Designing Our Future

Girls on the Internet. And Bridgitte and I get into a really interesting conversation as we enter into the last week of Pride Pride month, but not the last week of Pride, where we're talking about, you know, artificial intelligence, which you cannot escape a segment or news story headline these days without somebody talking about artificial intelligence and chat GPT and whether or not we think that AI is going to destroy the world or whether we think that

it's going to be something that is going to aid

in our progress. And the conversation that I get into with bridget is one that I've been grappling with in my mind for quite some time, which is that if the people right behind these technological advances are of the same mind, meaning are the same white cysts, hetero, you know, male people, If they're still the same people that are in control, then how do we not think that bias, discrimination, outright bigotry is going to be embedded in these new systems, right, Like,

we continue to believe and look at different advancements and think like this is going to be the thing that takes us to the next level, But we haven't fundamentally dealt with the shit that has kept us, the country, and the world under the thumb, under the knee of white supremacy. Right. So when we have these conversations, and you know, I reference in my talk with bridget about a Netflix documentary that I've talked about on WKF before

called Coded Bias, that was on Netflix. You know, when we talk about technology, when we talk about you know, these technocrats, it is still white, cis hetero men that are in control of the future, right, And they are the same ones that are in control of our past. And what do I mean by that, Well, look no further than Governor Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott and others who are dictating what it is students and people in their state can learn about and know about our nation's history.

So when you have this same biased, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic people and that mentality that is still in charge. How do you think that we advance out of racism.

It's like this idea which is so fucking stupid that like, oh, well, when the racists die off, they don't they fucking reproduce, right, They groom their children in their ideology, then they rise up and they get into positions of power, and they continue to blanket society through their industry in that ideology. So it's like, if you don't get to the root, it doesn't matter what is born on the tree, because

it's always going to be fucking poisonous. And that's the thing in America that we continue to just not get right, like we never want to go to the root of anything. And that was my same understanding with you know, talking about the Juneteenth Holiday, it's like you want to give a federal holidays something that you don't even understand. People want to say, oh, well, they were just the enslaved were just late in finding out. No, it was a strategy.

It was part of keeping people enslaved and tied to production. So it was about money and free labor. We continue to have conversations about, you know, oh, should we have reparations or should we not? And who is having that commra who gets to decide the very people whose ancestors did the fucking instructions and the very people who got to benefit from the torture and the rape and the enslavement and the selling off of humans, and the breaking up of family, the breaking up of culture, the wiping

away of history of knowing. So until we want to have real conversations about power, until we want to have real conversations about the root of the root, than anything, anything that is about quote unquote technological advancement or human advancement is always gonna be steeped in the shit we refuse to discuss, recognize, and acknowledge. So coming up next, my conversation with podcast host Bridget Todd. Folks, I am so excited to welcome back to wok f our friend

Bridget Todd, who is the creator and host. There are no girls on the Internet, Bridget Happy Pride.

It is making life so very easy. But funny enough, a group of CEOs ranging from I think it is Coca Cola to Xerox to Zoom CEOs gathered together for a Yale summit and forty two per They did a poll, and forty two percent of them believe that AI is going to cause our inventing doom, you know, the end of society as we know it, in the next five to ten years, not the next fifty years, the next

five to ten. And so I wanted to talk to you about all of the conversation around AI, the politics around trying to regulate, trying to have our Octanegerian politicians regulate something when they barely understand social media. So, you know, please give me your thoughts on all things.

hundred years, but in five years. But I actually did a really interesting interview with a tech critic named Paris Marx who hosts the podcast Tech Won't Save Us, and that interview really helped me put things in perspectives. One of the things that they said was that AI, the people who make that technology, kind of need for there to be a big hype cycle where even if we're talking about it in terms of doom and gloom, that is actually helpful for them because it helps them market

this idea that AI is going to change everything. AI is going to take all of our jobs. AI is going to be this big shift in all of our thinking and the way that we do everything. Even if it's even if we're talking about it in a way that is scary, that seems alarmist, that is actually good for them because it helps us all get comfortable with this idea that AI is is here to stay. We're

all gonna have to get comfortable with it. It's kind of if you look at the way that people talked about cryptocurrency, maybe like a couple of years earlier, it was a similar kind of hype cycle where it was very easy to believe this is going to change everything financially, you know, a couple of years from now, we're all going to be using crypto, our bank's going to be

using crypto. That didn't really pan out, And so it is important to think about in what ways are we all feeding into, like a really common hype cycle by get just sort of like giving into the idea that AI is going to change everything. So that's one. So I don't think there's a need to be quite so

doom and gloom, although I completely get where that comes from. However, here's the bad news, which is that AHI most certainly is going to change a lot of things, right, And one of the things that Paris told me is that they believe quite strongly that AI is simply going to it's not going to replace workers. It's just going to make life more miserable for workers. So you'll have more

survengeous of workers. You'll have more expectations of workers. You'll have workers being paid less for the work they've been doing already. You'll have knowledge like knowledge workers having that work be devalued because the people who make financial decisions think, oh, well, AI can do it better, even though we're not quite there yet. Right. If you ask chat GPT to write an episode of woke af, you probably laugh at what

they came up with. Right, So they still need commentators, podcasters, knowledge workers like you and I, Right, And so one of the things I really do think is that when the people who make decisions about how money is made, how people are employed, what their employment looks like, when they are buying into hype cycles around AI and what it can do, that's when I really get worried. And

it's kind of exactly what you're saying. I don't think that, you know, our lawmakers really have enough understanding of AI

to be making laws that will actually regulate it. I don't know if you saw a bunch of lawmakers were pulled the head of chat GBT, Sam Altman, in for a hearing, and before that hearing, they reportedly had a dinner where Sam was showing these lawmakers all these different tricks that A I could do, and it seemed like like a trade show, right, and they were all really like oohing and eyeing, and so you know, that's a much more cozy relationship between people who are meant to

be regulating and the people who make the thing that is meant to be being regulated that I would like to see. And so it's not all I don't think that you necessarily need to be coming from a place of like doom and gloom. But it's not all good because we know the people who make decisions, the people who are supposed to be, you know, regulating this technology, we really can't always trust them to make decisions that are good for all of us, you know.

don't respect them like they are essential. But nonetheless that when it comes to more information, more knowledge based kinds of careers and professions, those will not be at risk yet because the technology just is not there. To your point about podcasting, to the point about writing a sonnet, or you know, developing something that does require creativity innovation, but not just the know how of doing it, but really the intellectual strategy and understanding of how to do it.

AI is not strategizing, right, it is just doing and pulling information. But when we look at these more skilled hands on jobs. If I'm looking at an Amazon factory, for instance, right, if I'm looking at a Starbucks for instance, there is something to be concerned about with what happens

to those jobs. Right if I'm building a world where smart cars God willing, hopefully not the ones Elon Musk built, but where the smart cars are now the Amazon driver and delivery person, where I'm going into seven to eleven or any convenience store and instead of having a checkout person, they're all just one personed right where I can go in and do this. And this already exists in Japan, it already exists in parts of in parts of Asia.

What do you think then happens to those workers and how do we even if it's not about setting the guardrails yet of this future technology that's here, but we don't under really understand the implications of the damage that it can do. We're only being told really about the pomp pond look at this, you know, good things. How do we talk about it from a worker's perspective and the harm that can happen to our economy.

who I think are going to be impacted. And so what I really get concerned about is people who make decisions being swept up in the ra ra ai hype cycle and then thinking, oh, well, we could have a robot car replace the Amazon delivery driver, we can have a robot barista replace the human barista, without thinking about all of the ways that that is not one going to threaten workers make all of our lives more miserable

because the technology is not there yet. And so I really think that breaking out of these hype cycles is super important and making sure that the people who are signing the checks, hiring the workers, making the decisions, you know, really understand that when we talk about technology it really has to come from a place of people first, and that means breaking away from the hype cycle that can be so tempting to get wrapped up in. But you're

exactly right. I think that the people who are the most that threatened by this are human workers, and so making sure that we have conversations that are centered in that reality that are not just pie in the sky science fiction, you know. But again, it is so easy to get swept up in that. I think a lot

of our lawmakers have gotten swept up in that. I think a lot of the people who make decisions and write checks, and like the ones who are who have power, I think that we were already in a place where they have just abandoned this understanding of how can we have this conversation in a way that centers people, humans and workers. You know.

to protect what I see just on its face already crumbling, right, like our morals and our values as a country, the dignity and respect that all people are deserving. And then we're looking to the future and I'm just like, who you think is creating this technology? It's like, so how

do we also know? It's like you had these billionaires that we're doing their rocket ship race to get you know, to get to out of space, and I'm like, all you're doing with this dick measuring contest is gonna export, you know, into the atmosphere, like export off the planet. The racism, the misogyny and hatred that is here.

you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And it's exactly what you said. I think that the tech billionaires, who, let's be real, are mostly cis, mostly straight, mostly white. These are the people who would like us to believe that the technology that they build is neutral. It's just the technology doesn't have any bias, right, but right I

know is that's complete. BS. Technology is not neutral. It comes coded into it all the different biases homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, fat phobia, all of those different things are coded into that technology. And so until we get to a place where those people are able to really see and like meaningfully grapple with all of the ways that they are propagating these bad things in our society and building it into the technology and then being able to be like, oh, well,

it's neutral, Like the technology can't be racist. We know that's BS. Until we do that, we will never actually meaningfully get a handle on this. And yeah, I think that when it comes to AI, there are so many examples. Even if anybody listening played with things like the lensa app where you fed in a couple of selfies and it gave you AI generated images of yourself, we'll come to find out though it wasn't AI generated necessarily. A lot of that was just pulling from existing images out.

by this technology. And it's such a drag because this technology could be so powerful if the people who are making it actually did examine that, and it could I could imagine all kinds of ways it could be used to break away from these harmful binaries and biases. But it's not until these people really examine these biases and how they are are replicating them. We're just going to continue replicating the same harmful crap that we already see in society.

not in this country, not in the world. And so unless you're going to do some real internal examination of self and how your own lens you know, sheds light on how you see others, it is going to be you are going to continue to code in bias right, without having any type of intentionality around it. And I

do you know, I'm not. I mean, I am a doom and gloomer, but I also am somebody that has seen the ways in which technology obviously has been able to bridge disability gaps, build you know, build community that wouldn't normally have been right to be able to expose people to images, movements, and issues outside of their own front door. We got that, you know, that connectivity because

of technology. And it's just it worries me because these billionaires, the ones that are in control, these technocrats, are not ones with solid intentions about bettering humanity. And that's where I think, like the conversation needs to.

would see as a full and meaningful life. Like there's this very popular engineer, Lex Friedman who I once was listening to an interview and he was talking about how he has this fantasy of when you get up in the middle of the night at three o'clock in the morning and you go to the kitchen to like sneak a snack, you could eating ice cream because you can't sleep. He in his fantasy, he would have a smart refrigerator that he's able to share this as a as a

meaningful moment between him and his smart refrigerator. He wants to have a genuine connection, And I was like, I don't what if what if I want to connect with my partner and my family and my friends. What if? What if what looks like a good life to me is not a life where I am spending more time

with screens exactly exactly. And so you're you're asking people who, let's just be real, don't always have the most healthy or the most healthy outlooks on what connection looks like and what a good and a full life looks like. We are asking them to design our future. And so I would I would really say, like the future that they see as a good future and the future that the rest of us probably see is a good future

are two vastly different things. Then we got to ask, well, who put them in charge of designing what our collective future will look like?

by black women like Nidi Okafor and Octavia Butler, when I'm thinking about, like, where there is opportunity, it seems very rich, but not if it is the same cis white, hetero strict men that are in charge of it, it is just going to be the same shit, but in robot form.

What they're saying are really harmful ideologies like long termism, which says like people like you and me and probably ninety percent of the people listening, we are too focused on the day to day of like paying our bills to think long term. And so what we need to do is gather all the white techie, billionaire folks and think about what we're going to do when climate collapse

comes for us. And they're the only ones left right, they're thinking about the future in these ways that are so regressive and harmful, sometimes outright eugenicist that just yet just like leave us out in the cold while they're like, oh, well, this is going to be better for everybody because we're the smartest and we're the most genetically advanced, and so future where we're okay and y'all are doing, God knows

what is better for everybody. And that it makes it breaks my heart that that is the thinking that takes up the most space, and that is the thinking that it seems like these people have just determined like they know best for us, and they certainly.

You know, this year, when pride is being threatened, when pride is being used as a way to attack our communities, when pride is being used to smear and demonize our trans siblings, particularly trans youth, I really celebrating it felt different this year, and I don't really know what to

do with that. And I remember going to a like a queer dance party, and I have to say, like, on the one hand, I was happy to be experiencing joy and be around other queer people who were also experiencing joy, but I was a little bit like, I was like, I want to know where the exits are right,

I want to like, I want to like. And that was the first, probably the first time celebrating a Pride where I felt that way, where I felt like I just felt like the kind of euphoria and joy that you that we all deserve to feel that pride is about. I was not comfortable experiencing that because of this dynamic that is pushed by a small but vocal number of extremists and so yeah, it was. I think I think that it it showed me why we need pride, yeah,

and the importance of celebrating and commemorating our communities. But I it was it was kind of a privilege and a luxury to be annoyed by how corporate pride is a few years ago, and this time around I really felt how how significant it is. And yeah, just it really alarms me how much we have, how much ground we have lost, and I to center the conversation around corporations and like, is targets celebrating pride or you know whatever.

But I do think that that can sometimes be a barometer for the public and the fact that a small handful of extremists have been able to sway that because I think glad It's put out a survey that shows

that most Americans are are cool with LGBTQ people. Right, It's like we are talking about the way that a small handful of extremists have been able to essentially hold the country hostage from this progress because they know they are losing, because they know their their sentiments are unpopular, and it really is alarming.

girls on the internet. We are exploring what it means, you know, when it comes to technology, social platforms, media, and the future, and making sure that marginalized voices, women, queer folks, trans folks, people of color do not get lost in those conversations. That we are centered in those conversations because we belong at the forefront. We belong, you know, amplified and centered and having our stories and experiences, voices and voices being grounded when we talk about what the

future of technology looks like in our world. So please check it out.