Calmly explain why that sort of behavior is inappropriate and request an apology.

My step mother was a merchandiser for American Greetings back in the 80’s and 90’s. I was the Easter bunny at a promotional event once.

That suit was a torture chamber. A fluffy iron maiden. The inside smelled of people desperate for air that was not fetid with their own evaporated sweat.

But, a bunch of cheerleaders from my school sat on my lap… Seventeen year old me consider that an even exchange.

I have a bunch too, but the collection started by accident.

I lie Godzilla. I like the old movies, I like the new ones. He’s a giant radioactive lizard, what’s not to like? I’m not a superfan, but I enjoy the franchise(s).

I’m supposedly hard to buy for, I think mostly because my interests lie outside the rest of the my family’s to an extent, and tend to be niche or technical in nature, so I get Godzilla swag and toys for Xmas and birthdays. I don’t mind, it’s fun.

I like to put the phone to my ear like it’s a voice call, then pretend to accidentally hang up, then refuse to answer again, then stop responding to texts.

Some people who are utterly tech ignorant and unwilling to actively parent their children might feel better about handing their kid a device so they don’t have to deal with them.

However, this is primarily the end game of both targeted advertising and those who want wholesale surveillance of the population (who are often the same people). Tying the whole of your online presence to your unique offline identity.

Same.

If I’m going faster than other traffic and already over the limit by a decent amount, I’ll move over once the middle lane is clear, but I’m not speeding up just because you’re impatient.

In fact, I’ll slow down just a wee bit.

I give no fucks.

But, the caveat to that is that I don’t loiter in the passing lane at ten under the limit. It’s the passing lane. I’m there because, you know, I’m passing people and not because I think I need to do 95 mph in a lifted truck just to assert my dominance over the morning commute.

I recall reading an anecdote from a track and field coach who said his discus throwers got better performance when he asked them to throw about 70% as hard as they could on a full strength throw. I wonder how that would fit into this model, because rather than probability, it’s more about not letting your brain get in it’s own way when executing a technique.

As a philosophical stance, I feel humans should use tools, not the other way around. AI is a tool that uses those who attempt to use it.

AI “art” as most people understand it perverts the natural relationship between artist and medium. It inverts it, using the human to give it the one thing it cannot generate, an idea, then produces an approximation of “art”. A satisfying result with an AI generated image demonstrates a lack of vision on the part the of the user, they were likely never really clear on what they wanted, not the power of the generative model.

Asking AI for answers or to give an overview of a subject seems harmless, but it can’t be trusted to understand the unique context and needs of each user or to highlight what details are truly pertinent in that place or time. Again, it inverts the relationship between human and information, even if what has been generated is factually correct. It over-simplifies relationships and concepts in ways that are dangerous when nuance has been systematically stripped from public discourse for the last few decades. We need information to decide how to act in a given context, AI seems to attempt to change our understanding of that context to match the information it provides.

It’s necessary to accept that you don’t have complete control over the world around around you, but that doesn’t mean we should accept a lack of control over our own understanding of that world.