Thanks, AI

Wednesday 7/10/24

People can do things with each other. They can go to the same place with each other, partake of the same activity with each other, have sex with each other, but most people have nothing to say to each other or anyone.

One reason why is because of the twenty-first century social media-ization of the human condition. People have exchanged substance or any pursuit of or interest in substance for the "like." They are performative rather than actual. They deal in, and communicate in, the barest minimums--the "like" button, emojis, cliches. They are that way all day every day. They then become a human form of what that is; a human approximation of what that is, as they become less human.

They can't be any other way. Interact any other way. That's all they then know, all they're accustomed to, all they're comfortable with, all they can do, the only manner in which can act.

When I start a new entry on here, I'm provided with prompts that tell me what I might write about. I can't stop the prompts from coming up--that is, there's no setting that allows you to do so. It's AI, as part of AI's attempted takeover of humanity. One of the prompts lately has been "literary analysis of Connor McDavid." Thanks, AI. You sound confused, though, by the one writer in the world who cannot be replaced by you.

There are all of these stories throughout the ages of the devil popping up and saying, "Hey there. I'll give you this if you give me your soul." We see this with Faust, Stephen Vincent Benét's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," the legend of Robert Johnson at the crossroads.

In these accounts, the devil offers notable things in exchange for those souls. But here in today's world, all the devil would have to do is sidle up to people and tell them he'd give them X amount of additional followers on social media and they'd sign on that fire-dotted line as fast as possible. The devil wouldn't be able to handle the amount of new business. I also think that he'd be so sickened, even as the devil, that he'd find himself wishing to walk away and get into another line of work. The devil is a bad guy, but he's good at what he does, and those who are good at what they do wish to be challenged in their work.

All of these people who write FMC--meaning female main character--and the like in talking about their writing: You will never write anything that is any good if this has ever, once, entered your mind. It's not like that. It's not like that at all.

People take to writing--calling themselves a writer--like they take to social media. People's entire sense of self, the totality of their self worth, often comes down to social media. That determines everything for them in terms of how they view and evaluate themselves. Not their skills, their achievements, their growth, the person they truly are, how they attempt to fulfill potential, but rather likes, emojis, un-meant compliments, cliches, shares, followers, virality.

These people are not coming by the any of those things because anyone thinks great things about them; they're coming by them because other people think that this other person is similar to how they are, talks how they talk, can do no more than what they can do, offer no more than they offer. There's nothing real or merit-based about any of it. Rather, the converse. The less real, the better. The less meritorious, the better. Less real/less meritorious = more of the same = no standards = no expectations = no threat to anyone else's ego/frail sense of self = greater comfort. The comfort is in the blandness. The lack of anything special.

People can't go off and pretend to be a great basketball player. Or a basketball player at all. There are requirements based in reality. But they can go off and say they're a writer. There are no requirements with what is now in place, there is no need to have any overlap with reality, given that the writing community is comprised entirely of people attempting to live out a fantasy because there is nowhere else they can go and say that they're special.

But in the writing world, you can bullshit until your heart's content. You can lie to yourself all day long, all lifelong--though you're haunted by the knowledge that this is what you're doing and that you are a total fraud possessed of no real talent--and others will lie to you, too. That is how it works, how it is set up to work, what this industry and subculture now exists for. To enable people in their delusions and mental illness and so that they may feel a way about themselves that they wouldn't be able to otherwise--not with how they go about life.

And they don't even really feel that way, which makes them hateful, envious, constantly stalked by anxiety. What do they then do? They seek comfort in bullshit. In social media. In the "writing community." From people doing exactly what they're doing and who are the same exact way.

There is no bulwark in our society and culture against the current advancement and eventual takeover of AI. Well, just the one. But that's it.