The age of AI-sterity: that’s austerity but now with “AI” (oh and you’re fired!)
In the inaugural Hype Ball column, we’re doing critical tech analysis but making it drag — sifting through the spin from the “AI” grifters to get to the sinister austerity lurking behind the false “democratizing creativity” claims.
You are cordially invited to read ESC KEY .CO’s Hype Ball, a column of analysis and trend reviews where we break down the forces reshaping how we work and live — but with a bulging twist. The big twist is that we approach every topic like it’s a drag competition and we’re the judges. Because, naturally, drag is about subverting traditional power dynamics, exposing artifice and performance, and having a fucking ball.
If you’re a homophobic grouch who doesn’t like drag, can’t entertain some biting satire and refuses to think for yourself, well, this isn’t the party for you. Babe, it’s the Hype Ball, after all. We’re making sense of the news and delivering the boss-level insights you can use — but we’re making it camp, darling, OK? Who said smart had to be a snooze fest? I mean, glasses make you look sexier. Fact. Slide ’em on. Read the future.
Now, without further ado, I’m JD Shadel, tech and lifestyle journalist — and, yes, once a guest judge at a real drag pageant, which was clearly my career highlight. I launched ESC KEY .CO to do the kind of deep-dive reporting and analysis I want to see more of in the world. And also to put on one raunchy show. Let’s go, girls.
The scene: “AI” debates conveniently sidestep urgent harms
The endless debates about “AI” feel like watching the same tired performance on loop — tech bros using chatbots to generate speculative fiction about hypothetical robot overlords while creative workers are losing real gigs right now. The discourse swings wildly between sci-fi fantasies of superintelligent machines and defensive “but I had fun doing X thing with ChatGPT once that proves the future is ‘AI’ powered” anecdotes.
Meanwhile, the boss-pleasing optimists aren't much better, serving up lukewarm takes about how “AI will create more jobs than it destroys” or how it's “augmenting creativity, not replacing it” — as if watching your industry's entry-level jobs evaporate is somehow canceled out by the promise of becoming a prompt engineer.
While many are arguing about whether “AI” can truly be “creative” or even produce “art” an artist could claim as their own, world-leading creative agencies are already using it to justify not hiring illustrators. The reality is less Skynet, more spreadsheet — watching your freelance rate get cut because some startup founder read a LinkedIn post from someone with the self-dubbed title of “Chief AI Evangelist.” This isn’t fodder for more “Future of Work” porn — this is the context of precarious creative careers.
The contestants: the drag of the “AI” grifters
The library is officially open — and by library, I, of course, mean the Cecil H. Green Library because slouching before us we have 5-foot-9-inches (without stilettos) billionaire and Stanford dropout Sam Altman. This Geek Squad daddy says he’s here to democratize creativity and revolutionize almost every industry on the planet, all while donning his wardrobe of Gap Inc.-inspired neutrals and flaunting his growing package of large language models — oh and dare we not mention his arriving-any-day-but-not-today “artificial general intelligence,” which means a god-like technology that can do anything you or I can, except they can do it better ( 🎶 “no you can’t” / “yes, I can” / “no, you can’t” 🎶).
One problem: No one can agree on how you’d define that term, let alone build whatever it means. And amid the hype, fewer people still are asking if it’s even a desirable goal in the first place.
