“Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.” ― Aaron Swartz
I can’t write about, think about, consume any information about generative AI without the memory and ghost of Aaron Swartz appearing, like a ghost of the internet past.
It’s now a decade later and again, we are facing a crisis regarding technology, a crisis that demands civic action and response - something at the heart of who Aaron Swartz was. Big business, big government won the first round, Aaron was the sacrificial Jesus. Now with ChatGPT and AI going mainstream, we have a second fight for internet freedom. It’s currently a massive marketing, hype job and misdirection. A dangerous one.
Regarding Aaron Swartz, the hypocrisy is clear, it’s in your face. Aaron was hung out to dry, prosecuted for the same things that OpenAI is now applauding. Except what Aaron did was minuscule compared to the data theft of these big companies. Using our data, the world’s knowledge as their own. OpenAIR theft.
What if Aaron Swartz were still here today and he produced an “Open”AI (and I put that in quotes because there is nothing open about it except its legs)? What if? Aaron would be applauded, cheered, turned into a Time magazine cover genius - so long as he kept to the script of helping shareholders accumulate wealth and conquer new paywalled services. It’s hypocrisy - Aaron was hung out to dry not because what he did was wrong but because of the values behind what he did were deemed wrong, bad intentions. He didn’t follow the party line of “our” open internet.
There are many cases on the books regarding AI systems. Many suits have been brought. Nobody knows what will happen. But most likely, some deals will be made and the world will move on. It’s all about the spoils, the vast sums as all knowledge and access to information is walled off through AI funnels.
I’ve long advocated, like Aaron with RSS, with OER, for a free internet. We all should have access to information. I wrote lots about it in the past, I called it “The Captive Mind”. Now, AI pretends to give us access to everything, it’s all a kind of Oz illusion as the corporations move the levers behind the curtains.
“Real education is about genuine understanding and the ability to figure things out on your own; not about making sure every 7th grader has memorized all the facts some bureaucrats have put in the 7th grade curriculum.”― Aaron Swartz
The thing is - we are at a tipping point again, like Aaron outlines in the last thoughts of the video above. We can fight for an open, transparent model of information or just resign ourselves to the evil of an AI that dishes out to us what they want, manipulating us and asking us to please, “don’t think for yourself.” Your choice.
I think more people should be angry about our current model of technological advancement in the name of the capitalist god. Aaron would agree. The freedom and access it offers is illegitimate and illusory. It isn’t real. We need to be closer to that ghost in the machine.
“Growing up, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had told me were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be, they weren’t natural at all. They were things that could be changed, and they were things that, more importantly, were wrong and should change, and once I realized that, there was really no going back.”― Aaron Swartz
There are many unsettled questions. We need to have an honest conversation about AI and who makes the decisions and how it is done … Richard Wolff coherently outlines this - worth a watch. But I doubt this won’t ever happen, we have a taboo on challenging capitalism, we’ve resigned ourselves to accepting whatever happens, like automatons watching whatever on Netflix - entertainment and AI is our new bread and circuses.
**** by the way - try this hack to get into academic paywalled journals. Aaron would agree.
The Ghost Of Aaron Swartz