Organic?

I use the adjective organic to describe any process or object created using only human-written tools. Organic, as in deriving from living organisms, but also of organs, of a living, breathing, decaying body. At the same time, organic as in free from non animal or plant-derived fertilizer: arising from an embodied object, in as so far as that body will one day fail.

This is an incredibly useful term when describing the usage or avoidance of AI systems. It allows me to describe an assemblage of sources without having to rely on -- but also encompassing -- "human" as an originating factor. But the real strength of the term comes from explicitly connecting AI systems and tools to their material conditions of resource extraction and power consumption. In its recent usage to describe commodities, "organic" quickly became a political and economic battleground to distract the average (in terms of economic power) person from the mechanical processes of extraction which many foods or products labeled as "organic" rely on. It is my intention to take advantage of this ambiguity rather than to dismiss it: the so-called "organic" sources such as code documentation or books may themselves be a part of processes of extraction and appropriation, and soon enough will themselves contain obfuscated, undeclared uses of AI. An organic object (or in the case of food, product) is only organic in relation to the non-organic product next to it.