It’s early and still dark when I reach the trailhead. I am reminded that my Traveling Partner has already reminded me (twice?) to replace my headlamp so I can walk safely in the dark. I take care of that while I wait for daybreak.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I set off down the trail at first light. I’m glad to be enjoying real activity in the physical world. The “quality of life” online continues to degrade as enshittification pours AI slop all over basically everything. It’s super annoying. Worse, there are real signs in everyday life, and interactions with real people, that stupid may actually be taking over. I’m not exaggerating or being unkind, I’m observing a perceivable degradation in the quality of conversations, the reduced vocabulary, and the increasing apparent difficulties regular people seem to be having with the most ordinary shit. Looking things up in a library, or reading a page of text and actually understanding it – really simple, critically useful cognitive tools are becoming less well honed. It’s honestly a bit scary.
… These will be the people we hand the world to when current leaders “age out” of governance. We should probably all be quite terrified…
I sigh to myself as I walk. I’m grateful to be able to read. Grateful to be able to write and to have the opportunity to sit down and easily write a few hundred words without ever needing (or using) an LLM or relying on AI. I’m grateful to be able to comprehend what I read and to be able to interrogate the ideas of others, and to form my own opinions and original thoughts. I don’t want to lose these abilities. As with walking – I keep writing, and reading, and talking. (I could do better with the listening, for real, that’s an underdeveloped skill I work to improve every day.)
….Lacking a crystal ball, I don’t know where the world is headed, but it’s not looking good, and that is a massive disappointment…
Another work day ahead of me. I’m fine with it. My Traveling Partner has finished up the project he’s been working on in the shop for a customer. I’m incredibly impressed and proud of him; he’s made a lot of progress in a short time. (I’ll work from the library today, and give him a chance to enjoy a proper day off. I can be a bit of a distraction. 😆)
Today feels pretty good, subjectively. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let go of my concern and frustration with the enshittification of American culture and the sad degradation of the once amazing Internet due to corporate greed and billionaire bullshit. I know to put down the connected device(s) and go outside. I smile at a bunny hopping timidly out of the underbrush alongside the trail.
“The world” drives a lot of my anxiety. War. Racism. Sexism. Misogyny. Rudeness and incivility. Hate. Greed. The breakdown of “the social contract”, generally. A lot of these sorts of things are only within my control to the extent that I manage my own behavior to avoid this toxic shit, myself. Don’t do it. Don’t encourage it. Don’t excuse it. Don’t stand around enduring it. That’s generally the best I can do, myself, and all the rest that is outside my control? Yeah, that feeds my anxiety. That’s the piece I have to manage with the greatest care. It’s not always easy (in fact, it’s mostly not easy at all). One thing that definitely helps, a lot? Log off and walk away from the screen. Pretty much any time I “put down the Internet and walk away”, my anxiety is reduced.
… I’m not telling you what to do, just making an observation about my own experience…
AI slop definitely makes my anxiety worse. AI voices put me on edge. AI writing is poorly done to the point of being a distraction that causes me considerable stress. AI videos are ugly and strangely unnatural, and in spite of improvements in quality, generally, I find them objectionable in principle; no one needs these garbage LLMs filling our feeds with slop that isn’t worth even one moment of precious, limited mortal lifetime. I’d rather listen to an awkward actual human being doing an uncomfortably amateur read on some new channel on a topic I don’t care about at all than waste one minute of my time on slop.
Not convinced? That’s okay; I’m not trying to persuade you, I’m having my own experience. If you “don’t see any harm” in AI, maybe try asking it. No kidding. Try “list three reasons using AI for [put your most common use here] is a bad idea”. It’ll tell you. 😂
I sigh to myself and look down the path. The sky takes on soft hues of pink and pale blue. There’s a new day beginning, full of wonder and promise. Choose your adventure. Choose wisely. It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 