Researching My Tech Life . . . While Watching Movies about Robots n Stuff

I. Google uses our blog content to train its A.I.
theregister.com/2023/07/06/google_ai_models_internet_scraping

We are [one of] its content producers.

We all know this, right? 
I guess I knew this...
But I hadn't looked closely at the fine print, which I just did today.
(Yeah, slow. See below, "I've been sluggish".)

 So... time to rethink my tech use a little further.
 How much do I care, about which pieces, and what can I do, and what am I willing to do?

image ^ from "Behind the Scenes of the Classic Film Metropolis (1927)"
Actor Brigitte Helm in her costume for The Maschinenmensch [machine-human in German], 

I'd started to make changes in my tech life last year (got off FB, IG, Amzon, etc.)
But I've been drifting a bit in life... 
Naturally, the past couple months with ICE in town, I have been taken up with that--overactivated alarm systems always on ALERT.

Since ICE said they were going to leave, one week ago, I've been sluggish. Catching up emotionally, mostly, I think.

Now ICE agents are moving away from the inner city where I live and work (though not leaving the state, like they said they would), I've gradually come back to myself, 
and I have the energy to pick myself up, dust myself off, and do a little early spring cleaning.

Specifically, I want to . . . 
1. Evaluate my Tech use, again* 
and,
2. Make some desired changes in my tech life.

(Also: Watch Metropolis. I never have!
And-–I'm excited:
 a movie of one of my favorite novels, Project Hail Mary, 
is coming out next month --with Ryan Gosling. 
The previews look good. The book is by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian (which was made into a movie starring Matt Damon).

Anyway, messing with tech makes me panic a little... 
For non-techie me, it's a tall order. 
But I will do one thing at a time.

I got thinking about this because I was surprised so many (many!) people have let me know they disapprove of me using ChatGPT.

I do get it that ChatGPT is particularly pernicious.
But it's just the tip of the AI iceberg.

I felt defensive--But, I'm exploring!–and in emotional reaction I thought, 
Yeah, but ALL our tech is problematic. 

True enough, but that's not to say, 
"So it makes no difference what tech we use".
No!

It's to say, Dust off those little gray cells, Fresca!
Consider benefits vs. cost, and also, harm reduction.
Make an effort to find tech options, like a good human, and take some steps. 

II. What search engine do you use?

 This morning, I took a step:
I switched from Google search to DuckDuckGo.com.

Motive: I want to wriggle loose, if not free, from the tendrils of 
The Big G that doesn't stand for Goodness: 
Google. 

(ABOVE: 1960s? Print by Corita Kent, who meant G for God.)

At this point, I'm not going to get entirely free because I blog on Google's platform––Blogger!
That requires I have a google account. So I do (though I changed my main email account to Proton.com last year).

And---

I am definitely in the Google stable, 
and I'm looking for ways to wriggle free.
Going for Harm reduction, not pure liberation.

III. I've been curious: why does Google even keeps Blogger?
 It doesn't seem to me it can bring in much cash.
Maybe you know?

I didn't.
So, ... I asked ChatGPT! 

It explained in clear detail what I had only a fuzzy sense of:
Google doesn't need to make cash directly from its products. 
Blogger serves its needs by, among other things, keeping people in their stable.
Exactly as I found out when I tried to leave last year:
 I am pretty tightly tied in.

And, Google wants people in their stable because they make their money from searches which brings traffic (people!) through their ad-spaces, and that's where they make their money.
 
An example from yesterday:
A blogger friend mentioned that a comment had shown up on a ten-year-old post!

I said Blogger is kind of a blogging backwater, not like a hip n hot scene at SubStack, and it's mostly old people.

Chat said, Oh, Google LOVES old people--you spend money on travel, health care, etc. And generate content.

Google doesn't need to be hot, it needs traffic.
WE ARE THE TRAFFIC.

And this is all intricately bound up with Google's A.I., too.
We provide up-to-the-minute chit chat it can train on.

ALSO TO DO--because I'd rather watch movies than figure out 
code n stuff:
Watch the original Ghost in the Shell (Japan, 1995). 
From "20 Iconic Female Movie Protagonists of the 1990s":

And now I must go to work!
I have been meaning to say, I usually blog for an hour or two in the mornings, before work---and I often don't edit or proofread carefully before I hit "publish" and dash out the door to catch the bus.

Speaking of the bus, transportation systems are supported by AI!

How to get off all AI in modern USA?
Go entirely off-grid.
Die.
Short of that, it's seems to be a matter of harm reduction, not purity. Pick and choose.