#12

I’m often finding myself consumed with a very passionate feeling of disgust for what I’ve always felt are the technological powers of “evil” or perhaps “greed”. In my mind there has always been two powers at work that are diametrically opposed, essentially Art and Technology. I think that I’m coming to understand in a more truthful, holistic way that they really aren’t so different from each other. Artificial intelligence is technology in one sense, through my perception, but through the eyes of a San Francisco tech fanatic that feeds their mind through weekly acid trips and a regular microdose schedule, maybe the structure of the code that allows ChatGPT or Gemini to exist is a form of artistic expression that they truly believe brings them closer to manifesting enlightenment. Sounds horrible to me!

But how can I say that this is objectively bad? If God exists in every facet of our reality, which I think most people inclined to read my blog generally agree upon, then ChatGPT is as true of an expression of God/Buddha/Love as a flower or a river or a thousand monarch butterflies.

The Yin and Yang represent the balance between opposing forces, and the way that each contains some of the other. This balance, to me, only exists in the eyes of a benevolent observer, like the Buddha or perhaps ChatGPT. Then it would follow that the “good” and “bad” impression that all people have(Things are always getting Worse! For example), are entirely constructions of the mind and are not at all present in reality. Obviously!

I think I have a pretty good understanding of where the desire to make art comes from. Individual expression, creation, meditation, and a few other reasons come to mind. A lifetime of making art has laid this plain for me. I do not, however, feel like I have a very good grasp of where the desire to create technology comes from. Does Peter Thiel think that Palantir is individual expression? Can anyone be motivated entirely by profit incentives or is there a spiritual desire for global surveillance that drives us further and further down the road of technology? Does a programmer get so lost in the individual lines of code that he forgets what he’s coding, like an illustrator gets lost in the lines he’s drawing and lose sight of the whole paper?

For me the only way to parse this and detach myself from my preconceptions about “Good” and “Bad” is to treat my life like a long joke running right in between Art and Technology. It’s easy to think much too hard about it all and get very concerned about the new data center in Utah, but the Buddha has been smiling about it for so long that snails settled onto the top of his head, so it must be pretty funny after all.

I don’t think anyone actually reads this stuff, so really it’s more of a personal journal than a blog, which is just fine with me.

Peace and Love