#I'm not a machine that pumps out art when commanded

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvoktober Day 11: Tuvok, nearly full term (in his mother's stomach) [Patreon | Commissions]

[thegeminisage]

ohhhh it's tng update time. i have a lot to catch up on. wednesday we did "ensign ro" and "silicon avatar" and last night we did "disaster" and "the game."

a brief interruption to amend an error on my previous tng liveblog concerning the episode "redemption." i did NOT mention the part where data got his own command and the first officer was racist to him about it. my brain was so numbed by klingon happenings - and again, they're fine episodes, it was MYYY fault for watching both of those episodes at once AND the second one with a bad connection (we had to reconnect like 1000000 times), but due to this i did straight up forget about data's role here. my thoughts are: this could and should have been the a plot of an entire episode, not the b plot of worf's episode. this late in the game, you kind of run the risk of data's big episodes becoming too same-y - that usually what happens is that someone is misguided or prejudiced in their beliefs about him and are in the end proven wrong - but i think the first command is different enough to be distinct. data building genuine trust with his actions and not his words would have been really fun!! especially if he models his captaining like he does his art - by picking bits and pieces of his real-life examples, like riker & picard. it's a shame they wasted this on a b-plot :(

ANYWAY.

ensign ro: i have to admit i wasnt sure about my girl ro at first. i absolutely support her cause and her beliefs but there was one part where. and i dont remember specifics because this was on wednesday. they like asked her to do something and she didn't and i support her but GIRL if you fuck around and dont do your job they will send you back to space jail. so i was worried that she was stupid in like the literal sense

fortunately she fucking RULES. i liked the part where bev and deanna were like can we sit down :D and she was like no <3 and they had to leave. but i also liked guinan getting through to her and becoming her friend too. i think ro should kiss some women about it (more on this later)

i was kind of bummed riker wasnt the one to let her put her earring back on since he was the dick who made her take it off, but at least she did get to put it back on. i was soooo mad when he made her remove it

LOVE to find out more about the cardassians. i'm excited for that freaky guy and the dr he wants to fuck in ds9, this feels like a real prelude moment

also, love the barber in this episode. in a world where they no longer have to even cook food, haircutting is miraculously still done by hand

silicon avatar: i had a lot of mixed feelings about/issues with this one initially but the ending ultimately took it into watchable territory on account of it popping the fuck off

biggest issue is that they basically retconned the hell out of the first episode this crystal monster was in (the iconic datalore aka "ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE KIND OF DEATH YOU'VE EARNED LITTLE MAN")

in that ep lore was DEFINITELY able to communicate with it without all the drama and he also communicated enough with it to be like "hey, if you don't eat me, i can show you where lots of edible people are" which solves the question of it's intelligent and whether or not it understands it's eating people. the fact that were uwu woobifying this giant people eating death machine is hilarious but also it stretches my suspension of disbelief way too far. like, get outta here.

second biggest issue was the emotional whiplash from this old lady. first she's racist to data and then she wants to butter him up for therapy reasons and finally she's delusional enough to believe her dead son is in there. i actually did like her arc and the idea that she did something monstrous, but it felt like we had too many things crammed in there...again, i love data and i love when data gets big episodes and moments but i wish we could pump the brakes a little with EVERYONE who meets him being anti android or whatever. even the episode where he gets a gf was a welcome change despite it not being very good because it wasn't just more people having doubts because data is an android. and if I'M tired of it, imagine how HE feels. geez. there was no point in having her start from a place of hostility when it didn't go anywhere and actually i probably would have been more tricked into believing she was normal if she HADN'T come at data like that

THAT SAID, the core story of "i will murder this sentient life form because it killed my son even knowing he would hate me for it" is actually metal as fuck. i really liked it. and i think it was sneaky and clever to have her basically ask to use data as a tape recorder before she fully fell off the deep end because who wouldn't want to hear a recording of a deceased loved one? but it's when she asks again, and basically asks data to roleplay him, that you realize her grief is making her bonkers - or that being around data is bringing too much stuff up.

anyway issues aside the end really fucked. she was like data absolve me of the murder i just committed in my dead son's name and he was like sorry queen i can't! and then they just rolled credits. bonkers.

also, can we pour one out for riker? he got uh. i mean he had all of that going on with beverly like just a handful of episodes ago and i was SOOO hoping he was gonna get laid but instead he got. trauma :(

disaster: i LOVED this one. i loved that it paired characters we don't normally see together - like geordi and beverly for instance - and i loved that quite literally everyone got to get up to batshit insane shenanigans at the same time. picard has to learn to interact with the world's most adorable children. deanna is captain of the starship and she should kiss ro about it. geordi and beverly are gonna open the cargo bay to space some radioactive barrels and while they're holding onto a metal ladder with their BARE HANDS. riker is carrying DATA'S DETACHED HEAD around the crawlspaces and meanwhile in ten forward worf is delivering a fucking baby

side bar which uh exit do we think klingon babies come out of. like if they've got two of everything does the baby just pick one or do they have two whole wombs too...do you think klingons are like "oh most of us come out of the right side but watch out for that guy he's fucked in the head i think he came out of his mom's left vagina" i think that'd be hilarious

anyway worf did a great job.

also pleased with the kids this ep...normally star trek kids aren't uh. great. like they're annoying or weird or just not great actors because, you know, kids. but all 3 of those kids had distinct personalities and they were all extremely charming. absolutely masterful casting. they were so fucking cute

idk why but when deanna became enterprise captain she immediately looked 10x hotter and gayer. her disagreements with ro were FRAUGHT with sexual tension. THEY SHOULD KISS.

that said my one true pairing for tng is always gonna be riker e worf e deanna. hands down best moment for these three so far was when riker was like you just cant stay away from the big chair can you ;) and she was like oh im not cut out to be a captain but maybe i could be first officer since i HEAR there aren't many qualifications and worf gives riker this incredulous double-take like "are you gonna let her get away with that" and he's grinning like oh yeah he's Gonna. there truly is such a horrific lack of sexual/romantic energy in this show but whenever deanna and riker start flirting we finally get fed

the game: MY BABY BOY WESLEY IS BACK..........he got tall i MISSED HIM

i loved the opening of this episode. riker seems to have a 50/50 chance these days on whether or not any given encounter with a woman is gonna be an ethical slut moment or a close encounters moment and i am now referring to this phenomenon as riker roulette. is he getting ethically seduced and/or ethically seducing others? or is it....................you know. anyway rip to him for metaphorically bringing an std back to the enterprise from risa

what was this whole thing with deanna eating chocolate also. is all of season 5 gonna be like this? to be clear i'm not complaining. we have a fucking dearth of, sorry, flirty fun and fresh shippy moments for anyone in tng, generally speaking. it's about time they picked up.

my one gripe with this episode is that it is REALLY AWKWARD to have them set this up as "this VR headset is giving people orgasms" and then twice have wesley's mom try and force one on him. like they didn't say orgasms but the subtitles kept going "pleasured gasp" so idk what i was supposed to think those headsets were doing. like i get this was probably unintentional on their part but i still hated it

also it sucks that wesley got to have a little tea break with picard but didn't have time to hang out with his mom...she was barely in his departure episode, too. the writers clearly prioritize his relationship with picard BECAUSE WESLEY IS THEIR AFFAIR BABY! i will die on this hill. those guys fucked and had a baby and got embarrassed abuot it and now wesley doesn't know he's going to inherit male pattern baldness

okay. that concludes this tng update. normally this is the part where i say, "next, we are doing..." and then i list the episodes. i want to take an extra moment to bring added attention to it this time because this time we are doing two VERY. SPECIAL. EPISODES.

NEXT: UNIFICATION PART I AND PART II

NEXT: SPOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rarilee33]

On automation- thoughts

20/6/23

(Okay this is not Moral Orel related (sorry) BUT it is art related, kinda, and I'm sorry if it seems messy).

I have been thinking about the core problems with increasing automation and the advent of ai/machine learning 'creations' (as in ai generated so-called 'art') that lead back to the problems with capitalism and the way our society functions, dysfunctionally.

If you've read anything from the anarchist library (anarchistlibrary.org), you may have read "Abolish Restaurants" which is a great essay detailing the history of restaurants and why its form and methodology are flawed at the core.

Anyway there is a passage on automation in this essay that I think is relevant to the discourse around AI and the replacement of creative human output with fed computer generation and the like. It's not exactly the same but I think it should be brought up as a point. "Machines are not used to make our jobs easier. They are used as a way to increase the amount of product a particular worker can pump out in a given amount of time... machines replace human tasks. They become just another link the chain of tasks. We don't have less work to do. We just have to do a smaller range of tasks, more often" (Abolish Restaurants). The described chain of command here highlights the problem with the restaurant model and automation. Particularly the bolded phrases indicate the similar issues with machine domination as in AI generation in lieu of human expression. The issue with all of this is nothing fundementally changes for society. Technology as a concept is neither progressive nor regressive, but the way it's formed, how it is used and who uses it for what means, is. In his essay, "Forcing Marx into the Automation Debate", Eric Fleischmann relates MIT professor Norbert Weiner's words about automation from his book The Human Use of Human Beings. Weiner wrote “that such machines, though helpless by themselves, may be used by a human being or a block of human beings to increase their control over the rest of the human race” (Fleischmann).

What does this have to do with the use of ai? Well, the way machine learning and automation in general has been utilised on a large scale does not do anything radical for society or especially for reduction of people's labour. This disparity is despite the way this particular field of technology might be framed as being 'new' and 'exciting' and even 'revolutionary', as 'game changers'. I am absolutely not saying that every use of machine learning/ automation is the same because they are not- that would be a mischaracterisation. BUT in relation to the discourse over the many problems with popular ai content generation, and with means of automation in the workplace, there is much space to critique and re-imagine.

At the core, the way automation is implemented only enforces a hierarchy/chain of command in which the few have power over the many. And it all comes back to prioritisation of capital procurement over considerations for people. That goal is at heavy odds with progress and getting out of this static hell in which we are marching through late-stage capitalism.

In their essay "When the Robots Fire Us", the Federation of Anarchists in Bulgaria wrote, "Technological progress gives us opportunities to work less and less, and to create more. Instead of this, however, the need to sell ourselves on the “labor market” threatens to ruin us. The only decision is to remove this market, the removal of ownership over our natural resources, technologies and robots, distribution of resources based on the needs of the people. We are valuable because we are people, not because we work. Only then will we be secure in our futures. We will surpass the monotony of work, the repetitiveness of every day, and the shorter days with more creativity".

I wanted to include this quote because it speaks to a future without the labour market and essentially without prioritisation of capital, wherein the means of production- that is, how goods are produced, and who does the work- must change from the current form(s) to realize a radical potential that benefits everyone. In this imaginary we can create without the oppressive and regressive capitalist systems looming overhead.

TL;DR: Automation and AI machine learning pretend to be radical when they aren't and only serve the status quo

essays referenced:

Abolish Restaurants; Forcing Marx into the Automation Debate ; When the Robots Fire Us

There's much more I could say on this topic but I don't want to go on much longer here. Back to the usual art posting next time, I just wanted to get this out. I apologise if it's a bit all about the place.