The tech fantasy that powers AI is running on fumes

Behold the decade of mid tech! That is what I want to say every time someone asks me, “What about AI?” With the breathless anticipation of a boy who thinks that this is the summer he finally gets to touch a boob, I’m far from a Luddite. It is precisely because I use new technology that I know mid when I see it.

- Tessie Mcmillan Cottom

Academics are rarely gung-stand-ins for typical workers. For the so-called technology revolution is an exception. It has come for us first. Some of it has even come from us, genuinely exciting academic inventions and research science that could positively contribute to society. But as we have already seen in academia, all that we care for is artificial intelligence across every domain of work and life have started to get silly really fast. Most of us aren’t using AI to save lives faster and better. We are using AI to make mediocre arguments well, suck at writing more. Even the most enthusiastic supporters about AI’s power to augment white-collar work have struggled to come up with something more exciting than “A bot that once took two days to write will now take two hours.”

Mid tech! Its motivation is a threat.