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Same as it ever was.

In The Grundrisse, Marx writes: “once adopted into the production process of capital, … labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is … an automatic system of machinery … set in motion by an automaton so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages.”

The process of history that Marx explains here and elsewhere clarifies that automation (in any form) is not a dehumanizing force in itself.

Dehumanization results from capitalism, and the final form of that dehumanization is automation. Capitalism's first step is always to treat the workers as machines until they can invent machines to do it even more mechanically.

Across history and across industries, we eventually get a system where workers no longer use tools to do work, but vast new systems of machines use workers as their appendages.

(This is true whether we're talking humans relegating to being servants of an assembly line, artists getting crushed under the wheels of an industrial art-making system like Hollywood, or AI companies stealing your images as fodder for computerized image generation.)

David Harvey puts it this way: “Instead of technology leading the transition from feudalism into capitalism, the technology is the final moment where capital actually comes to be itself.”

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To understand what's going on here, know these things:

OpenAI is the company that makes ChatGPT

A spider is a kind of bot that autonomously crawls the web and sucks up web pages

robots.txt is a standard text file that most web sites use to inform spiders whether or not they have permission to crawl the site; basically a No Trespassing sign for robots

OpenAI's spider is ignoring robots.txt (very rude!)

the web.sp.am site is a research honeypot created to trap ill-behaved spiders, consisting of billions of nonsense garbage pages that look like real content to a dumb robot

OpenAI is training its newest ChatGPT model using this incredibly lame content, having consumed over 3 million pages and counting...

It's absurd and horrifying at the same time.

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A further exploration of the readymade in art, 10 images.

A follow-up to this post, this post, and this post, featuring:

Antonio Muntadas, Transfer, 1975 (a video readymade, prompted by a shipping error; see text from VDB above) Ceal Floyer, Secret, 2009 Pedro Reyes, Disarm (Harmonica), 2017, recycled metal, 15x21x3 cm Daniel Spoerri, Multiplicateur d'Art (Spiegelobjekt), 1964, collage of object glued to mirrors, 51x100cm Claire Fontaine, 371 Grand (The keys open the Reena Spaulings gallery), 2006, 5 metal keys and wire, 3x1in Marcel Broodthaers, Lampe Bleu et Chaise, 1969, lamp, bulb, reflector, chair, black paper, dimensions variable Chris Burden, Porsche with Meteorite, 2013 Nina Canell, A Model Where Things Merge, 2011 Tom Burr, A Conversation, 2013 Maya Lin, Toy Asteroids: Boys v. Girls, 2009

For more notable artworks linked by a common theme, click here.

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Notable examples of text in art, episode 22.

Featuring:

Reginald Marsh, Tattoo and Haircut, 1932, egg tempera on masonite, 46x48 in Joan Brown, The Journey #1, 1976 Mark Bradford, Rat Catcher of Hamelin III, 2011, mixed media on canvas, 120x126in Aboudia, Quitte le pouvoir, 2011 Charles Burchfield, Circus Poster, 1917 Mary Cassatt, Portrait of a Lady Reading Le Figaro, 1878 James Boswell, Street Scene, ca. 1946 William Christenberry, Alabama Wall I, 1985 Marcel Duchamp, 50 ccs of Paris Air, 1919 Norman Rockwell, Which One? (Undecided, Man in Voting Booth), 1944, oil on canvas, 37x29in

For more examples of text in art, click here.

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I Just Work Here (Leon S. Gold, 1965) [YFqL6Yi0RTA]

Thanks to the A/V Geeks for this elegant fable about a lot of things:

communication,

putting yourself in the other person's shoes,

how necessary it is for proper communication (in any context) to imagine how what you're saying is being perceived by the other person,

philosophies of customer service and what sort of social context they presuppose or agree on (especially with regards to class),

but most importantly:

The many ways in which rigid rule-bound systems -- like corporate policy, the law, the filing structure of a database, or the limits of computer operating power -- always clash or at least come into substantial friction with human needs, human flourishing, and how humans naturally approach the world.

No doubt, these non-human structures placed around thought and behavior grow out of the production and profit models of capitalism. This film doesn't seem to notice that living within those rigid systems naturally inclines toward miscommunication, inflexibility, acrimony, and other symptoms of alienation, but it certainly identifies the feelings of helplessness and resignation ("I'm just a cog in the machine," or "I just work here")

In 1965, it's fascinating to see that already these anxieties had surfaced in the sphere of even ephemeral films. Desk Set (1957) is a lovely little romance with a fictional computer at its center, but if I were ever to get into the history of human-computer interaction, AI, or the database again, I think I'd want this little short in my back pocket.

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The origin of the word Dollar:

"Jáchymov (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjaːxɪmof]; German: Sankt Joachimsthal or Joachimsthal) is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,400 inhabitants."

Jáchymov ->

written in German as Joachimstal ->

(the "tal" part at the end means "valley" (just like Neandertal)) ->

When the silver mines opened in "Joachimstal" in 1516, they soon started minting coins called "Joachimstalers" ->

(here the "er" at the end refers to something being from somewhere, like a "Berliner" referring either to a person from Berlin, or in this special case a breakfast pastry from Berlin) ->

Joachimstaler, the name of the silver coin from Joachimstal, was shortened to "Taler" ->

And that was respelled to "Dollar."

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Here's a fascinating short piece on a forgotten person from my hometown.

"Parker’s first professionally published poem was “Hope” which appeared in a Chicago literary journal circa 1898.  The publication of the poem was the result of a contest held by the journal.  Over forty individuals, all of whom were white, submitted entries.  After the publication of “Hope”, Parker was contacted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and asked write verses for publication.  In 1899, five of Parker’s poems were published in the newspaper. "

....

"After 1910, mentions of Parker and her writings in national publication virtually vanish.  In 1910, she is listed in the federal census as living with her mother and earning money through elocution recitals. By 1920, she is still living with her mother at Fourth and Cedar Streets.  At the time, Harold Griggs was boarding with the Parkers.  Within a few years, Griggs and Parker were married.  Harold worked as a janitor and Inez is continually listed as doing “house work” after their marriage.  After the death of her mother in 1929, the Griggs continued to live at Forth and Cedar Street until the death of Inez on December 20, 1950."

I jog past that spot from time to time. There's no plaque. I never knew.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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Peace.