Given that this is the case, erstwhile critics of DEI policies from a broadly leftish perspective need a new synthesis for how to talk about DEI practices that captures the good things they were doing. What were they doing right that means that we're now missing the existence of a lot of these programs? Why did the whole thing fall apart so dramatically given that it was doing useful stuff? And how do those things interact?
The fact, however, is that for a lot of us who've mastered something hard, this kind of experience of bringing unconscious knowledge consciously into the forefront of one's mind by *having it pointed out to you* by a teacher whom you trust is absolutely a thing that happens: often quite a lot.
My life, at least inasmuch as I've tried to live it this way, has been an exercise in acting "as if." I act as if hiring processes and the way in which people decide whom to do business with aren't deeply, deeply bigoted and transphobic. I act as if I can write what I like on my personal blog without it negatively affecting my employment prospects in many places. I act as though people care about craft, skill and artistry in tech, and as if becoming technically brilliant is an important determinant of how well you do in your career. Finally, I act as though proper CI/CD practices and proper data engineering can be expected at any reasonable company and are a basic standard at software engineering shops.
Both me and a lot of people around me have written extensively about the issues that we face in the tech industry, both inward and outward facing. Some of us have attempted to essay potential solutions, but on the whole, I don't believe we've had a coherent strategy for fighting back against this shit as an industry. So, let me propose one: we, as an industry, need to unionise quickly, effectively and on a massive scale.
In this light, AI-generated "fiction" is already broken from the get-go. What makes fiction interesting and compelling is, in large part, the spark of recognition: of seeing your experience reflected by someone else, of seeing how someone else sees and experiences the world, of recognising something in a story that you can take from it and put into your own life. This - all of this - is deeply dependent on the aforementioned relationality of fiction: fiction without an author feels wrong, and almost fraudulent, as though the person who generated the story is lying to you by pretending to have had experiences, thoughts and feelings that he actually hasn't. The reaction this generates is a subconscious level of disgust and violation, as we're expected to pretend that (in this case) Sam Altman has feelings that he's never shown any evidence of being capable of.