It is dangerous to call AI a tool as it is born from the logics of cybernetics and this constitutive aspect matters.
A tool is an extension of the human body. A lens extends the eye, a paintbrush extends the hand, a guitar extends the temporal rhythms of human experience into sound. Tools are inert until picked up; they hold no agency of their own. Their meaning arises only when a human body acts through them.
AI is not inert. It is designed to anticipate, to predict, to act without waiting for intention. From its origins in cybernetic anti-aircraft systems during WWII, its logics are built upon the need to bypass the human as a lagging component. This is replacement, not extension of the human form.
Generative AI encodes the body and in so doing alters the very conditions under which expression is possible. What once operated as symbolic forms grounded in lived temporality and relation are reduced to parasitic imitations - what I call the ontological tether. They retain the appearance of meaning while feeding on its absence.
To call it a tool is to miss this ontological shift.
Tools preserve the wager of art, the irreducible risk and contingency of expression. AI collapses risk into prediction, ambiguity into certainty, freedom into compliance. It does not extend the human project of art. AI forecloses it, substituting symbolic meaning with scalable content.
Nothing was more irritating than the Velvet Sundown narrative. It's like the industry is looking for evidence that AI is replacing artists and it's just not there. We've had 2 1/2 years of Gen AI music. Despite being a measurable percentage of music on DSP's, it's still less than a half percent of the royalty pool. Fans don't want it, and DSPs aren't supporting it.
I like your nuanced stance on AI. Yesterday I read an article about someone who'd started a podcast company, basically churning out hundreds of hours of AI-generated podcast content. They went on record saying that anyone who refers to AI content as 'AI slop' is probably a 'lazy luddite'. I love this alliteration. I will happily call myself a 'lazy luddite' from now on.
10% Happier is an amazing book. I read it over ten years ago, and it changed my mind about many things as well. Happy to hear you've started a meditation practice too. It's one of the most impactful things I ever did in my life. I had my reservations as well, but the good thing about it is that you can just experience its benefits very directly. One of my teachers likes to compare it to working out or brushing your teeth – it's not particularly fun, but you see the results.
It is dangerous to call AI a tool as it is born from the logics of cybernetics and this constitutive aspect matters.
A tool is an extension of the human body. A lens extends the eye, a paintbrush extends the hand, a guitar extends the temporal rhythms of human experience into sound. Tools are inert until picked up; they hold no agency of their own. Their meaning arises only when a human body acts through them.
AI is not inert. It is designed to anticipate, to predict, to act without waiting for intention. From its origins in cybernetic anti-aircraft systems during WWII, its logics are built upon the need to bypass the human as a lagging component. This is replacement, not extension of the human form.
Generative AI encodes the body and in so doing alters the very conditions under which expression is possible. What once operated as symbolic forms grounded in lived temporality and relation are reduced to parasitic imitations - what I call the ontological tether. They retain the appearance of meaning while feeding on its absence.
To call it a tool is to miss this ontological shift.
Tools preserve the wager of art, the irreducible risk and contingency of expression. AI collapses risk into prediction, ambiguity into certainty, freedom into compliance. It does not extend the human project of art. AI forecloses it, substituting symbolic meaning with scalable content.
Nothing was more irritating than the Velvet Sundown narrative. It's like the industry is looking for evidence that AI is replacing artists and it's just not there. We've had 2 1/2 years of Gen AI music. Despite being a measurable percentage of music on DSP's, it's still less than a half percent of the royalty pool. Fans don't want it, and DSPs aren't supporting it.
I like your nuanced stance on AI. Yesterday I read an article about someone who'd started a podcast company, basically churning out hundreds of hours of AI-generated podcast content. They went on record saying that anyone who refers to AI content as 'AI slop' is probably a 'lazy luddite'. I love this alliteration. I will happily call myself a 'lazy luddite' from now on.
10% Happier is an amazing book. I read it over ten years ago, and it changed my mind about many things as well. Happy to hear you've started a meditation practice too. It's one of the most impactful things I ever did in my life. I had my reservations as well, but the good thing about it is that you can just experience its benefits very directly. One of my teachers likes to compare it to working out or brushing your teeth – it's not particularly fun, but you see the results.