Hi Carole, thank you for your inspirational bravery throughout all this madness. After trump won I signed back up to the Guardian Weekly in an effort to support independent journalism, however the more you tell us about GMG and the Scott Trust the more I feel I am backing the wrong side. What do you think, should I/we switch my/our allegiance from the Guardian? And more broadly are you and your colleagues considering leaving to set up your own media outlet which is run by journalists rather than corporate shills?
Until Americans understand that there is nothing these fascist misfit dweebs have that we need, we’re sunk. They’ve made billions on NOTHING that’s worth any value. None of it is actually necessary. Sometimes it’s been fun, but how about now? Now they’re beating us to death with wads of our own cash. It’s time for people to wake up, but I don’t have much faith in Americans anymore. My only hope, ironically, is that the MAGA loyal voters finally see they’ve been duped.
You do realise that Musk is not elected, right? And he's lready been interfering in UK politics in several different ways. You realise that Farage has been kissing up to Trump ever since 2016 and probably before? Farage, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, architects of Brexit, were the first international visitors to Trump Tower after the 2016 election. Johnson too wanted to BE Trump. He was such a fanboy. The British voted him in by a landslide, they couldn't get enough of him. 20% of this year's general election vote went to Farage's Reform party - which Musk wants to make illegal donations to, to help it grow. Farage's maiden speech in Parliament, after all these years, was to threaten that he was 'coming for Labour'; Trump's guys are going to help him, and it was Britain's guys who voted him into Parliament in the first place.
Most Americans are upset with the situation. Less than half the electorate voted for Trump; in fact, over a third of it stayed away from the polls (shamefully, I know, but they don't vote here either). We are next in line. This is NOT just about 'Americans'. And it's why it matters so very much what Starmer does.
"Musk . . . . illegal donations . . " My optimisim died a little bit more, when Badenoch, in interview, was asked about the Musk threat of a $100m donation to Reform. No mention of it being illegal or we'll strengthen the legislation to stop it, just, "We have to up our game."
Politician's subtext; we are all owned and the new "owners" can and do influence the voters, or enough of them to make the winning difference.
I didn’t read anything Carole wrote as being just about Americans. Where did this come from? The boycott? That is how you hold people accountable for change.
If Maga somehow wakes up and turns on Trump, we could finally build some real class consciousness in this country. He's already turned his backs on the them in favor of the rich. Been waiting a decade for that to happen though, hard to be optimistic any longer.
I have not renewed my Guardian subscription as a protest to the lack of transparency demonstrated by the them in recent times. Transparency was the very value that I subscribed to them in the first place. I always felt assured I was getting the real story. No longer. I'll be using that money to upgrade my subscriptions to a number of independent journos who will keep these cosy broligarchy relationships in check.
Ditto. I have just stopped my subscription, like you because of lack of transparency. And like you, I will be subscribing and supporting independent journalists elsewhere. I rang up and told the Guardian why I was stopping my subscription after many years. I'm not the only one.
Normally I respond to Carole's work with positive feedback on the great stuff she has written. But maybe it's time to offer something more in return? This is a cautionary Facebook tale regarding what has gone before.
Used to run my own company in the market intelligence industry. Business to business supplying of information and data. Loved what I did. Back in the later 2000s, Facebook had hundreds of millions of users. It was collecting data on all of us, and sometimes even asking us for our opinions on things in short questionnaires, often just one question. What I realised was that they had the extraordinary global reach to quietly capture information pretty much for free from an immense and willing (or often unknowing) audience on just about anything. Politics. Commerce. Whatever. I wouldn't be able to compete in the long-run, so there was little sense me carrying on with my business. At some point, our industry would be forced to shift from denial to acceptance regarding what was happening and it would be curtains for many. So it was. Some survived, mostly by shifting their business models to do so. Put simply, I moved early from numbers to words.
Not just Facebook, other tech giants like Google properly moved into big data. A second wave is now in overdrive, this time fuelled through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, with many more tech giants involved. Many more companies in many more industries are in peril - no one is genuinely coming to save them and nothing will protect them. There will be some benefits, like through machine learning in the medical sector. But from an economic perspective, the "Ai will create more jobs than it destroys" mantra is a false narrative and deflection BS.
The creative sectors continue to take a hammering, and we know it. But far beyond this industry it will be a wipeout with no remorse for the many casualties, and no regard for the macroeconomic fallout.
Many of us will have to find alternative ways to exist as contributors to society. My one clearest piece of advice is: adapt and adapt early.
This will end in a neo-Luddite movement with actual machines being smashed. There is no other long term outcome short of mass enslavement that can come of such thinking, that one’s fellow human beings are no more than decimal points to be moved for one’s own gratification. The wealth accumulated goes so clearly beyond conceivable need that pure hubris is the only explanation. At everyone else’s expense. Machines will break or people will.
Well that hit the nail on the head. Great piece. Scary to note I can't trust that you wrote it. But that is the way the world goes, to quote Elliot, not with a bang but a whimper. The only thing we have ever really been able to trust is our deep feelings. And mine are screaming. Thanks for all that.
While I agree with you in principle, these tech giants have arranged it in such a way as one cannot go though daily life, work etc without using e.g. Google or Amazon in both obvious and unseen ways. I'm typing to you on a device with Google's software with data stored in Amazon's data cloud.
Yes, now I realize that people with lives might have problems. I never trusted Cloud so don't have that. I use "Brave" search engine now. I dropped my Amazon Prime and try to just shop locally or order directly from companies. This will save $$. Switched to Bluesky. I use Microsoft Edge browser--I like it's "read aloud" feature. Insignificant acts of rebellion, I know.
"The spirals are tightening", to quote a good friend of a good friend about 15 years ago. Perhaps we are now seeing tightening spirals within tightening spirals, to extend what she said? I write satire, and I can't write it much funnier, or indeed darker, than AI Carole writing in the style of IRL Carole about public trust in journalism being eroded by AI's writing headlines while Guardian & Observer journalists were on strike. If I'm honest, I think IRL Carole is lovely, but AI Carole scares me even though (and possibly because) she sounds just as lovely.
This stuff is getting so f***ing grim and from today, for obvious reasons, will getmuchworse. I’m tempted to withdraw from the fray altogether, become a hermit and read Austen for the rest of my life.
Thank you, Carole, for your devastatingly worrying piece about AI and Starmer’s criminally ignorant stance on copyright. I signed up for Paid immediately.
Of course no one I respect wants the Tories back, but who could have imagined that this government could be so profoundly ignorant about virtually every single policy area that matters. The lack of preparedness for government, of intellectual grip, and any sense of dedication first and foremost to liberal democracy is truly shocking.
Very interesting reference, Carole, for this particle historic footnote in time period. Why Richlieu? Why did your mind think of Richlieu:
“Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man,” said Cardinal Richlieu a long time before Hillary Clinton was born. “And I will find something in them which will hang him.”
It is typed in a genealogy journal, wrongheadedly, in so many different ways, “We think this line did not survive.” Richlieu way back then, then “friends in New Orleans” a couple more exiles over the pond, made sure, yes, we survived. I at this point however am beyond tired while still shy of sixty.
He is one of the reasons I can type today as I did a couple or so years ago, “I am a firm believer of the Third Amendment.” Billeting and quartering well predates fascism as Richlieu would know. Then it happened to us again, in the church, in our homes, in Nova Scotia. My generational grandfather was eight years old in the warehouses in Bristol.
He relates to my ancestors, helped get our lines to Nova Scotia, least we be no more due to the propaganda due of the inquisitional terror racket going on at that time.
Hi Carole, thank you for your inspirational bravery throughout all this madness. After trump won I signed back up to the Guardian Weekly in an effort to support independent journalism, however the more you tell us about GMG and the Scott Trust the more I feel I am backing the wrong side. What do you think, should I/we switch my/our allegiance from the Guardian? And more broadly are you and your colleagues considering leaving to set up your own media outlet which is run by journalists rather than corporate shills?
Sadly, Tortoise was saying it was just that...
Until Americans understand that there is nothing these fascist misfit dweebs have that we need, we’re sunk. They’ve made billions on NOTHING that’s worth any value. None of it is actually necessary. Sometimes it’s been fun, but how about now? Now they’re beating us to death with wads of our own cash. It’s time for people to wake up, but I don’t have much faith in Americans anymore. My only hope, ironically, is that the MAGA loyal voters finally see they’ve been duped.
You do realise that Musk is not elected, right? And he's lready been interfering in UK politics in several different ways. You realise that Farage has been kissing up to Trump ever since 2016 and probably before? Farage, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, architects of Brexit, were the first international visitors to Trump Tower after the 2016 election. Johnson too wanted to BE Trump. He was such a fanboy. The British voted him in by a landslide, they couldn't get enough of him. 20% of this year's general election vote went to Farage's Reform party - which Musk wants to make illegal donations to, to help it grow. Farage's maiden speech in Parliament, after all these years, was to threaten that he was 'coming for Labour'; Trump's guys are going to help him, and it was Britain's guys who voted him into Parliament in the first place.
Most Americans are upset with the situation. Less than half the electorate voted for Trump; in fact, over a third of it stayed away from the polls (shamefully, I know, but they don't vote here either). We are next in line. This is NOT just about 'Americans'. And it's why it matters so very much what Starmer does.
"Musk . . . . illegal donations . . " My optimisim died a little bit more, when Badenoch, in interview, was asked about the Musk threat of a $100m donation to Reform. No mention of it being illegal or we'll strengthen the legislation to stop it, just, "We have to up our game."
Politician's subtext; we are all owned and the new "owners" can and do influence the voters, or enough of them to make the winning difference.
I didn’t read anything Carole wrote as being just about Americans. Where did this come from? The boycott? That is how you hold people accountable for change.
If Maga somehow wakes up and turns on Trump, we could finally build some real class consciousness in this country. He's already turned his backs on the them in favor of the rich. Been waiting a decade for that to happen though, hard to be optimistic any longer.
I have not renewed my Guardian subscription as a protest to the lack of transparency demonstrated by the them in recent times. Transparency was the very value that I subscribed to them in the first place. I always felt assured I was getting the real story. No longer. I'll be using that money to upgrade my subscriptions to a number of independent journos who will keep these cosy broligarchy relationships in check.
Ditto. I have just stopped my subscription, like you because of lack of transparency. And like you, I will be subscribing and supporting independent journalists elsewhere. I rang up and told the Guardian why I was stopping my subscription after many years. I'm not the only one.
Normally I respond to Carole's work with positive feedback on the great stuff she has written. But maybe it's time to offer something more in return? This is a cautionary Facebook tale regarding what has gone before.
Used to run my own company in the market intelligence industry. Business to business supplying of information and data. Loved what I did. Back in the later 2000s, Facebook had hundreds of millions of users. It was collecting data on all of us, and sometimes even asking us for our opinions on things in short questionnaires, often just one question. What I realised was that they had the extraordinary global reach to quietly capture information pretty much for free from an immense and willing (or often unknowing) audience on just about anything. Politics. Commerce. Whatever. I wouldn't be able to compete in the long-run, so there was little sense me carrying on with my business. At some point, our industry would be forced to shift from denial to acceptance regarding what was happening and it would be curtains for many. So it was. Some survived, mostly by shifting their business models to do so. Put simply, I moved early from numbers to words.
Not just Facebook, other tech giants like Google properly moved into big data. A second wave is now in overdrive, this time fuelled through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, with many more tech giants involved. Many more companies in many more industries are in peril - no one is genuinely coming to save them and nothing will protect them. There will be some benefits, like through machine learning in the medical sector. But from an economic perspective, the "Ai will create more jobs than it destroys" mantra is a false narrative and deflection BS.
The creative sectors continue to take a hammering, and we know it. But far beyond this industry it will be a wipeout with no remorse for the many casualties, and no regard for the macroeconomic fallout.
Many of us will have to find alternative ways to exist as contributors to society. My one clearest piece of advice is: adapt and adapt early.
This will end in a neo-Luddite movement with actual machines being smashed. There is no other long term outcome short of mass enslavement that can come of such thinking, that one’s fellow human beings are no more than decimal points to be moved for one’s own gratification. The wealth accumulated goes so clearly beyond conceivable need that pure hubris is the only explanation. At everyone else’s expense. Machines will break or people will.
Well that hit the nail on the head. Great piece. Scary to note I can't trust that you wrote it. But that is the way the world goes, to quote Elliot, not with a bang but a whimper. The only thing we have ever really been able to trust is our deep feelings. And mine are screaming. Thanks for all that.
Like in the 2073 ‘warning’ that I purchased and watched last night.
It’s a sad day when Pornhub seems to have a more ethical policy towards AI fakery than The Guardian
As individuals we can boycott Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Tesla, and all the “bought” newspapers. It’s not even a sacrifice. You will see.
While I agree with you in principle, these tech giants have arranged it in such a way as one cannot go though daily life, work etc without using e.g. Google or Amazon in both obvious and unseen ways. I'm typing to you on a device with Google's software with data stored in Amazon's data cloud.
Yes, now I realize that people with lives might have problems. I never trusted Cloud so don't have that. I use "Brave" search engine now. I dropped my Amazon Prime and try to just shop locally or order directly from companies. This will save $$. Switched to Bluesky. I use Microsoft Edge browser--I like it's "read aloud" feature. Insignificant acts of rebellion, I know.
Good time to tax them.
"The spirals are tightening", to quote a good friend of a good friend about 15 years ago. Perhaps we are now seeing tightening spirals within tightening spirals, to extend what she said? I write satire, and I can't write it much funnier, or indeed darker, than AI Carole writing in the style of IRL Carole about public trust in journalism being eroded by AI's writing headlines while Guardian & Observer journalists were on strike. If I'm honest, I think IRL Carole is lovely, but AI Carole scares me even though (and possibly because) she sounds just as lovely.
This stuff is getting so f***ing grim and from today, for obvious reasons, will getmuchworse. I’m tempted to withdraw from the fray altogether, become a hermit and read Austen for the rest of my life.
Thank you for this piece. It has articulated a feeling/emotion about AI I’ve had for some time now.
Thank you, Carole, for your devastatingly worrying piece about AI and Starmer’s criminally ignorant stance on copyright. I signed up for Paid immediately.
Of course no one I respect wants the Tories back, but who could have imagined that this government could be so profoundly ignorant about virtually every single policy area that matters. The lack of preparedness for government, of intellectual grip, and any sense of dedication first and foremost to liberal democracy is truly shocking.
I would be embarrassed to be in such company.
Trump to sign executive order to rename Gulf of Mexico, Denali https://l.smartnews.com/p-igVCNCP/fHwG1n
Senile men do senile things……
Very interesting reference, Carole, for this particle historic footnote in time period. Why Richlieu? Why did your mind think of Richlieu:
“Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man,” said Cardinal Richlieu a long time before Hillary Clinton was born. “And I will find something in them which will hang him.”
It is typed in a genealogy journal, wrongheadedly, in so many different ways, “We think this line did not survive.” Richlieu way back then, then “friends in New Orleans” a couple more exiles over the pond, made sure, yes, we survived. I at this point however am beyond tired while still shy of sixty.
He is one of the reasons I can type today as I did a couple or so years ago, “I am a firm believer of the Third Amendment.” Billeting and quartering well predates fascism as Richlieu would know. Then it happened to us again, in the church, in our homes, in Nova Scotia. My generational grandfather was eight years old in the warehouses in Bristol.
He relates to my ancestors, helped get our lines to Nova Scotia, least we be no more due to the propaganda due of the inquisitional terror racket going on at that time.