This seems like as good a time as any to catch up on some housekeeping – namely, replying to comments that have been developing over on the Actualitté interview.

In the past, with English-language responses (most of whom I assume are Americans), the uniformity of sentiment that people express has made me wonder somewhere in the back of my mind: are these people actually bots? That would certainly be a mindfuck, but it’s unlikely to be the case. And, in some sense, it is weirdly refreshing to see people hate on my work in a different language and idiomatic formulation than what I am used to. That said, much of it is the same basic stuff conceptually that I’ve encountered before, so I won’t dwell on the repetitive elements here, but mine for the new, different, and interesting.

Given that this blog is in English, I’ll assume most of my readers here are probably mono-lingual Anglophones, and will just use auto-translated excerpts.

Here’s one from Nadine Monfils that jumps out of the crowd:

Tim Boucher lives up to his name. He is both the denouncer and the profiteer of a tool that will cause the downfall of artists and our autonomy. In times of trouble, artists are imprisoned for their ideas because they help people think freely. AI is the complete opposite. It is a dictatorship lurking in the shadows, and in the hands of ill-intentioned people, it can become a formidable criminal tool and lead to the downfall of humanity. Man has created his own assassin, and Tim Boucher, along with his publisher, contributes to this destruction. They may try to absolve themselves by putting forward all the arguments they want, but they do this only for the money it can bring them. It is criminal to participate in AI and just as criminal to have invented it. We are heading towards a sanitized world controlled by a machine that will annihilate thought.

In honor of this one, I tried getting ChatGPT to take my garage-author photo from the article, and to turn me into a butcher, which is what my last name means in French, and which she is commenting on here. This one is the more neutral of the set:

How he’s depicted holding the knife here is of course hilarious. And it doesn’t look all that much like me, but there’s something about it I appreciate. I tried getting Dalle to take it a bit darker, and it actually got quite dark, I was surprised – getting all the way to the point of it depicting a man (clearly not me) in his garage butchering the head of a deer. (Anthuor, is that you?)

I don’t know exactly what point I’m trying to prove in sharing those, only that I think I actually like this theme of being a butcher. I don’t see it as a negative I guess? I did work in a slaughterhouse years ago, cutting feet and heads of poultry carcasses, skinning rabbits, pulling feathers out of geese, etc. It was a rather rough and gross job, but honestly one of the best I’ve had in the field of agriculture (and I had plenty to compare), so again, I don’t mind the comparison. Also, a butcher, even if they handle something gross (e.g., “how the sausage is made”), they do so in order to create good products that people use. Is Nadine a vegetarian? The AIs I posed that question to were unable to provide an answer one way or another. I’ve actually been heading more and more in that direction myself, so I appreciate it if that’s the reason for this visceral (negative) comparison to butchering.

Interestingly, I actually mostly agree with her closing remark:

“We are heading towards a sanitized world controlled by a machine that will annihilate thought.”

But let’s not mince words: it’s not machines that will control us, it is corporations. And we’re already dead center squarely enmeshed in that world. I didn’t invent that world, I just react to it.

Moving on, this one from user Lyo on Actualitté is longer, but the opening line says it all. I don’t even think I need to translate it:

“Monsieur n’est pas un artiste.”

I’ve heard remarks like this a million times, but for some reason it sounds better in French.

I don’t think I’m very successful at it so far (evidence points to the contrary), but one thing I try to do I guess is anticipate criticisms like the ones portrayed here. For example, in the article body itself, the interviewer wrote:

“Not everyone will certainly be convinced by the approach of the Canadian author, who himself acknowledges the paradox it entails: ‘I am both against the system, and at the same time, I am part of the problem. I accept this judgment.'”

Being aware of the criticisms people are going to make, in my experience, sort of deflates them; then people just end up echoing the thing you already said, effectively agreeing with you – up to a point. And anyway, I don’t necessarily need people to agree with me. That’s not what this is for. This is to explore, and for me to find out by doing.

User DGB on Actualitté writes:

One does not compromise with a dangerous (Oh, how dangerous!) adversary like AI. Either we fight it (We enter into resistance), or we collaborate with it, with all the possible and foreseeable consequences.

I actually wrote, illustrated, and printed five volumes of a small DIY newspaper from the perspective of the AI resistance, and references to them are scattered throughout the AI Lore books. So this is not a viewpoint with which I have no sympathy. It’s just that my exploration didn’t stop there. I support objectors and resisters, and have tried in my own political efforts to enshrine the idea that we have as humans the right to not be subject to AI decision-making. Is any government or corporation going to hold to that? Not bloody likely, is my guess. Should we still try? Absolutely. Resist. Reject. But are you really resisting if you still have a cell phone, if you still use social networks? I would say no, you have largely missed the game, since so much of modern technology relies on machine learning and related elements. Are you ready to throw those away too? If you are, good for you! Go out and seek an authentic life, according to your definition of it. I support you.

One reader over there, Stefan, pointed out that in 1984, Julia’s occupation was working in the Ministry of Truth, doing something that sounds altogether too familiar in this day of ChatGPT and its ilk. Quoting Orwell:

… she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing
machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She was ‘not clever’, but was fond of using her hands and felt at home with machinery. She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She ‘didn’t much care for reading,’ she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

Toward that end, a reader named Aurelien T. multiple times in comments came through with statements like: “He is much more of a businessman than an artist indeed.” Or this one, which is a bit more developed:

Indeed, even with AI, it’s a bit surreal to produce 120 books in a few days, like fast-food places would produce hamburgers with an AI machine. And worse, imagine a robot baker producing pastries—something that would rightly provoke the anger of an entire profession. When I say that Tim Boucher is a genius, it’s mainly as a businessman who saw which way the wind was blowing and probably has good financial reserves, but I repeat, anyone here commenting could probably do much better than him even without AI…

I’m not exactly sure where this person has been, but as far as I know, baking has been mechanized for quite a long time. I don’t really see bakers up in arms about robot mixers, but then I don’t live in France, so who knows… I also find it weird and culturally very interesting that for this reader, repeatedly calling me a “genius businessman” is meant to be a dig at my sincerity and authenticity. Okay, if that’s what you feel, then I welcome your reaction. This is just not a critique that you would ever hear from an American, since Americans literally worship business people… Perhaps they are wrong to do so (in fact, they almost definitely are!), but here we are nonetheless.

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