I appreciate how this reflection invites us to question not only what we consume, but what quietly shapes us in return. The image of becoming “nodes” in someone else’s infrastructure stayed with me long after reading. Thank you for this thoughtful meditation.
Thank you, Antonio. It feels like AI in its current form is commoditizing human. Its implementation is a reflection of our current society and its running economic system based on extracting and commoditizing nature and other living beings. It's a utilitarian worldview that sees everything as 'nodes' in someone else's infrastructure.
Love this series, Claudia. Full of thoughtful insights like this: “our one true job in the techno-capitalist utopia: being an end user”. I just listened to a great podcast conversation between Charlie Warzel of the Atlantic and Cory Doctorow (he coined “enshittification”) about AI and our relationship to technology. You might enjoy it. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/galaxy-brain/id1378618386?i=1000773360520
Thank you, Julie. It's a series of meditations on our future with climate change, AI, our relationship with the surrounding world. I'm happy you enjoy it. Thanks for the podcast recommendation. I am reading books for my research but I'll try to listen to it.
I agree with much of this, but it also makes me think the conflict runs deeper than consumerism.
I use a platform because it benefits me: information, connection, entertainment, opportunity. The platform serves me because I benefit it: my attention, behavior, data, and spending help sustain and expand its structure.
For a while, both sides can benefit from the same interaction. But their interests are not identical. The platform benefits when I stay longer, click more, return more often, and consume more. I benefit only as long as those actions continue to serve my own life. At some point, what strengthens the platform may begin to consume my time, fragment my attention, shape my behavior, or extract more from me than it returns.
So perhaps the deeper conflict is not simply humans versus technology, or people versus consumerism. It is self-benefit confronting self-benefit: two structures using the same relationship for their own continuation, until their interests begin to diverge.
This is where the Self-Benefit Principle becomes especially visible.
I appreciate how this reflection invites us to question not only what we consume, but what quietly shapes us in return. The image of becoming “nodes” in someone else’s infrastructure stayed with me long after reading. Thank you for this thoughtful meditation.
Thank you, Antonio. It feels like AI in its current form is commoditizing human. Its implementation is a reflection of our current society and its running economic system based on extracting and commoditizing nature and other living beings. It's a utilitarian worldview that sees everything as 'nodes' in someone else's infrastructure.
Love this series, Claudia. Full of thoughtful insights like this: “our one true job in the techno-capitalist utopia: being an end user”. I just listened to a great podcast conversation between Charlie Warzel of the Atlantic and Cory Doctorow (he coined “enshittification”) about AI and our relationship to technology. You might enjoy it. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/galaxy-brain/id1378618386?i=1000773360520
Thank you, Julie. It's a series of meditations on our future with climate change, AI, our relationship with the surrounding world. I'm happy you enjoy it. Thanks for the podcast recommendation. I am reading books for my research but I'll try to listen to it.
I agree with much of this, but it also makes me think the conflict runs deeper than consumerism.
I use a platform because it benefits me: information, connection, entertainment, opportunity. The platform serves me because I benefit it: my attention, behavior, data, and spending help sustain and expand its structure.
For a while, both sides can benefit from the same interaction. But their interests are not identical. The platform benefits when I stay longer, click more, return more often, and consume more. I benefit only as long as those actions continue to serve my own life. At some point, what strengthens the platform may begin to consume my time, fragment my attention, shape my behavior, or extract more from me than it returns.
So perhaps the deeper conflict is not simply humans versus technology, or people versus consumerism. It is self-benefit confronting self-benefit: two structures using the same relationship for their own continuation, until their interests begin to diverge.
This is where the Self-Benefit Principle becomes especially visible.