Leaving the Internet

Friends, this is the last time I will be posting on the internet. I will continue to submit to online literary journals here and there, but I refuse to do the free labor of producing content for the internet that is being used to make A.I. tools smarter: to make them feel more human in ways which encourage co-dependence; to improve their abilities to replace (if poorly) certain types of human labor; to provide bad people easy ways to subjugate and publicly humiliate others.

If you are also anti-A.I. and would like to stay in touch, I have begun a print-only newsletter. I have 50 spots available and will be sending monthly newsletters by mail. Sometimes, I might send a zine or a letter or a list of recent reads. Other times, I might send a small collection of collage materials and found objects. If you want to receive these little monthly nuggets, email ryanshleyanderson@proton.me (my new, non-Google email). In your email, include a name and physical address (it can, of course, be a P.O. box or work address) and anything else you would like me to know.

If you are an A.I. user, please do not join this list: this is for people who, by opting out of the digital social platforms fueled in many ways by A.I. (Meta, Substack, etc.) and by opting out of accessing A.I. chat tools for ’social’ stimulation, are losing out on many opportunities to be ‘in community.’ This is especially important as social media continues to subsume and replace other modes of social connection and intimacy.

I reserve the right to remove anybody from the list at any time. Like, if you start being creepy toward me or learn about any vaguely fascist behaviors (for example), you will be removed.

I have been dipping in and out of social media for a while, wanting to leave the ‘meta-sphere’ but not wanting to lose the community I had built or face difficulties learning about events and opportunities. But with the ever-increasing proliferation of advertising, A.I., and echochamber politicking, I finally decided to let it go. Last week, I archived the last of my personal social media accounts: no more Facebook or personal Instagram for me. I will, however begrudgingly, continue using Instagram for Pool Party promotion.

My website has also changed. No longer am I including any meaningful information in complete sentences. I am also removing all photos and personal information. My CV, a FAQ page, a contact link, and a few lists will be all that remains.

If you want a clue into why I am so opposed to A.I., I have included several links to articles on my FAQ page which provide a cursory peek.

I’m doing things old school, much as I can, which involves talking to people in person about my work, sharing physical photos and portfolios, and actually inviting people to things rather than just posting broadly online hoping that the people I care about most happen to see it in their ad-heavy, algorithm-curated feeds.

In closing, A.I. data centers are destroying our planet, A.I. chatbots are destroying our brains, and A.I. technology is facilitating the proliferation and normalization of plagiarization, of digital rape, of nonconsensual pornography production and dissemination, and of increasingly antisocial tendencies in the folks most in need of real, human care.

No, I don’t support using ChatGPT to “help scale (your) business” or plan a road trip or come up with holiday card ideas. I don’t support using it to “tweak” sentences or come up with book titles or write social media captions. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but don’t come crying when you lose your job, get deep-faked, or see your creative work out in the world, created by somebody other than you, who got the idea from Claude or whatever the fuck, which got the idea, originally, from you!

Goodbye, but also, hopefully, hello.