Photo by Gerard Siderius on Unsplash
I spent four hours in the DMV today. Because of a human error on their part. Hilariously, I was told this is not possible that there was a mistake made… When in fact, there was one that was utterly unavoidable…. But a human could not just acknowledge that.
When my daughter received her drivers license in January, We filled out a form, including our updated address that shifted from when she received her permit. We checked everything they showed us twice, new address showing up in all the boxes and hit the OK button and after about 20 days, we figured out that they did not update her address.
OK, it took us a minute to get back to the DMV because instead of just making this a simple fix online in a nanosecond, we were required to go into the DMV. Who has time for that? The DMV is closed on weekends and I guess if you don’t have to work and have four hours to kill on a weekday at the DMV, no matter what time you show up, then it doesn’t really matter right?
Meanwhile, I have friends who are artists and creatives, writers, animators, CGI artists and visual effects producers. Special effects make up artists and costume designers who are slowly being replaced by AI. There is currently AI out there that will write a movie script for you, there is AI available that will make your book cover, movie, poster, animate for you… Anything artistic that you desire can be fed into a machine with a clever prompt, and spit out. But updating your address on your drivers license, not so much.
The DMV worker still sits there for 8 to 10 hours a day processing paperwork that should be done online.
This is partially because of the massive fear generated by a certain group of people that says that evil aliens will come in and get drivers licenses. Because evil people will drive on the roads, I hate to break it to you, but these evil people, the ones that are really evil are not showing up to the DMV and wasting four hours of their life. They literally don’t give a fuck about a drivers license meanwhile, normal every day people that could benefit from an AI generated fucking website or suffering.
For the record, I do not wish these people to lose their jobs either. It’s just that it seems to me that we have this AI and automation gig completely upside down.
Instead of people being encouraged to pay artists and writers and people that dream and create, most of the AI apps that we see that are consumer based are created around replacing those skills with the machine.
Mind you most of the art and writing created by AI is actually stolen pieces of creativity from millions of artists and creatives who will never be paid for their contribution.
A change of address form for a drivers license, that nobody had to think very hard about and yet I had to spend four hours with my daughter walking through lines and encountering multiple people in order to just get her a drivers license with her address on it, now that is something AI should be doing for us.
It’s no secret that being a creative, an artist, a natural healer or anything that doesn’t require you to be a cog in their wheel has been shamed, frowned upon, and we’re often told “what’s your back up plan”, “but how are you making any money?”
Its as if they keep replacing the jobs that require free thinking, creativity and artistic expression, but make sure that the jobs that require you to clock in, hit the buttons, stamp the paperwork, and go home and watch their fear-based programming are safe and sound.
So as sexy as it might feel and freeing, as it might seem that you can maybe do some thing because you can now use AI instead of an artist… Don’t…
Because first they came for the artists and the creatives, and then they come for the accountants and the middle management and then they come for the DMV workers .
We best be on our toes now people. We have to revert back a little bit to the gig economy and the barter economy, lest we all be replaced.
We get to have a say and how AI interacts in our reality, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a tool, if you’re smart, it’s a great tool and if we’re not we’re disposable.
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