Each year “authenticity” ranks high
On the marketing trend forecasts
In a webinar, I am told that authenticity
Will be more important than ever
In the year of AI / Consumers will want
To know we’re human
In another webinar, we are taught
How to integrate AI into our workflow
The featured speaker says,
“I know a number of you will lose your jobs”
In a sort of #sorrynotsorry way
If our society were oriented toward care
Rather than exploitation
It would be fine for AI to take our jobs
+
None of the webinars discuss the environmental cost of AI
This last Monday was the hottest day on record across the globe
The Washington Post headline reads, “AI is exhausting the power grid”
Decommissioned nuclear reactors are coming back online
There are talks to reopen Three Mile Island
States are beginning to scale back plans on clean energy
And double down on coal
All to power the data centers needed for AI to operate
The tech companies say not to worry
AI could help us find more innovative solutions
To help the environment
After AI destroys the environment
+
AI trains on existing internet text
Within a year, most text on the internet will be written by AI
Which will then be fed into AI
AI eating its own shit
Which will lead to model collapse
And worse and worse results for
Our environmental savior
+
Once I commit to writing a long poem about work
I decide to read a number of books about work
And this too becomes work, thankless and unpaid
And it begins to make me feel worse
And I begin to dread the work of reading about work
+
In the movies Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)
People tend to think the xenomorphs
Are Ripley’s biggest problems
But in both movies, Ripley is fighting
An evil boss and a pervasive corporation
+
The sequel puts this conflict front and center
Paul Reiser’s character Carter Burke
Is the epitome of corporate scum
And pulls a bait and switch on Ripley --
Promising to destroy the aliens
But really planning to bring them back for profit
Saying the facehugger specimens are worth
Billions to the bio-weapons division
He even releases the specimens
Into a room that Ripley and the young girl Newt
Are sleeping in / trapping them
In hopes that they will become hosts
to an alien he can smuggle back home
Ripley concludes, “I don’t know which species
Is worse. You don’t see them fucking each other
Over for a goddamn percentage.”
+
For me, one of the more depressing aspects
Of this film is that it is the year 2179
And capitalism still rules the day
+
The narrator in “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
First resolves to dismiss Bartleby
If he refuses to answer questions
About his history--where he was born
And other personal information
Bartleby rightly refuses.
The narrator pleads, “What reasonable objection
Can you have to speak to me?
I feel friendly towards you.”
Which is a good reminder that your boss
Is not your friend and anything you share
Will be used against you.
In this way, a boss is a cop
+
Later when the narrator has grown angry
At Bartleby’s refusal to quit the office
He demands, “What earthly right
Have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent?
Do you pay taxes? Or is this property yours?”
This cuts to the heart of this story of Wall Street
What right do you have to exist if you are not
A contributing member of capitalist society?
A question that was recently answered
By the Supreme Court of the United States
In Grants Pass vs. Jones: None
You have no right to exist in public
If you do not pay rent or have a home
+
While many read Bartleby’s repeated refusals
As signs of depression, there is a power in refusal
A glimmer that there might be another way
Of doing things
+
As the song goes, “I was looking for a job
And then I found a job
And heaven knows I’m miserable now”
And, yeah, I feel that
But also: fuck Morrissey
+
In Alison Rumfitt’s novel Tell Me I’m Worthless,
Alice has a haunted Smiths poster
At night Morrissey comes out of the poster
To stand over Alice’s bed and try to infect her
With his fascism, his visions of who is really British
When she x-es out the eyes on the poster
He begins to appear each night eyeless
+
Alice is interested in hauntings
And discovers when asked, people tend
To say their workplace is haunted
More often than they say their home is:
“Work turns us all into ghosts, repeating
The same learned actions over and over
Again for eternity.” In a dream,
It is Alice’s job to climb a tower that is also a factory
She notes, “The tower/factory is haunted,
Like all workplaces, haunted by the people
Who have done these same mechanical
Actions, made the same mechanical statements,
Cried in the disabled toilets in the middle of every shift,
Haunted by the feet of every person
Who has climbed this tower before me.”
+
Some people believe they are special
And that their workplace would really be screwed
If they left, their work and knowledge too essential
To be replaced / But there was someone
In their role before them
And there will be someone in the role after them
A parade of faceless ghosts
Repeating the same actions
The whole point is that we’re replaceable
+
So I change jobs & then I change jobs again
I think the new situation will be better
By which I mean more tolerable
After awhile, I change jobs again
+
In “The Job That Ate My Brain,”
The Ramones sing:
“Five o'clock rolls around
I feel so glad I kiss the ground
Ain't enough hours in the day
There's got to be a better way”
It could be getting older
But more and more after a work day
I find I’ve lost the ability to think
To articulate ideas clearly
This doesn’t help with trying
To write in my free time
Ain’t enough hours in the day
+
What happens to work of imagination
When my imagination feels dull and slow
When I am tired from the workday
When I have been busy working at work
+
I like to know the real work of living
The things you do not for a paycheck
What is it that keeps you alive
