As I have begun trying to develop a regular writing routine, I have started several posts and gotten distracted before finishing. This isn’t anything new, as I tend to “Ohh shiny!” my way through life when it comes to anything online.
The problem is what distracted me this time. It wasn’t a TikTok video. It wasn’t an ad for some new product that I would convince myself that I need (even though I absolutely don’t). It wasn’t one of my kids doing something that could burn down the house. We’ll get back to that…
I, like 43.6% of the internet as of this posting, use WordPress to administrate my blog. Jetpack, a sister project to WordPress, has always been a convenient way to enable mobile posting, social sharing, and other knickknacks seamlessly on WordPress sites. It works like a charm for anything that’s not Facebook (Facebook’s algorithm deprioritizes any automatically-posted content, reducing exposure, especially for smaller content creators). Again, we’ll come back to that…
A couple years ago, we started getting absolutely bombarded with marketing and hype for artificial intelligence and how it will be improving every aspect of our lives. Since then, we’ve seen AI try to make good on that hype. AI has made its way into our browsers, cars, kitchen appliances…the list goes on and on.
Oddly, the only people I have seen getting hyped about AI everything everywhere are tech journalists, AI startup CEOs, and data-hungry, privacy screwing corporate billionaires. Content creators, artists, musicians, and anyone else who actually pays attention to, well, anything are nearly unanimous in their condemnation of generative AI and its encroachment on the creative space.
Back to our regularly scheduled program…
As I was working on the various posts I mentioned, I noticed that nearly every sentence I typed was being highlighted, underlined, marked as containing some sort of error or being in need of “improvement”. My ADHD-riddled, overcaffeinated brain could not deal with this distraction, so I then went on a quest to turn off this “feature”, which isn’t as straightforward as one would think. At least for me.
It seems Jetpack has not only integrated artificial intelligence into the plugin, but made it the default setting while allowing a very low number of uses before the user being prompted to “upgrade” for $14.95 per month (less per month if a one- or two-year subscription is selected).
Now, I get that marketing is a thing. I understand that free trials are a common way to provide prospective customers with a chance to try out a service before committing to any financial expenditure. I get all of that. But when you make your marketing pitch into something that is obtrusive, ugly, and what looks like a half-baked idea…and then engage it by default, that’s where you lose me.
Having a small, barely read, barely maintained blog do not want, need, or wish to tolerate this jolly AI bullshit. It’s a shame that Jetpack is such a good and all-inclusive plugin aside from this one “feature”, but I am annoyed enough that I am going to get away from using it in favor of some alternatives that, while requiring multiple specialized plugins, have the advantage of doing what I need them to do…and nothing more.
I, for one, have no intention on welcoming our AI overlords with anything other than disdain, disgust, and disengagement.
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