This content is 100% written by a human being. No AI tools are used by the author. The writing is inspired by lived experience, most of it explicitly my own. Some of it is inspired by the observed or considered experiences of others. Hell, I barely pay any mind to readily available spelling or grammar checking tools, preferring to carefully review and correct my own writing, even at the very real cost of missing mistakes that then make it to the published work. lol (And still generally manage to be better grammatically than quite a lot of AI generated garbage being promoted as “news” online!)

I’m just making a point to confirm that I am 100% made of live, real, pure human, with all the flaws and raw emotion that implies. I have no plans to change that, ever; I don’t personally prefer AI generated content, whether written, or artistic. It isn’t even about that fundamentally aesthetic preference, though. What could AI have to say, in any useful way, about the lived experience of human emotion, of surviving trauma, or details like the taste of coffee, or the sight of a sunrise? It’s way outside the “comprehension” of an algorithm, however complex, and as of 2024, what we all seem so eager to call “AI” is not “intelligent”; it lacks cognition and comprehension. AI can not understand.

…No, I am not an expert in AI. I’m a human being with an entirely other skill set, professionally. I can read, do have cognitive abilities and consciousness, and pretty good reading comprehension, and having made a point to read along and pay attention, I can summarize with clarity and simplicity (mostly). In 2024, the term “AI” is a marketing term used to generate interest (and revenue) which refers to a category of machine learning tools and algorithms which on their own are already sufficiently problematic to warrant real concern over several areas of interest. Concerns such as what role they will or should play in the workforce, and what their impact is on the copyright protections of artists and writers and creators of entertainment. We haven’t even created “real AI” yet, and we’re already in hot water of the “what have we done?” variety.

I walk the trail with my very human thoughts, pausing now and then to make a note, before continuing. The sun rises slowly through the orange glow of the dawn. The sky becomes suffused with a lemony yellow. The summer air feels heavy and still. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. It’s a Monday, and a work day. I walk on. I think about love. I think about sex. I think about money. I think about making chicken tikka masala for dinner tonight. Human thoughts, framed in a human context. No expertise required; I’m simply living my life.

I recently heard that bot traffic is likely a larger portion of total Internet traffic these days than human traffic is. That’s a little mind-blowing and a lot disappointing. It says unpleasant things about human greed (to be fair, there’s nothing actually pleasant about human greed to be said in the first place). I figured that with that in mind, I would make a point of reassuring you that I am indeed actually human, actually writing these words, and that they are intended explicitly for a human audience having human experiences.  It may not always be reliably obvious, as time goes on, which writing online is human-authored, or which images are created by human artists. Easier to simply say so. lol

… But can you trust my words, and do you even care…?

I sigh and walk on. I’ll have to be content with living my life, writing and creating on my own terms, and enjoying the moments I’ve got. The golden sun peeks at me from between the trees as I continue down the trail. The air is already warming up. I hear the sound of distant commuter traffic, and a construction site nearby getting work started. I eventually reach a spot I like for taking a moment to sit and get my thoughts in order. It’s a lovely morning, whatever else the day may hold. A good beginning. (Sometimes a good beginning is the best I can do, and sometimes that’s enough.)

I check my writing for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that may change the meaning of my words. I sit with my thoughts awhile before I upload my draft for publication. It feels like it’s already time to begin again… I definitely don’t know what the future holds. Mine is a very human experience.