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8/10/25 - some thoughts about AI

I totally forgot to update my CSS for this page yesterday so the font was white on the white background...lmao.

I've had some thoughts brewing about AI for a minute that I felt like writing a blog post about. It would be easy to just write "AI bad." and end my paragraph element at that, but there's layers to it. Let's have some fun and start with some negatives.

Negatives

1. Sloppification - it seems like every week, I see more AI videos on YouTube, more AI comments on Reddit etc. It's already taking a dump in the public square, and there was already enough noise on the internet prior to it.

2. Dumbing down everything - if I don't make myself think, I lose some of my capabilities to do so. When I can get an 80% good answer from AI, it reflexively becomes VERY easy to rely on it. Imagine the generational impact of this happening to so many people.

3. The greatest theft in human history - how the fuck can these companies just scrape training data from everywhere under the pretense of fair use? LLMs are built on the backs of humans that actually did the fucking work. I can't understand why there haven't been limits imposed or more successful lawsuits in this regard. The governments don't seem to give a shit as they benefit from it. Grok proclaimed itself "Mechahitler" and next week had a $500 million contract with the Pentagon. Try that for your next job interview and see how it goes.

4. It's already displacing jobs, even if LLMs aren't the final form. We are not seeing anyone give a shit about how the economy will shift and where people should be working instead.

5. The environmental impact. This MIT article touches on some of it, but yeah it's shit.

6. This might be petty, but anyone calling themselves an artist that uses AI generated content. I don't mean people just having fun with it, that's whatever. Specifically songs and pictures though - it's no different from telling a painter or musician "hey make this" - they are the artist. Period. Some people really struggle with this.

7. Governments using it for even more insane tracking and profiling of everyone.

There's probably more. This isn't meant to be exhaustive.

Pros / things to consider

1. On a world level, it's impossible to stop countries from pursuing AI. To not do it would be ceding power to the ones that are willing to do it.

2. On a personal level, it makes my job a LOT easier sometimes. I work across a lot of different tech stacks and it saves me a lot of time and headache. Why would I not shave HOURS of work and stress off my day? Don't get me wrong - as I mentioned above, it's super important to still actually use my brain, but that doesn't have to come from my day job exclusively. So how could I judge anyone that uses it for work to make their lives easier?


Personally I feel like using AI on personal stuff just sucks the joy out of it. I have fun digging in the CSS and HTML structure of my site. Writing my blog posts. If I have it spit out an immaculate site, what is the fun in that? Like anything, I prefer the journey over the destination.

Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag on this and I wish it weren't. AI is running rampant and these companies aren't being put in check as we're buckled into this shitty ride. That being said, I refuse to put my head in the sand and be ignorant about it just for the sake of moral high ground / trying to flex to look cool or something. This is a systemic issue and about all I can do is try to raise awareness for responsible usage / cultivating real shit on the indie web.

I'm sure there's some stuff I didn't cover, again - just my general thoughts about the situation. Comments would be interesting on this if I used a blog post provider or w/e. Oh well.

8/9/25 - new name, who dis

This is the artist formerly known as DJDOG. I felt like making a new name, so I did. Here's why:

So there you have it! I will likely change it again in the future as I try this name for a bit and see how it feels. I also want to do some overhauling on at least the main page layout for more minimalism / something different. It feels good to do something new.

Unrelated to this topic, but related to my previous post: new med was a bust unfortunately. I keep getting this weird chest tightness with these meds so that's been really disappointing. I'm trying my best right now to cope with my ADHD symptoms with a lot of mindfulness and not fighting it before I go through more testing for stims. The chest tightness has been lingering a little too so I want my body to heal more.

I hope you're doing well. Have a great day!


7/16/25 - third time's the charm?

It feels a little weird to get personal on here but I also don't wanna write the same kinda stuff every time I post. So this may be kinda vague but I also like putting things out that may help other people in some way.

I just started my third med for ADHD and it's been way harder than I expected. The first one REALLY helped my symptoms incredibly, but the cardiac side effects were too much. The second one did little to nothing for it and messed up my sleep, so now I'm onto the third..

The first med gave me so much validation I ACTUALLY have it because returning to my base line has been tough. It made me able to get up and take care of chores, stay focused on my work and I could actually sit down and enjoy a game for an hour. Right now, I can't really stand to do anything more than an hour at best, even things I really enjoy along with my short term memory being out of wack. It's difficult to really have a sense of peace or stillness if that makes sense.

But I'm not just trying to vent. This is all new to me and it's worth going through because I don't want to cope with it in unhealthy ways / always be mentally ON thinking about something every second of each day. Be an advocate for yourself and your wellbeing, you deserve it. Also, I didn't wanna put any med names in here because everything is so individual with these drugs. Some stuff works great for some folks, not for others.

Making music has been a great outlet for me (as weird as the stuff I make is) and really helps to cope. If you needed a sign to go do something creative, this is it ;)


7/11/25 - expectations subverted

So my silly noise / experimental music channel on youtube is on track to outpace my old streaming / gaming one, getting much more positive reception (wat).

Which is really funny considering I just put whatever I want on there. The music I make is intentionally selfish and I have fun every time I sit down to make something.

Maybe it's the vibes of it all? Plus there's a million gaming channels on there already, so saturation could be a factor too there.

I'm really digging it though. Trying my best to not care about numbers and just keep having fun making stuff. That's like my whole mission for it, and maybe becoming my mission here. You can just put stuff out for you, for fun. We don't have to make money or be "productive" with our spare time.

I feel like that came a lot more naturally to me as a kid than it does as an adult. Responsibilities, man. Anyways I'm currently obsessing over what groovebox I want. The circuit tracks is looking sick. I think VCV rack would be hard to top on my PC for now, I'm just barely scratching the surface with it.

I hope your 2025 is going well. The real world is in a state right now and these small places on the internet of human interaction and creativity have really been nice to be a part of.

-


noise music


I MADE A GAME


Making indie games


Linux


Enjoying the process


Why's everything gotta be for profit?


Overcoming perfection - aka just post it


I always thought these were funny. You'd always see "under construction" back in the day and the page would literally never get updated again.