THE FIGHT AGAINST AI
We are living in a time where everything we once took as “being human” is coming into question. We are no longer defined by our intellect, our ability to get a job done, nor by the quality of work produced from years of experience. In this digital age of AI, even our attention is no longer solely ours. We give it away to supercomputers that we treat as appendages. They use algorithms that operate in the shadows, waiting for their chance to lure us into their van with hopes of something sweet or, even better, something sour enough that we want to share. AI companies have made it clear that they are trading not in ease and convenience but rather in humanity itself. We need to figure out, pretty damn quick, what that means for each of us; what makes us different and what it is to be a person in a world where being human is sold on the open market.
Let me describe a scenario. You are driving up the coast in a convertible on a cool spring day with someone you love. It could be it a spouse, past or present, a loved one who has passed away, or the closest person in the world to you. Someone who seems to bring out the best in you. The one that smiles can’t avoid. You are listening to your favorite songs, the notes only interrupted by the smell of saltwater and the offbeat calls of seagulls. You can feel the wind on your face as the breeze blows into your mind the thought “there is no place in the world I’d rather be.”
Do you feel that? Are you there? That’s what it means to be human: to have the ability to combine the past and present with a smell and sound; the sadness of loss with hope and love, all in real time, culminating in a present feeling. That’s humanity, and it’s fuckin’ analog!
What it requires from you is information gathering. It requires you to live, love, taste and touch. It requires your ears to hear and your hips to move when the song comes on. It requires you to be afraid, to get hurt, to lose someone you don’t want to, and to cry until your face is swollen. But the payoff is immense. In return, you get to be human. You get to love at the same depths that you’re willing to be hurt. You get to create a comeback story and be the hero of your own journey. You get to cook with loved ones, feed those who have no food, and be a soft place to land as someone else dares to hold onto their humanity.
And best of all, you get to drive up the coast in the convertible on a cool spring day with someone you love. AI will never “know” a road; it can only assist a real traveler in getting on it.