Why are we in such a rush to automate the things that give people the most joy?

I have seen no shortage of posts, cartoons, reels, and tweets on the topic and usually it goes something like this: a person is begrudgingly doing the hard labour while the computer is joyously making art and composing music.

The irony is thick.

We built complicated algorithms and robotic mechanizations to churn through calculations and work in factories and clean our homes, and instead we’re having this crazy conversation about how we can distinguish generative music from human compositions in our playlists or avoid buying slop produced novels published in droves via online booksellers.

Over at another blog I write about the joy of a creative life. 

Joy. 

The pursuit of making things for the raw love of making.  Art for the sake of spirit and soul. Music for the feeling it literally rumbles through your fingertips.  

We work hard all our lives so we have time to pursue hobbies, and for many those hobbies are joys like painting in the park or playing in a band or cozying up with a keyboard and trying to write the next great novel.

Are we so eager to hand these things over to algorithms?

Of course not, you scream into your screen, that’s why we’re all so angry about this so-called revolution of generative artificial intelligence. You’re just stating the obvious!

But someone is eager, no?

Someone seems to want to suck the joy out of humanity, and why is that?