1.1 - Don’t Summon the Demon

With all the current concern about AI regulation and lawsuits, especially in regards to copyright, fair use, and disinformation, I find myself immersed in a little time-swapping exercise.

I’ve recently been reading a few books about the early days of tech when it became a part of the wider culture, specifically Masters of Doom (about Carmack and Romero), Hackers, and re-reading Ready Player One and Snowcrash. (irrelevant side note: Not being a gamer, it wasn’t until starting Masters of Doom that I realized just how much Cline made James Halliday a synthesis of the two Johns and their story). They all share a certain hacker ethos and sensibility that feels very foreign in our current culture, especially in regards to how certain people today, especially creatives, builders, and so-called liberals, are trying to create more regulation and generally foment hysteria about this new technology that they say will destroy our culture.

I am speaking, of course, about comic books.

Sorry, I meant video games.

No, not that, I am referring to social media.

Sorry again, what I really meant was the internet itself.

Oh, we already did that?

Okay, it must be time for AI then? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Ha ha, so funny. Seriously, there are always THOSE people, terrified of what will happen when people make their own choices about what they do and how they express themselves. The difference is that before they were always the suits, the politicians, the conservatives trying to stop anything weird so they can “protect the children”.

Not this time. Now, the hall monitors, the protectionists, the statists are the so-called artists and creatives and liberal. The people who once would have fought the very idea that the government and mega-corps should be the ones dictating what tools we use and how we use them. Now they are pushing for more regulation, begging to be controlled. Willingly summoning the demon. I guess the old adage is right, and even the weirdos and punks eventually grow up to become conservatives after all. Sad to see.

Oh, about that time-swapping. In watching all this, it has occurred to me that if we sent all these people back to the 80s and gave them any power, we never would have seen the internet as it evolved in this timeline. There would have been no section 230, social media would have been regulated, and we would probably all still have everything mediated through a government-regulated AOL. And the real chilling realization was that those people, sent back in time with their knowledge of the future, would still have chosen to regulate it and control it, thinking in doing so they would have actually created something better, more pure. They’d call it the “clean internet” or some such nonsense.

So, don’t let these people fool you into thinking they know better. Please look beyond the first order effects, especially if you are a creator or builder. These regulations aren’t meant to protect you, only to control you, to tell you what is acceptable. You may have been told you will be spared, that you are within the circle of protection. But ask yourself: when was the last a story that starts with someone summoning a demon didn’t end with the demon devouring their summoner?