Smooth brain
Something I read recently - a Reddit comment, probably - explained how modern life has come to idealize a frictionless existence, i.e. order Doordash and you never have to go to a restaurant or make a phone call or use cash, et al, and that ease is ruining the populace, like everything else. I read that and then immediately Uber Eated a veggie burger from a restaurant I’ve never been to in person and probably never will. Isn’t that my birthright? After a childhood spent on a nascent internet where I could only watch British TV shows on a jerky dial-up connection and read about music but couldn’t afford 99 cents for every OC soundtrack song I was told I needed to hear? My first paycheck at 16 was spent on an Amazon order containing: the collected Narnia series super edition all in one book, a Beatles CD, a Beach Boys cd, and Slumdog Millionaire on DVD. It was so fucking easy. I could finally have it!
The horrid, persistent news that AI is everything - I have avoided this mostly by operating in my discrete arena, without venturing outside the strict confines of my own identity. That simply has nothing to do with me, so I’ll just let it pass me on by. A huge mistake, as it turns out. For someone who works at a university, I really didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Then I, cursed millennial subscribed to The Atlantic, read:
When I spoke with Jaidyn-Marie Gambrell, a 22-year-old based in Atlanta, she was in the parking lot at McDonald’s and had just consulted ChatGPT on her order. “I went on ChatGPT and I’m like, ‘Hey girl,’” she said. “‘Do you think it’d be smart for me to get a McChicken?’” The chatbot, which she has programmed to remember her dietary and fitness goals, advised against it. But if she really wanted a sandwich, ChatGPT suggested, she should order the McChicken with no mayo, extra lettuce, tomatoes, and no fries. So that’s what she got.
It’s just a pithy little button at the end of a short piece, but this quote has now burrowed itself into my psyche to the extent that the little guy who controls my brain now looks like this and is connecting the dots of all the little horrible pieces of news I’ve glossed over internally over the last, oh, 5 years. God I’m so fucking dumb.
Is modern life that tiring that we don’t even want to, like, think anymore? I guess it is! I guess - yeah! Okay! This sucks! But now what do we do? Do I have to accept the tsunami of artificial intelligence decimating the brains of children everywhere? Probably, to some extent, yeah. The dumbest guy I went to high school with now quotes himself in daily Facebook posts. He’s a school principal now and shares AI art starring his elementary school’s mascot. The Google doc spell check in this very document I’m typing in just suggested I make high school into one word (“highschool”). Sure. Fine. It’s all noise and I’ll just have to let my brain buzz so much louder.
We’re slowly approaching the logical endpoint of all this shit. We can’t be normal about popular culture or art anymore. Class has been branded onto the backs of our eyelids. I am a hundredfold more educated than my parents at their working class urging; I will never own a home in the city I live in or meaningfully retire, but I can pontificate about the didactic meaning of my Stanley cup from my urban coastal enclave and rest peacefully knowing that any movie ever made is going to play at Quentin Tarantino’s repertory at some point in my lifetime. Maybe I should embrace the robots thinking for me. I won’t, but maybe I should. Then again, a frictionless existence is begging for a dopamine addiction (see: the Beatles cd). It should be hard to do anything. Remind me that I said that in an hour when I have to call my health insurance company about denying my medication.
Liking:
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters - I didn’t super love the first story (Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones) but the second (The Chaser) infuriated me in the way only good writing can. I’m halfway through the titular novella and it’s good.
Wedding subreddits
My dietitian’s handout about a ‘plant forward diet’ - I maintain veganism is mainly adopted by people looking to have a socially acceptable eating disorder (I can’t wait for someone to find this sentence in 7 years and cancel me. I am waiting) but my RD really popped her puss on this meal plan. I’ll never give up cheese. Cringe me, zoomers.
Ikea’s plant balls - see above
Not the random neck aches I wake up with now!!
So that’s what she got!