Big oil producers are not the only obstacle to broad agreement at COP28. The U.S. and Europe have historically resisted measures that might hold them liable for the costs of their emissions

Absence of choice is hard to sense, and mechanization’s real innovation is in creating a complacent buyer with reduced expectations.

There is an inevitable argument, of course, that AI tools somehow extend creativity, allowing someone without creative skills to make stories or pictures. That they can help turn anyone into a writer or an artist. This is not the case: using these tools to write a story or make a picture does not make their user a writer or an artist any more than my assembling an IKEA bookshelf makes me a carpenter. The end product will be serviceable, but it won’t be more than that.

What is really being manufactured is us

Big oil producers are not the only obstacle to broad agreement at COP28. The U.S. and Europe have historically resisted measures that might hold them liable for the costs of their emissions

Absence of choice is hard to sense, and mechanization’s real innovation is in creating a complacent buyer with reduced expectations.

There is an inevitable argument, of course, that AI tools somehow extend creativity, allowing someone without creative skills to make stories or pictures. That they can help turn anyone into a writer or an artist. This is not the case: using these tools to write a story or make a picture does not make their user a writer or an artist any more than my assembling an IKEA bookshelf makes me a carpenter. The end product will be serviceable, but it won’t be more than that.

What is really being manufactured is us

a topic less explored is that mechanization also demands a replaceable consumer: a target to be manipulated into purchasing low-quality products they do not need—and that they did not actually want.

The real danger to human creativity that these tools represent is the mechanization of human innovation.