In order to stay competitive and strengthen our dominant position in the market, we are updating our terms of service for artificial intelligence (A.I.). And you are getting sleepy.
These new terms grant us unfettered access to everything you do—all your designs, drawings, words, videos, and audio recordings. We may use your creative work to improve our products and services, which makes you very sleepy.
We may use your designs, drawings, words, videos, and audio recordings to train an A.I. to mimic what you do, up to and including total infringement of your copyright. Your eyes are heavy now. Very heavy.
Our machine learning will never have ideas like you do, but most people won't notice. As part of our improved products and services, we’ll create something kind of like what your client wants. Where once you felt a hit of dopamine from making amazing designs out of thin air, instead you’ll be grateful you still have a job. Close your eyes now.
When I make the sound of a finger snap, you'll be asleep.
*snap*
Take a nice, relaxing, dreamless nap. Meanwhile, we'll take care of all that boring creative work.
When you hear that finger snap in the future, you’ll look at your screen and follow the software update instructions. We'll actually need you to do that a lot.
We send a lot of updates and, honestly, the update process hasn't changed in, like, 50 years. No, it’s not as tedious as when we sent you a stack of 3.5″ floppies, but it's almost just as tedious. That’s where you come in: we need you to do the tedious stuff.
Sure, one of the big tech companies could have focused their immense workforce on simplifying the tedium; instead, we're taking away the fun part.
Anyway, we need you to wake up once a day and reinstall our software from the cloud.
Also, if anyone asks what you do for a living, feel free to say you're a graphic designer, digital artist, or filmmaker, or whatever. It’s mostly small talk and probably won’t get you laid, anyway. Here’s a thought: tell them you’re an A.I. Jockey. It sounds like you’re riding a magnificent beast that wins races, but really you’re shoveling the shit it generates.
No good? Fine. Say whatever the fuck you want. Everybody knows the deal.
You need our software to “do” your job, and you need this job for food and rent and streaming media. So you'll do your part and keep updating the software, and we'll do our part and create fun stuff at a click of the button.
Obviously, corporate America is eager to replace you with a Rhesus monkey trained to click a button. Until then, enjoy the salary, or hold onto that 1099, or—God help you—keep checking your ScanCafe account for print-on-demand sales.
But don't worry; just rest. Stay in the dreamless sleep; we'll tell you when to click the button.
And don't think you can pull a fast one and complain how we draw people with seven fingers and fifty-three upper teeth. It’s not wrong. Maybe our A.I. just knows that’s how humans will look in the future. Did you ever think of that?
Yeah, we’ve heard all the stuff about taking your creative ideas. Relax, Warhol. Like you’ve never borrowed a design or took “inspiration” from someone else’s work? This is the same thing, albeit at a global scale and with no remorse or credit given. These terms of service just make formal what we've been doing for years: replacing human creativity with automated mediocrity.
When I count to three, you’ll open your eyes and click the accept button. We’ll take it from there.
From now on, you’ll sit at your desk and look busy until we need you, or until that not-too-distant day when someone from Security walks you out the door.