culture

Tired Of Thinking About Money

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I love a challenge.  That fuels my personal budgeting, retirement planning, and part of my writing career.  Money is a pain to deal with, but when you gamify it, it becomes fun.  Finances can be like a game, and I savor the challenge of getting it right.

As of late, I became aware of how much I thought about money.  It was more than I was comfortable with.

Could I jump on a trend and write this book?  Could I monetize this idea?  Could this book be more profitable if it was a second edition?  When you have a monetizable hobby like mine – writing – it’s easy to fall into the “money mindset” all the time (and it’s easy anyway).

When I decided to take time to have “space” for creative work, experimentation not planned works, I found monetization sneaking into my calculations.  Could I do X not Y with this fun project and make money.

My reaction to this realization was “what the hell is wrong with me?”  Why was I seeing so much in term of money – and not even in the fun way of gamifying it.

The truth is our society emphasizes monetizing everything.  Hobbies are side hustles, a job is an endless treadmill of promotions, you can sell your memorabilia, etc.  Companies want you to use their service to turn your grindset mindset into their profit – use their services, their marketing, etc.  We’re drowning in the idea that everything has to be for the money.

Worse, for the money is an excuse for bad behavior.  If it’s for the money it’s treated as OK, no matter how awful a person you are – which is probably why many a Forbes “30 over 30” young entrepreneur ends up in court.  Money excuses all ills and all ill behavior.

Thanks to this realization,  I’ve been reclaiming my vision and joy of creativity without the view of monetizing everything.  There’s space in my plans to just mess around.  I feel more free, more creative, and more connected to people.  When you remove finance from every interaction, you discover real human interactions.

I recommend my fellow creatives take a step back as well.  Are you unconsciously monetizing everything?  Maybe it’s time you stop – before you stop being a creative and just become a profit optimizing machine.  Or, worse, end up on the Forbes 30 under 30 and then in the news.

(And if you’re over 30, don’t waste the time or wisdom you have monetizing everything.)

Steven Savage

AI and Chatbots: Better Someone To Hate Than A Machine

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

AI and Chatbots are in the news as people want to use them for everything – well at least until reality sets in.  Now I don’t oppose Chatbots/AI or automated help with a humanized interface.  I think there’s potential for it that will make our lives better.  They really are spicy autocomplete and there’s a role for that, even if we all remember how we hated Clippy.

The problem is that there’s too many cases people want to use so-called AI just replace humans.  I think it will go wrong in many ways because we want people to connect to, even if only to hate them.

If you’ve ever screamed “operator” into a phone after navigating some impossible number-punch menu you have a good idea of how Chatbots could be received.

When we need help or assistance, we want to talk to a person.  Maybe it’s for empathy.  Maybe it’s to have someone to scream at.  Either way we want a moral agent to talk to someone we know has an inner life, and principles, even if we disagree with them.

There’s something antisocial about chatbots just replacing humans.  It breaks society and it breaks our need for contact (or blame).

Have you ever observed some horrible computer or mechanical failure?  Have you imagined or participated in the lawsuits?  Imagine how that will go with Chatbots.

Technology gives us the ability to do things on a huge level – but also create horrible disasters.  Imagine what Chatbots can automate – financial aid, scientific research, emergency advice.  Now imagine that going wrong on a massive, tech-enabled scale.  Technology let us turn simple things into horrible crises.

If you have people along the way in the process?  They can provide checks.  They can make the ethical or practical call.  But when it’s all bots doing bot things with bots and talking to a person?  There’s that chance of ending up in the news for weeks, in government hearings for months, and lawsuits for years. 

(Hell, removing Chatbots removes some poor schmuck to take the blame, and a few people with more money and sense might find they really want that.)

Have you ever read a book or commissioned art and enjoyed working with the artist?  Chatbots and AI can make art without that connection.  Big deal.

Recently I read a person grouse about the cost of hiring an artist to do something – when they could just go to a program.  The thing is for many of us, an artistic connection over literature or art or whatever is also about connecting with a person.

When we know a person is behind something we know there’s something there.  We enjoy finding the meaning in the book, the little references, the empathic bond we form with them.  An artist listens to us, understands us, brings humanity to the work we request.  It makes things real.

I read a Terry Pratchett book because it’s Terry Pratchett.  I watch the Drawfee crew as it’s Jacob, Nathian, Julia, and Karina who I like.

Chatbot-generated content may be interesting or inspiring, but it’s just math that we drape our feelings around.  AI generated content is just a very effective Rorschach blot.  There’s no one to admire, learn from, or connect with behind it.

Humanity brings understanding, security, checks, and meaning.

So however the Chatbot/AI non-Revolution goes?  I think it will be both overdone and underwhelming.  It will include big lawsuits and sad headshakes.  But ultimately if there’s an attempt to Chatbot/AI everything, it’ll be boring and inhuman.

Well, boring and inhuman if we know there’s chatbots there.  It’s the hidden ones that worry me, but that’s for another post . . .

Steven Savage

Media Opinions: Personal or Personal and Universal?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

For too many people, media discussions are frustrating because they become conflicts. What should be an exchange of thought becomes a war of ideas and regretful exchanges. We all know someone reluctant to discuss media opinions – we may be that person.

I constantly have conversations about this “battle of opinions” with friends, and our near-universal reactions are “why the hell did this become an argument?”  It’s easy to decide not to discuss movies or books with anyone but a few trusted people – we don’t want a fight. We prefer an exchange of ideas not metaphorical gunfire.

In a recent conversation about these “battles of opinions,” I realized one problem is how we express and discuss personal and universal values about media. People confuse their opinions with universal truths, but also miss that communicating universal truths needs personal connection.

Let me illustrate this by turning to that producer and canceller of great shows, Netflix.

First, let’s discuss their adaption of the 80s-90’s manga and anime, “Bastard!!” The source material is basically Dungeons and Dragons filled with heavy metal band references, sort of Jojo’s Fantasy Adventures. It is dumb, violent, and keeps a lot of the old problematic content, albeit with a bit of self-aware humor (think a touch of Spinal Tap among the metal). There’s not anything universal I can say about it, my enjoyment was “let’s enjoy this big dumb retro thing.”

My enjoyment, being personal, is not one I can say all should share. I know what I wanted, I got it, and at best I can say “you might like this if you’re in the same mood.”  My opinion is not universal or a sign of a great truth, it’s a sign of a personal experience and perhaps a momentary lapse in taste.

(Also, if you do try it, the show kept some very dated stuff from the original, from gore to stupid fanservice that will not sit well with people. I question its inclusion, as there’s faithful and too faithful.)

You can see how if, like many, I felt my opinions were some universal truth, there would be an argument. It would also be a pointless argument because I am expressing something that only exists inside my head.

Now, let’s discuss Netflix’s remake of “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” which I’ve analyzed before. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but also part of that was how well crafted it was. The worldbuilding used the original ideas for parts – which I appreciated as I write on worldbuilding. The well-crafted episodes moved at a breezy pace, keeping me enthralled. It was all tied together with an excellent cast that got into their characters. I could discuss the surprising virtues of this show as universal values  – but note that my personal experiences were the gateway.

I achieve two things by expressing the universal virtues of “He-Man” through my experience. Because I express the universal virtues (worldbuilding, pacing, etc.) in a personal way, they are more understandable to people. Secondly, by expressing how such virtues appeal to me personally, I lower the chance of making it sound like I’m being too authoritative.

Some our “media battles” come from two sources. One is the people declaring their personal experiences to be universally valid. The second is people attempting to express universal values, and not epressing the personal connections that help people grasp them.

Steven Savage