Human Intelligence

Superior to artificial (or Apple) intelligence

(This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited, and today features a couple of sweary moments and a few stumbles. If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it!)

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I had a whole other letter ready to go for today, but then this one arrived, rage-filled and timely, and I decided to get it off my chest.

Before I do though, just a quick reminder that the first RITUALS mini-workshop will be hitting inboxes on Sunday. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a paying supporter, you can join us by hitting the button below and updating your subscription for AU$5/month. That means not only will you receive the upcoming monthly workshops (third Sunday of every month) but you’ll also get instant access to my previous online retreats, which you can find here.

And with that, on to today’s slightly unhinged letter!

💚💚

There’s a well-used meme doing the rounds at the moment that says, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so I can do my dishes and laundry.”  

I like it. I agree with the spirit of it. And even though the idealist in me wonders about (naively hopes for?) a world where this kind of tech just…goes away, the realist in me understands that people push boundaries. We explore. We ask questions and look for variations on the answer. I’m not saying every question should be answered (I’ve watched Oppenheimer too) but it’s probably a stretch to hope the new iteration of generative AI would slowly and quietly just dissolve away. Especially considering the insanity of whatever Apple just announced.

There are uses for AI, no doubt. We probably use it more than we realise, and there’s newly emerging tech that’s a win for humans. Wearable healthcare tech, fraud detection, inventory management and... other stuff, I’m sure.

But are we really going to slip into the AI hellscape with barely a murmur? Are we all so lobotomised by our devices that we truly can’t see the glaring, terrifying issues? Or do we just not care very much?

I’m a writer, so of course I’ve got skin in the game. If copywriting and corporate comms get completely swallowed by Chat GPT & co, then there goes most of my profitable work. If Substack gets choked with bot-written drivel to a point where real-life flesh and blood humans can’t find work written by other real-life flesh and blood humans, there goes another chunk of my living. And if publishers decide that an AI-generated manuscript (one written by a program that’s been trained on the stolen work of me and countless other writers) is good enough to package up as a book and put out into the world, then I’m cooked. Done. No income.

Maybe I’d still write, but when people type a prompt into a program and collate the resulting digital stew into a book and call that writing, why would I want to? It obviously has no value anymore. Those passing off their generative AI-made prose as writing are devaluing the fifteen years I’ve spent learning how to make ideas come alive on the page. They want to go from novice to success without the period of learning in between. And that’s fine. But don’t expect me to applaud it.

(Just kidding. I’d always write. It’s oxygen to me.)

But maybe I’d write for me only. Maybe I’d keep it private. Maybe I might make copies by hand and distribute them to people who were interested. Maybe I could create a business that did that. Maybe we could open stores that sell more of these paper-bound ideas, where people could come in and marvel at all the creativity that exists in the world; all the stories that live in the wonder of the human brain. Maybe we could think of a snappy name for these things. Maybe we could call them…books. And maybe we could assure readers that said books were written by real-life flesh and blood humans. (And maybe while we’re at it, we could put the kibosh on book bans, too?)

And look. Boo-freaking-hoo. I get it. Industries have come and gone for centuries. Where were the protests when my grandfathers lost their jobs on coal-powered trains as electric engines took over? Who was sounding the alarm when travel agents slipped most of the way into obscurity once booking flights online became the norm?  Did anyone care when checkout operators were replaced with self-serve aisles in the supermarket?

I guess we all chalked it up to progress. Some of which, it needs to be said, is currently being undone. Coal trains not so much, but travel agents are making a resurgence. Self-serve aisles in supermarkets are being demolished. There are people getting rid of their smartphones and trying to live more in the world. Some of them are even young. There is a pushback against automation and AI.

Is it because we crave human interaction? Because we value the brief but grounding moments of looking someone else in the eye? Because we know, deep down, that removing the humanity from every last interaction is a bad, bad idea? Because if we try and remove only the awkward ones, the transactional ones, the challenging and off-putting ones, we’re creating a frictionless life and that is good for no-one. Awkwardness and disagreements and faux pas are all part of being a person, alive in the world. Just as much as laughter and connection and crying with strangers in a movie theatre are.

Are the tech overlords so out of touch that they don’t realise this? Or are they banking on the fact that our poor, dopamine-addled brains are too far gone?

Call me a wowser, a regular Ned Flanders, but I have been worried about this for as long as the generative AI conversation has been happening. And I think we should be worried about this. We should be worried about devaluing ourselves. We should be worried about machines doing the work of trying to get us to feel things. Because that’s our job as humans. To feel. To make meaning of our interwoven lives. To make things from what we learn. That’s what we find in connection and nature and creativity and beauty and pain.

We should also be worried about art and artists. The words and music and images and objects that make us feel things, and the people — real flesh and blood people — that make them.

Now, don’t get me wrong. When I see AI art, I do feel something. Unfortunately, it’s mostly nausea. I see something too, but it’s mostly the strings being pulled to make us react in certain ways. I see the manipulation that’s been learnt from scraping millions of pieces of art and trying to distil it into something with no soul.

If we give that power to fucking machines, what does that make us?

So, if the great promise is that generative AI, Apple Intelligence, whatever bullshit comes next, will take away the repetitive tasks, the mundane tasks, the boring tasks, first we should ask: If that’s the case, why is everyone still so busy? So overwhelmed?

Then I think we need to ask:

Why?

Why would we want to smooth the way so wholly? Why would we want to give that over to a machine?  

Most of my best ideas happen when I’m doing those repetitive, mundane, boring tasks. And even when they remain merely repetitive, mundane or boring, they’re also a reprieve from the constant barrage of information flying at my brain.

And what’s the alternative they’re offering us, really?

“Here, let us smooth over all the bumps of human existence using our algorithms and weird human-analogues so you can go about your day speaking to no-one. Instead, you get to…spend more time on the internet. Which is definitely not filled with vitriol and hate, misinformation and the lowest kinds of human behaviour. You’re welcome.”

If that’s what’s on offer, I think I’ll just go do my laundry.

Much love and take care,
Brooke xx

PS. This entire rage-filled piece came rushing into my head in the space of about 30 seconds, while I was…folding the laundry. It was inspired by this badge, created by

Beth Spencer

at Introvert Drawing Club, and I am so grateful.

Please know I would never use AI to write here at The Tortoise, and now I have the badge to prove it.

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