with a touch of reluctance, i accompanied sarah to the art & tech symposium exhibition, and these empty chairs sum up how i felt. entering the overlit and cacaphonous gallery, i expected nothing but the usual boosterism, so what a pleasant surprise to pick this zine out of a bin at the reception desk: AI MUST DIE. couldn't agree more. it's unethical, wasteful, and dehumanizing. there might be some valid uses, but it should be handled gingerly as nitroglycerin; instead, it's being spewed everywhere like vomit in the exorcist. coincidentally, i just reread player piano. published in 1952, kurt vonnegut's first novel is more timely than ever, presenting a dystopic technocracy where machines replace humans under a data driven dictatorship. released only three years after 1984, in some ways it's even more pessimistic; winston smith had his agency crushed out of him, whereas paul proteus never has a chance to assert himself--a central theme to vonnegut's oeuvre, where free will is illusory and one question lingers: what are people for? far from answering that, well-meaning but blinkered events like this reinforce and normalize the big tech shuck and jive that promises emancipation but only totalizes control conditions that become increasingly impossible to opt out of. while there was ample cleverness on display, i came away with the feeling of having seen a bunch of trade show product demos intent on selling me something i don't want or need.