day 1 of my ai elective is officially over! it was fun, surprisingly less tech bro-y than part of me was expecting - i guess this IS an art college after all, they do have to encourage our creativity and all'a that. a lot of scary thoughts about ai and the future with how rapidly it's evolving already... i like to think there'll still be room for human art, at least financially. culturally i dont think the ai boom will last - there'll be a novelty to ai-written scripts for a while maybe, but i dont see it having much lasting power. but with capitalism? who knows. i'm clearly not the best person to speak on what the mainstream population will adapt to considering my complete resistance to tiktok (and my more recent attempts at cutting out social media altogether and embracing the "indie web"). but there's always hope.

it can be difficult thinking on topics like ai when i have such a strong tendency to be Right about things - not factually correct, really, but to be In The Right, to Do The Right Thing, y'know? i suppose i have such an ingrained fear of getting things Wrong that when it comes to a complex (and so NEW) concept like ethical ai part of my brain just freaks out. i haven't seen it, but from the clips my sister's shown me and the few gifs that pop up on tumblr, that's kind of the main point of "the good place" - that fear or obsession over doing the capital-r Right thing. that show's conclusion is that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. which is a fair point! i definitely think a lot of the outrage at ai in terms of environmental impact is scapegoating - see the water usage of ai being brought up to criticize google without the mention that google was already using all that water beforehand.

one last thing - dont take anything i say on this site too seriously. really! this is all just for fun and a way to get myself to journal more (and learn cool fun web design shit, of course). i'm not an intellectual. i'm just some guy.

i noticed a lot of people say they never dream of phones or the internet… yet discord frequently shows up in mine! does that mean i’m spending too much time on the laptop?? probably. or maybe its just that i have friends from around the world who i only know as an icon on a screen, so when my subconscious thinks of them, there’s nothing to visualize them with other than their discord profiles.

its november already, which feels weird. this year felt like a month at most, but somehow at the same time i feel like i’ve changed more in this year than i have in the last 5. or maybe i haven’t changed at all? i’m writing this while watching a youtube video which im realizing is extremely difficult lol. its betterthanbasic if you were wondering, a makeup youtuber i just discovered the other day and i like her videos a lot! especially her design toasts & roasts series, as someone who keeps up with indie makeup releases a lot of indie brands have… unfortunate packaging design. A side effect of budgeting, i suppose.

speaking of makeup, ive been actually using up my collection a lot more lately! its still difficult because my eczema still flares up on my face sometimes, especially around my eyes. and eyeshadow is my favourite! what a cruel god to do this to me (sob). im specifically trying to use up my existing eyeshadow palettes entirely to justify buying more eyeshadow palettes… which is. maybe not a great mindset. but in my defense the last palette i bought was oden’s eye’s jewels and gem which was after seeeeeeeveral months of desiring and desiring and looking at swatches and videos and daydreaming about those shimmers and desiring some more. so im not doing too bad! in terms of consumerism!