Katherine Argent

Woman of a certain rage.

Reading for @fracturedlit.
Writing for all the right reasons.
Petting all the dogs.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@ewarren Biggest loophole: the AI industry stole our creative work then created a bunch of bots to talk up how great AI is and how meaningless human creators are, and the government did nothing to protect us. They’ve put us out of business and you’ve coddled them.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@Lintilla369 I see what you did there. Nicely done.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Could we please be done with this AI insanity soon? Before we devastate the environment, put millions out of work, raise a generation that can’t think, create a permanent underclass and further enrich the soulless oligarchs?

[John Cassidy @JohnCassidy]

First it was MIT and McKinsey. Now Bain finds that returns to corporate AI investments are disappointing.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@dailyscroll001 Yes.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@SketchesbyBoze This is one of my all-time favorites. I nearly didn’t finish it the first time I picked it up. Went back one day, started from the beginning, and I could not put it down. Read it through a second time the following week. It’s brilliant.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

The knee-jerk reaction of labeling as “slop” anything that someone doesn’t understand or has no interest in is both cynical and censorious. “Appeal to the masses or be labeled as AI” is the new move by AI fans. Don’t fall for it.

[anthony k webster 🐿 @ethnopoetics]

There are a lot of problems with the tenure and promotion system, but the idea that most academics are simply producing "slop" is not something I have seen in my experience reviewing for promotion and tenure, it seems a more accurate description of a place like the Atlantic

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@KCURMichael Welcome to my neighborhood!

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@Kacey_Combs Disillusioned women.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Altman and OpenAI encouraged businesses to use AI to replace human workers. They encouraged the government to use AI in policing and surveilling people. (And to ban regulating it for 10 years, remember that?) They encouraged the military to use AI to target sites for lethal attacks. They encouraged schools to incorporate AI in classrooms and even replace teachers.

They have no grounds for claiming they warned people not to trust AI or to rely on its responses.

Time to pay the piper, Altman. You should’ve known the lies would catch up with you one day.

[ABC13 Houston @abc13houston]

Florida sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, claiming company concealed serious risks of ChatGPT https://t.co/4nnigotBeN

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@xriskology Any way the wind blows you’ll find him there.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Sam Altman and other AI salesmen have been on the “we aren’t taking your jobs” publicity tour lately. But never forget what he said when he thought no one would resist. The goal hasn’t changed, only the advertising has.

[mrredpillz jokaqarmy @JOKAQARMY1]

Never forget that the CEO who runs ChatGPT said this.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@lilyraynyc It was an upbeat weekend. And then today happened. 📉

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Congratulations, Luke.
It’s deserved and I can’t wait to read that issue.

Your cover of my tweet is still my favorite performance, though. 😉

https://t.co/YghjS6Bxgs

[Luke Barnett @LukeBarnett]

Not gonna lie, wild way to start the week.

Was truly an honor to sit down with Variety and talk about short form content leading directly to my role on Dark Winds, as well as other filmmaking opportunities, especially in the world of Obsession and Backrooms’ obvious success.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Those of you with short story collections should get in on this!

[UNT Press @UNTPress]

The Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction is open for submissions now through June 30, and will be open for fee-free submissions on Monday, June 1 to ensure all writers have access to publication!

https://t.co/epdmISP2nB

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

I suspect Costco will find Midtown traffic negatively impacts their delivery truck transit times, especially now that the light rail is running. With gas prices what they are, those idling trucks will take a massive bite out of profits. Meanwhile, they’ve harmed customer goodwill.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@amberwb @ArtsyMarx1st You misspelled “leash.”

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@Kacey_Combs “White Noise” by Don DeLillo and “Steering the Craft” by Ursula K. Le Guin.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@luckycreature Well, I can think of one he’s been a bit slow about.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@ajmandal15 Ooh, congratulations! I didn’t make the cut. Jealous.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

@ADKRealty Isn’t that peak ridiculousness? I believe everyone deserves a living wage, but it should be the job of the employer to make that happen. Just another way companies protect their profits while making the rest of us pay more than our fair share.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Almost a month ago, I typed this little tweet into my phone while waiting for my coffee to brew after a crappy night’s sleep. I could never have imagined the response it’s received, or that it would lead to this week ahead when I’ll be meeting with publishers, agents, screenwriters and producers. (Regrettably, I did decline some guy named Phil’s offer of marriage because, even if life in a Colorado mountain cabin sounds lovely, I’m horribly allergic to remarriage).

So, I just want to say “Thank You, People of the Internet” for letting my rant tap our collective vein of rage and for speaking up to say you, too, are tired of how things are now.

But I can’t keep living online to respond to and elevate your reactions to this tweet while also having the creative energy and time to write.

And I need to write like I need to breathe. It keeps me going.

So, if you would, please keep your fingers crossed for me that all these meetings actually do turn into something.

The reason? You know the reason. I choose to write.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???