I wish I could paint the pictures I have in my head from my work as the API Evangelist. The closest I can come is projecting light and transforming images as part of my Algorotoscope Work. Some day my painting skills may get me closer to what I see emerging around us, but for right now my Algorotoscope Work is the closest I got. I am just turning the knobs and dials on the Algorotoscope lenses I have created, until the reception gets better, and I find the images I am looking for.
I am not using ChatGPT or some other more modern AI, I am using the previous generation of AI to steal meaning from a variety of existing art, posters, and other images, then I am applying the resulting texture transfer to photos I have taken. I am using the ways I see the Internet and algorithms are amplifying existing bias and beliefs to render and produce images that help highlight the algorithmic obfuscation occurring all around us each day via our mobile phones, laptops, desktops, televisions, automobiles, and other Internet connected devices.
I am exploring inside what began as a piano player and has not grown into a global digital sprawl. APIs are connecting the world through each mobile phone, television, and security camera installed. Think of Algorotoscope as what the security cameras see when scanning the digital realm that exists between our physical and virtual realms. Algorotoscope is about revealing what lies in between, and shines a light on what the Internet is doing to us while it surveys us, watches us, and controls us.
Skinner was all about behaviorism, and the Internet is behaviorism run wild. It isn’t that Skinner was wrong, he was right. We all respond to positive reinforcement, and the Internet is being designed to hit on all of the right dopamine receptors with the reinforcement we desire. The government is waking up to this reality, and Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission is trying to find the regulatory antidote, but the machine has already grown so large and controlling, it feels almost too late.
I don’t think we fully understand what the Internet is doing to us, let alone to our children. I think we are flying blind and willfully ignorant about the negative impacts of technology that makes lots of money. I don’t think our early concerns around Internet surveillance at all speak to the real harm being done, and I don’t think we have the vocabulary to make sense of things. I worry about what we are training the next generations of human beings to live for, and I think we are leaving a huge burden on future generations.
The anxiety that an online reality is giving us is going to lead to so many real world challenges. I don’t feel as equipped to deal with the world as I used, and I remember the times before. I fear how Internet induced anxiety is going to shift how our children live their lives, or more importantly, do not live their lives. The Internet is reducing us to unrecognizable digital versions of ourselves, leaving our physical bodies unhealthy, unhappy, and unable to make their way through the world.
We aren’t equipping our children to deal with the world, while as adults we are giving in to every convenience and digital cow clicker presented to us. We seem to keep lining up at the feeder for whatever is next when it comes to technology, without ever being able to examine what just happened. We are becoming feral beings in this liminal space in between the physical and online worlds, lined up on the ledge waiting for the next application to drop, and a digital feedback loop to plug into to get our fix.
We seem to be content with grazing on the digital grass, unaware of the world that exists outside our pasture. Anytime I speak out against technology, there are some in my circle who acknowledge and share my concern, but there are many, many more who pick up their head, look annoyed, and go back to chomping on the digital grass. Being part of the digital flock seems like the norm, and people have forgotten what was before, or never knew what was before, and the Internet posture is all that we have ever had.
When I close my eyes after a long day working online I feel like a bunch of cybernetic gears which I am not fully in control of. I feel like I am spinning out of control and it takes days or weeks for me to wrestle back control. I feel stretched. I feel like I am hundreds of spinning gears set in motion by my daily feeds, emails, notifications, and other digital chords that increasingly dictate who I am. I am not always in control of my behavior, and it is something that gets dictated digitally from some far off place in Silicon Valley.
I worry. I worry about our programming. Sadly, I think our programming has always been flawed, but the Internet is amplifying the worst of the worst. I sit in the middle of the machine each day, listening to the hum of the gears knowing each revolution reduces some aspect of our world to a transaction. There are few I can share this knowledge with, as the noise of the machine is just out of reach of your average person. When I do find a kindred spirit and traveler amidst the sprawling landscape of the machine I share what I can to help them in their journey.
It is hard to share knowledge here. The machine is always watching. Always building and rebuilding its apparatus to be all seeing and knowing. The online and offline world is increasingly surveilled, and stomping out any dissent and knowledge sharing. Like the automobile, the Internet is spreading to all aspects of our lives, taking over our homes, businesses, and public spaces. The Internet demands our complete attention, which is why I take comfort inside amongst the gears. It is loud, but comforting to be outside the view of the machine, hiding within its own inner workings.
I know I am being judged. I know I am being watched. I know that my loyalty is always in question. This is why I walk the line of being outspoken while also being quiet. I know if I fall 100% in line I will be more surveilled than I am being an outspoken engineer who knows how the machine works. Understanding how the gears turn, and how the digital belts turn the gears keeps me just out of view. I am building the machine. I know the machine. I resemble the other doozers doing what they do best. I am appalled at what I see, but since I can’t escape I keep doing my job to know how it all works.
At some point we are going to have to pull the switch and change tracks. I know where all tracks and switches lie. I know how to get where we need to go. However, it isn’t all up to me. We are in this together. I am happy to keep knowing where the switches are for when the time comes. I am just not sure when the time is right. I am unsure if you are coming with me, or you are staying on the current line. Behaviorally we are going to need to change course, or all of this will become unattainable and consume us all.
My Algorotoscope Work has given me a way to produce the lens I need to see the machine. I have a way to make all that space in between visible. I can’t reveal the algorithms for what they are. The problem is it isn’t just the algorithms. It is us. The illness isn’t in the machine. The illness is in us. The machine is just amplifying it, spreading it, and eventually rendering the illness unstoppable. My B.F. The Skinner machine learning model has provided me with the most valuable lens I have for seeing how the Internet is changing our behavior. But it is just one of a toolbox of lenses I have for evaluating the machine, and I must keep working producing new ones.
I have three new filters being generated as we speak. Landing in New York City and thinking about the ways in which I was programmed to see this town has set me on the path towards these three new filters. I also have a bunch of new photos I’ve gathered traveling across the country which I’d like to hold up to the light and work my way through the lenses I have, as well as these three new ones. I feel like my Algorotosocope toolbox is getting much more equipped, yet I still have many more years of work to get where I need to. Additionally the noise of the machine has become much louder with all the foot stomping up above about generative AI, apocalypse, and all that scares us. I’ll keep working down here to do what I need, while also not losing myself entirely here within the machine.
