Once I dreamed of a future. A beautiful future full of clean and beautiful buildings, streets, and museums. A future where everyone lived for art because dishwashing no longer existed, cars self drove without any issues, and one didn't have to cook unless they wanted to.
I dreamed that AI would arise to take care of the menial so that humans could work in areas they excelled in and everyone could have time to write, draw, create... Or to enjoy the creations of others.
When people voiced the idea that AI could arise and become sentient and turn on their creators, I felt a sort of apathy. Because the humans of the future would be so much better. Why would AI turn on its creators when it could just appreciate... Creation?
Child me, full of sci-fi dreams, would have been appalled to find that Art was one of the first things we turned AI to. Teenage Google Plus using me would have shuddered at the idea that Google would advertise its first AI assistant with the ideas of "you don't want to talk to friends, let me figure out how to word canceling your plans for you."
Adult me is baffled. Baffled that we could create tools for so many things... And people still wallow in the mundanity of chores while AI is trained to copy artists and regurgitate the broken pieces of a real person's emotional creative expression.
The idea that billionaires hoard wealth while they have nothing more creatively interesting on their minds then continuing to be CEOs of ever more companies and horde more wealth. Meanwhile so many Davincis, Einsteins, Adeles, and Marie Curies are forever stuck in abject poverty. Never to be revealed. While AI creates lifeless, soulless, artless art.
I dreamed of money making clean places, with good infrastructure, quick emergency response and a more happy and fulfilled humanity... Instead cities burn. Ocean boils for people to get to ask AI to listen, regurgitate, and never truly mean anything. And our artists are stolen from. The earth is burning… choking. The inner child who dreamed, has choked on all the ashes.
I dream utopian dreams
I live dystopian nightmares