- 23 Jan, 2026 *
I’m hesitant to paint broad strokes about technology. It being inherently good or bad aren’t useful contemplations for me. I see technology as part of the human experience. Like hermit crabs and their homes, we utilize technology and that is a very human trait. At the same time, technology and its use is deeply indebted to a culture and their cosmologies surrounding technology. It seems to be both something deeply human as well as something as variable as cultures themselves.
AI is a deeply boring technology. Culturally, it is a technology born from a deep boredom brewed under circumstances of hyper consumption. Only a culture so bored and bankrupt of creativity could ever be enticed by a glorified Mechanical Turk technology that creates crappy art for us. That’s not on us. Blame the capitalists for overworking us into uncreative order-takers.
AI is also boring because it represents the acceleration and thrust toward a politics that we’ve seen time and time again. It’s a colonial politics of transcendence where technology enables us to relax while another class of people or beings do all the work for us. Philosophically, the promise of AI is another iteration of the promise of slavery. And they’re never gonna achieve this promise, at least not in some way that doesn’t require Chinese factories to install suicide nets at their factories, require South African children to mine lithium, or require the ongoing colonial practice of capturing and controlling water resources for what is said to be a project that will save us all.
The saviorism is so fucking boring. Again, guys? Really?
Some Cool Technologies, Reviewed
There are a few metrics by which I like to gage a technology. Thinking that it is kinda like this:
- Efficiencies: How efficient does the technology itself operate? Does it also produce efficiencies for the user and their surroundings?
- Creativity: Does the object enhance the user’s ability to be creative or does it confine the user into a relationship of consumption?
- Ergonomics: How does the design compliment those efficiencies and creative production?
- Use/Application: Does the technology get used to enhance freedom or restrict it? How has use drifted from initial purpose or intent?
Let’s review some cool technologies that aren’t as fucking boring as AI and rank them up next to AI. Oh YOU KNOW AI is gonna get eaten alive. You can skip this post if you were expecting something else.