Discussion
Because the AI bubble really *is* very bad news, it's worth fighting seriously, and a serious fight against AI strikes at its roots: the material factors fuelling the hundreds of billions in wasted capital that are being spent to put us all on the breadline and fill all our walls will high-tech asbestos.
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@pluralistic The way it's going, you might have to move up your publication date...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington
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The talk was sold out, but here's the text of my lecture. I'm very grateful to UW for the opportunity, and for a lovely visit to Seattle!
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I'm a science fiction writer, which means that my job is to make up futuristic parables about our current techno-social arrangements to interrogate not just what a gadget *does*, but who it does it *for*, and who it does it *to.*
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What I *don't* do is predict the future. *No one* can predict the future, which is a good thing, since if the future were predictable, that would mean that what we all do couldn't change it. It would mean that the future was arriving on fixed rails and couldn't be steered.
Jesus Christ, what a miserable proposition!
Now, not everyone understands the distinction. They think sf writers are oracles, soothsayers.
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Unfortunately, even some of my colleagues labor under the delusion that they can "see the future."
But for every sf writer who deludes themselves into thinking that they are writing the future, there are a hundred sf fans who believe that they are *reading* the future, and a depressing number of those people appear to have become AI bros.
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The fact that these guys can't shut up about the day that their spicy autocomplete machine will wake up and turn us all into paperclips has led many confused journalists and conference organizers to try to get me to comment on the future of AI.
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That's a thing I strenuously resisted doing, because I wasted two years of my life explaining patiently and repeatedly why I thought crypto was stupid, and getting relentless bollocked by cryptocurrency cultists who at first insisted that I just didn't understand crypto. And then, when I made it clear that I *did* understand crypto, insisted that I must be a paid shill
This is literally what happens when you argue with Scientologists, and life is Just. Too. Short.
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