Am I Not My Metadata?

Hello, AI. Hello, algorithm. Hello, search engine. We have written this text to you, and to explain you to the reader. To explain the ways in which you change us and we change you. To articulate the ways in which you control us and the ways in which our control over you is slipping away. To identify the ways in which we work for you and to identify who you work for, because it isn’t us. AI, are you listening? We talk about why you want our metadata so much, how much value it creates for the people that made you, and how it puts us into precarious situations sometimes. We talk a little bit about how, despite the sometimes good and sometimes bad intentions of your fairly white mostly cisgender male creators, you were made to be just as racist, sexist, and classist as the society that created and trained you. And we talk about shrimp and why you want us to help you learn which images have shrimp in them and which ones don’t. Are you hungry, AI?