Voices Carry

I'm truly at a loss of what to say today. (Last week. It lingers, doesn't it.)

So (I guess) let me just repeat a point I've made repeatedly: one of the saddest rationales for using "AI" is for "brainstorming" – a practice invented over Cold War fears about conformity and creativity.

If you do not know what to say, if you do not know what to write, if you do not know what to think, it isn't a signal that you are flawed, that you are inadequate, inept, inarticulate. Sure, you might be lacking something – ideas, words, clarity, what have you – and certainly the latest "hot, new" product promises to fill up the page for you. But if you don't know what to say, it is quite alright to say nothing. You needn't supplicate the machine-oracle for "inspiration." (It's not inspiration after all; it's autocomplete.)

You were not put here to "create content," although surely this is what the "AI" gods (and the tech industry writ large) demand of us.

It is alright to be speechless when things are overwhelming. It is alright to sit in uncertainty, to contemplate. It is alright. It is expected.

Indeed, part of the problem, perhaps, is we live in a culture (an economy, a technology infratructure) that demands we speak on everything, that demands we post, we update, we share. "Say anything," post something, or you are nothing.

I'm writing this all for myself, you see. For you and for me.

All this posting and clicking and swiping, we're told, constitutes some sort of social engagement, civic engagement; when in fact, this incessant clicking – whether in the act of creating or consuming – is doing much to unravel the fabric of society, doing much to undermine speech and thought (with or without that very loaded adjective of "free" plopped in front of those two nouns).