ask yourself again:
What am I working so hard for?

What annoys me the most, is that these rich kids will be able to bag jobs more easily than me, or maybe I’ll stay jobless while they will be able to work at any place in any job they want. I don’t have the most glorious outward appearance. I don’t have the network their rich dads have. So I’ll be stuck, jobless, sad, and envious. I’ll probably die like that too.

Comments

[thewizardofoz]

I agree on the AI crap, so tired of it on FB and the amount of people who fall for shit that is AI based is ridiculous. It's making me hate having FB, let alone all the damn adds.I don't even see half of my friends posts or groups even though I follow.

I can agree with the rich part. It sucks they don't have to work for shit and just get jobs cause of connections. Yes I know their parents or whatever work hard to get where they are, but still the kids should to and not have hand outs. I'm more annoyed about the stupid tiktokers that get famous/rich for doing stupid videos/skits. it's sad our younger kids these days look up to half of them. I've watched some and I'm like 'wtf? why are you hooked on a kid doing stupid pranks that have been done before, or dumb skits where they act bratty to their parents, ect?'/ No answer other then it's 'tiktok and i like it and them'. This generation of kids are so hooked on that app it's sad and pathetic.

[temris]

I don't use FB, but those ridiculous AI slop gets reposted on Twitter to make fun of, and it's honestly very sad to think that there are people who fall for it. Although, there's also an insurgance of bots filling the interactions as well, so it's like a loop of bots interacting with each other, without being aware of their presence. The internet is dead. They don't say that for nothing.

You've mentioned a great problem of it as a whole: Everything goes back to the ads in the end. That's why they went for using an "algorithm", instead of "chronological order" in the first place. Because what makes people spend more time on the app, so that advertisers would interest more? Fake information? Baseless claims? Hate content? Morality does not matter; whatever makes money, is enough for them.

On the rich kids part -- Now that I've reread my post, I do sound so butthurt LMFAO, but my feelings are still unchanged. TikTok really is the worst. Short content in general, is just really what has made this new generation into dumber people -- who are also so entitled because of those algorithms. Everything must cater to them. I don't think it will die out soon, though, with how popular it has gotten.

[venera787]

This reminded me of the Belarussian kids film that was made using AI and GOD how they hyped it: A FIRST AI MOVIE. Obviously there were animation errors, characters were getting deformed from time to time and had those dead soulless eyes. The funny thing is that they paid REAL voice actors and wrote REAL soundtrack for it (why not make it AI too hmm?).
One YouTuber also reviewed other ai films, because there some were even before, and concluded that if these get wide spread they would be like those bootleg films on dvds you used to find in small shops.
(Also because of the avatar I like to think that Kiryu is saying this himself xDD)

[temris]

Please omg, don't give them ideas. AI dudebros already tweet stuff like "Hollywood will be dead in 5 years", or more dumb sh*t like that.

The same AI hype is so apparent in Turkish social media, more or less in real life as well. It's very heart-breaking to witness, because literally no one cares that you don't think it's okay!

Can you send me the YT link? And I agree -- especially elder people do not understand it as easily as we do. Hell, not even I can comprehend it sometimes.

And yeah; I think Kiryu would be also against AI lol, he'd beat those dudebros. :) Not to mention there were like two separate anti-AI substories in the games, iirc.

[venera787]

Well AI content is already an equivalent to bland junk food content that ppl of that type consume, I still believe there will be people who would want to have something human created.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk-zdYbaO6Y&t=909s - it's on Russian but there are generated English subs (lol) to understand the basis.

[temris]

Thank you! This also reminded I need to brush up on my Russian soon... I've forgetten all I've learned. 😔

[magnavox_23]

Hiya! And thank you for the follow! (I am just getting to my emails for DW now, bad lazy fan!)

I feel this post so much. I was also a mature student at uni, and sometimes it really blew my mind the shit these kids tried to get away with. A huge part of our cohort was caught plagiarising by using AI for this one assignment. it was such an easy assignment too - not worth a whole lot of our grade, it just took time to complete (which was the point also), and they almost threw their whole degree away due to inattention and laziness. And yes, the great majority were from more privileged backgrounds. It is really disappointing to see this divide, especially at the tertiary level.

Then you ask yourself again:
What am I working so hard for?

End of the day - for yourself. Because you give a damn, and sometimes that is all we have left, but it can be powerful.

As a global society, I think we are dangerously misusing AI. It can definitely have its positives, and I have only tentatively engaged in the technology personally, and never in regard to my professional life. However, I feel in its current iterations, again, pushed by rich old men, it is creating a disservice to us, and the great fear with that is that it is completely intentional, to distract us from social and economic inequalities.

Also I am hella mad the rich kids who barely passed walked straight into cushy jobs whilst I have struggled, even though I have quality and lived experience behind me. You're entitled to be butthurt, it's an unfair world, and it doesn't have to be.