u/rdmpress

Just finished a doc and would like to reach out to several organizations doing work that aligns with the film's message/topic. Any advice on how to open those doors?

Broken Spring

Art, media, technology and a future nobody asked for.

A musician’s livelihood is in jeopardy after Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival is cancelled unexpectedly, leaving him with no choice but to turn to online platforms in order to survive, and wondering if there’s still a future for artists like him in the Live Music Capital of the World.

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Broken Spring explores the implications for human interaction, identity and creativity in a world increasingly mediated by digital technology, through freelance musician Alex Marrero’s experience during the spring of 2020, and the broader questions surrounding our growing dependence on the Internet for social relations in the attention economy.

Early technologist and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff provides unique insight into how we got here, the missed opportunities, and a way forward, while independent researcher Alison McDowell describes how the data extracted from us in the process mirrors colonial ambitions of a bygone era and are being used to forge a new empire.

Along the way, we meet a few Austin locals, including James Anthony Johnson – the city’s most famous busker, singer-songwriter Anna Milk, 6th Street poet Timothy, and blues saxophonist Kumar Bendrake. Through them, we catch a glimpse of a world that is disappearing before our very eyes, as more and more of us choose to parse reality through a screen in our pockets.

So, I've made a documentary that deals with themes around the attention economy and the road we're on as creators vis-a-vis big tech, and I'd like to find ways to screen without ever putting it on the Internet. Not really interested in distribution deals or such. I actually want to find a way to do some kind of grassroots screenings in non-traditional settings with small groups of people. Anyone ever done something like that?

Just stating facts

For context, know that I used to work in academia, specifically researching the optimization of deep learning models (NOT LLMs). I won’t go into more detail so as not to dox myself, but I’ve worked at R1/Ivy institutions and am what would be considered an expert when it comes to AI.

Now, why am I writing this post?

LLMs are everywhere in academia, and it sucks. They’re much more widespread than you think. At the best facilities in the world, I have colleagues developing what I would argue is AI psychosis. They’re sending me snippets of syllabi that have been entirely written by AI, talking about how insightful it is. They’re designing experiments which they are not qualified to design and which are frankly poorly done. We’re getting peer reviews back that are obviously LLM slop. Hell, there are published papers in respected venues that you read and it’s clear as day they were written entirely by a chatbot.

Oh, and this is everywhere in the classrooms too, not only for undergrads but graduate students as well. You hear that? The people we are training to have PhDs are readying for their quals by being fed AI slop. The only people holding out are those who don’t know how to use the technology or those who have some kind of chip on their shoulder. These people are the exceptions and are going to be judged if their output is not as fast as their peers.

I don’t want this to be a doomer post, but I am worried. Science is built on top of itself. When I publish a finding, it’s predicated on the assumption that previous findings were well vetted. By using LLMs, which are designed to sound convincing, we are directly degrading that process. I hope I am wrong, but I think the reckoning for what we’re doing is going to be catastrophic.