My gmail accounts are too full and I’m running out of space. I can’t just do a global delete on terms like Twitter because random stuff gets pulled in. Someone may have their twitter handle in their email signature etc. So it’s a manual process.
It was funny as I was deleting all these notifications. Why did I have them turned on in the first place? I think after a number of years I did turn them off. But going through that old stuff, from way back in 2012 and maybe earlier, brought back memories. There was a Conflux that Nicole R Murphy and I ran and all the old emails for that. Twitter because I used to love that place and it got me thinking how I left because Elon ‘turned the evil and joined the dark side.’ Those people who I loved connecting with but now don’t at all.
And that got me thinking about Doctorow’s Enshitification theory and then my brain went into a feedback loop. Companies and people making super profits is just way wrong. Consider, I have bought maybe a dozen copies of Microsoft Office over the years. They used to be stand alone one off purchase and then I could never find the disc with the code or I’d buy a new computer and just get it loaded. I had Adobe Creative Cloud stuff and that stopped working and next time it was a monthly rental fee, way more than I ever earn that would pay for it. And now I pay a yearly fee Microsoft Office for something I bought over and over again. Loyally and legally. Microsoft are making huge profits so why am I paying still?
Okay so I’m stupid maybe but why?
Why isn’t it a token amount? They still get a profit but it is not exploitative profit. Same with banks and all of them, really. They just want more profit, more money and it’s accumulating in too few people.
There was an uproar on Threads recently because Canva is moving stuff to a professional level and has also changed the QR codes that were available on the free version. To be honest I hadn’t twigged when I did a recent back of QR coded bookmarks. It had a little c in the centre and I looked but didn’t see if you know what I mean. I suppose this means if I don’t keep up my subscription the QRs won’t work. And I use that subscription maybe once every few months so not really worth the $20 for me. I’m not very arty.
This rent I’m paying for these things and will probably soon pay for everything is crazy. Soon I’ll have to stop having things because I’m retired now and on limited income. Somethings are optional, like streaming. Britbox, for example, put up their fee by 50% this year so I’m going to unsubscribe because at the same time they were offering a cheaper price for new sign ons. I feel I have to watch Britbox because I paid so much for it. However, I don’t have to watch. I’d rather by physical media anyhow. I stick with Netflix because they were forerunners but I am spending too much on them so really need to adjust my plan.
But things like email and stuff like that well aren’t as optional. Iinet, for example, who I have been with since it was Ozemail, decided they didn’t want to do email anymore. They peeled that off to the Messaging Company, who you ended up having to pay for something that you already had included in your price. Then that price doubled the next year with the new mob and I closed my iinet email account. It was a huge job to change it and annoying but I felt it wasn’t fair.
Which reminds me I must quit iinet for my nbn, too. because hey that whole we aren’t doing email anymore thing sucked and I’m angry and no longer loyal. I’ll be looking for better price and better service elsewhere.
Life is not all about money. There used to be such things as social good, community, the greater good, public good and so on. Why does everything seem to be all about money and power? I feel trapped in some future dystopian SF novel but it’s reality.
I’m currently in Singapore. I don’t consider myself poor but I’m definitely not rich. And all the designer stuff I see, I wonder who can afford that stuff and why? It blows my mind, really.
Then there is AI and accusations about people using it, people using it and lying about it and so on. Before I retired, the department wanted people to use AI to write emails, read reports and so on. I don’t think an AI has my life experience to pick up things that I would if I read and analysed a report. And if AI wrote all my emails, where am I in this? I tell it what to write. But then I sound like an AI wrote my email.
As I was going through my emails and deleting old Twitter, Ebay and other notifications I saw all my drafts of books that I’ve sent myself over the years. I’m not deleting them because I might need them one day when someone claims AI wrote my books. AI companies used my books to train their agents btw without any compensation or permission. So at least I have the evidence that I wrote them, some of the attachments have very crappy drafts that don’t reflect my final product but they do have the dates.
For creative arts, like writing, composing, scriptwriting and art and illustration, I firmly believe you don’t need AI to write for you and I think using it for cover art is a kind of theft from the real artists. I also have views about AI translations and audio books. I saw some people on a book group I am in talking about massive profits from AI translations. I wondered why if they made so much money why they couldn’t pay a real person to translate for them. A thought I did not voice. I also saw one that will clone your own voice to read your audio book. I know my reading sucks but I’d rather read my own than artificially appear more articulate than I am. Also, reading your own work has value. You find typos and you learn some of your sentences and word usages are too complicated to read. Lol.
For finding information, for repetitive tasks sure why not? But the energy AI data centres consume and the water? Do we really need that drain on resources? AI is going to take jobs, I know. Technology has been taking jobs for maybe 150 years. I remember the huge stagflation (high inflation and high unemployment) in Australia in the 1970s with the oil shock and the advent of computers. In those days it was punch cards at the stock exchange, for example, that I had direct experience with but eventually years later the trading floor was not full of humans anymore and trading is now done through a computer system.
Right now we are in a oil shock and a technology shift. I don’t think we have had the full impact yet. We have protectionism, tariffs used as weapons, as well. We have crazy international stuff going down. If I was a doomsayer, and believe me I have those tendencies, I would say we are in for a rocky ride.
Stop the ride! I wanna get off now.
PS now back to writing fantasy to escape all this nasty reality.
PSS I bought a book and have been doing some research and this has fueled ideas. I’m happy about that.
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Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 